Strategic Session: overcoming skepticism and formulating strategy

"Vivat" is one of the largest publishing houses in Ukraine, founded in 2013. Over the past years, according to the statistics of the Book Chamber, it has consistently held a position in the top three largest publishing houses in Ukraine in terms of the number of titles published and print runs. The publishing house has already earned a strong reputation in the Ukrainian literature market, hence expanding every year and facing new scaling challenges.

Vivat

The session was highly productive and exceptionally beneficial. Yura invested in thorough preparation, conducting interviews with me and participants to precisely understand expectations. During the session, we worked intensively, assuming new roles for ourselves. The result was the initiation of our transformation – the systematization of business processes while preserving space for creativity. Currently, we are actively developing this aspect together with the team. The future holds a lot of work, and to successfully achieve our business transformation goals in the face of growth, we have enlisted the support of the Uphill Partners team. I highly recommend collaborating with Yura and the Uphill Partners team.

Yulia Orlova
CEO Vivat

Request

After being appointed as the Marketing Director, a position that did not exist before, there arose a need to develop a marketing strategy. There was a challenge of the absence of a structured department, everything was ad-hoc and intuitive. Most functions had their own visions of goals, and it was crucial to start aligning the efforts of functions by establishing a common goal.

After discussions with the CEO, the decision was made to adopt a classical approach, beginning with the formulation of the top-level strategy (at this point, without an overly global vision).

For us, it was also a challenge because the team had a negative experience with a strategy session facilitated by another person in the past. It was necessary to find a special approach to engage participants and achieve the desired results.

Proccess

Preparing for a strategic session is typically a key stage of work that defines the success of subsequent efforts.

It included:

- clarification and detailing of the request from the CEO of the company, the CMO, and Yuriy Koziy acting as the facilitator.

- interviews with each participant to gather important information (thoughts, feelings, attitudes toward current tasks, their roles, etc.).

- analysis of the responses: thorough initial examination, followed by identifying key questions or possible discrepancies in team interactions during work.

- preparation of necessary materials: this involved analytical reports, tables, boards, illustrations, and more.

- designing the session layout, namely: structure, sequence of actions and activities, main discussion points, etc.

These steps helped ensure an effective and, most importantly, successful strategic session where participants could collaborate at their maximum productivity.

Result

Key indicators:

- maximum engagement: Despite initial skepticism, the team actively participated in the session, providing valuable feedback and insights.

- positive dynamics: Everyone showed readiness to collaborate and take on tasks to achieve the set strategy outlined during the session.

- responsibility distribution and role definition for implementing the strategy.

- satisfaction: Positive feedback from participants after completion and willingness to take on even more responsibilities.

- understanding a clear path: During the strategic session, the team laid the foundation for positive and effective future strategic planning with defined goals and priorities.

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