Overview
Distributes computer hardware and software; Fortune 500 company.

Opportunity / Threat
The company was considering a $20 million acquisition. Preliminary due diligence was completed, all reports were favorable, and management was negotiating a proposed offer.
Recent acquisitions had failed, resulting in millions of dollars of write-offs. Management was split; some favored the acquisition, others opposed it. The right decision was crucial, as was team consensus behind the decision.

Action / Result
The Strategic Risk Analysis uncovered several critical issues, one of such concern that the company decided not to pursue the acquisition.
Several previously-unidentified issues were raised by associates not normally asked for their opinions. Management stated that the process helped them identify key assumptions about this particular acquisition opportunity that otherwise would have gone unchallenged.

Client Comments
"Strategic Risk Analysis is a more disciplined approach to decision-making than some approaches we have used. It brought a discipline to our timetable. It also was a chance for me to see non-senior management perform in a group environment and use their critical thinking skills."
"Using an outside facilitator made sense--making a mistake could have been incredibly costly, so it was a small investment for us even if it was just to get consensus. I certainly think it's something we would want to do whenever we want to build consensus."