Business strategy that works in execution — not another document for the shelf
We build business strategy for B2B companies in Warsaw, across Poland and for foreign firms operating on the Polish market. A direction grounded in numbers, in the market and in decisions you can actually take on Monday morning. We work with owners, not with slide decks — and we stay through execution.
When does business strategy stop being optional?
Business strategy becomes necessary when a company grows more slowly than its own costs, and its decisions start cancelling each other out. In practice our clients arrive at one of the six moments described below. In 2025 Poland recorded 6,566 corporate insolvencies — 17.7% more than the year before, and the highest figure since measurement began.
None of those companies failed for lack of a document. They failed because for several quarters nobody asked what the business actually earns money on, and what happens when the market shifts. A good business strategy is the answer to that question, taken before a bank forces it.
You work hard, the company stalls
You hire, you invest in marketing, and revenue grows more slowly than cost. What is missing is direction, not effort — and every further quarter costs more.
Competitors are pulling ahead
Tenders get harder to win and the client asks about price before asking about the solution. That signals positioning that no longer differentiates, not a price that is too high.
You are considering expansion
The European Union, Ukraine, Canada, the United Arab Emirates. Without analysis the risk outweighs the upside, and a failed entry costs two years.
The team does not share the direction
Every department holds its own version of the priorities. A business strategy nobody has communicated does not exist — and that is the most common state of affairs.
A bank or investor asks for a plan
The funding institution wants a model, forecasts and a justification for the direction. Improvising at this stage ends in a refusal or in worse terms.
The market has shifted
Regulation, energy prices, a new type of competitor. A model that worked for five years stops working within one — and you have to decide what stays and what gets wound down.
Insolvency data: Coface Poland, report on corporate insolvencies in Poland for 2025 (February 2026).
How is business strategy different from a business plan?
Business strategy answers the question where we play and why we win. A business plan answers the question what it costs and when it pays back. The strategy comes first and is a decision document for the board. The business plan is a financial document for an outside institution — a bank, an investor or a grant agency.
The distinction has practical consequences. In its flagship Ścieżka SMART call, the Polish Agency for Enterprise Development (PARP) requires a financial model as a mandatory attachment, not a strategic document. The reverse also holds: a board handed only a financial model still does not know which segments to focus on. If what you need is a document for financing, the right service is a business plan.
| Criterion | Business strategy | Business plan |
|---|---|---|
| Core question | Where we play, how we win, what we give up | What it costs, where the money comes from, when it returns |
| Audience | Owner, board, senior management | Bank, investor, PARP, grant authority |
| Horizon | 2–5 years, reviewed every quarter | 3–5 years of financial forecast, not revised |
| Core of the document | Market analysis, positioning, segment choice, roadmap | Financial model, P&L, cash flow, ratios |
| Success criterion | The team makes consistent decisions without asking the owner | The institution grants the financing |
| Preparation time | 4–8 weeks | 3–6 weeks |
| What fails without it | The plan will cost out a direction nobody chose | The strategy will sit without a budget or deadlines |
Documentation requirements: PARP, Ścieżka SMART (FENG) — list of mandatory attachments.
How is a business strategy built, step by step?
A business strategy is built in six steps and takes four to eight weeks. Each step ends in a concrete result you can judge — not in another meeting. We work from the company's own data, from conversations with its customers, and from the prices that actually hold in the market.
We do not start from a template. We start from what the company already knows but has never written down in one place: where the margin really comes from, which customers come back, and which orders only look profitable.
Diagnosis
Conversations with the owner and managers, a review of sales and financial data, a map of products and margins. We establish where the company actually earns and where it only turns money over.
Diagnostic reportMarket analysis
Segment size and momentum, competitor map, price levels, entry barriers. We talk to people who work in that market every day — a report only shows part of the picture.
Market and competitor mapPositioning
Who you are the first choice for, and why. We phrase the advantage so a salesperson can repeat it in a meeting without slides.
Positioning statementGoals and direction
Choice of segments and markets, and the decision about what you stop doing. Goals converted into numbers: revenue, margin, customer count, channel share.
Goals with metricsPlan and budget
A 12-month roadmap with milestones, budget and named owners. Every action has a person and a date, otherwise it does not enter the plan.
Roadmap and budgetExecution
We work alongside the team through the first months: reviewing metrics, correcting the offer, supporting the first commercial conversations in a new segment.
Review sessionsWhat exactly do you get at the end?
At the end of the project you receive a 40–60 page strategy document, a financial model in a spreadsheet, a 12-month roadmap and a board presentation. All in formats you can keep editing yourself — not a locked PDF you have to come back to us for every time something changes.
- Strategy document — 40–60 pages, in English, Polish or Ukrainian
- Market and competitor map with price levels and entry barriers
- Financial model in a spreadsheet, with assumptions you can change
- Positioning statement and the argument for your sales team
- Execution roadmap for 12 months, with named responsibilities
- A KPI set and how to measure it inside your own systems
- Board presentation or a version for a funding institution
- Three months of review sessions after the document is handed over
How long does a business strategy take to prepare?
A full business strategy takes four to eight weeks, counting from the first call to the board presentation. Shorter formats — a direction audit or a workshop — fit inside two weeks. Pricing always follows the first conversation and is quoted in Polish zloty, with no hidden costs.
| Format | When it makes sense | Time | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| Direction audit | You know something is not working but not what | 1–2 weeks | Diagnostic report with three recommendations |
| Strategy workshop | The board does not share one version of the priorities | 2 days + write-up | Agreed priorities and decisions in writing |
| Full business strategy | You need direction for 2–3 years and a plan to execute it | 4–8 weeks | Document, financial model, roadmap, KPIs |
| Strategy plus execution | The team needs support while delivering it | 4–8 weeks + 3–12 months | All of the above plus operational work with the team |
Why no price list? Because the depth of market analysis for a company operating in one segment in Poland and for a company planning entry into three EU markets differs several times over. A quote after one free conversation is more honest than a range that would have to be renegotiated anyway.
Do 90% of strategies really fail in execution?
There is no evidence for it. The claim that 60–90% of strategies fail at the execution stage does not come from any study. What Kaplan and Norton actually wrote in 2005 was that "various sources have reported implementation failure rates at between 60 and 90 percent" — and they named none of those sources.
A literature audit published in the Journal of Management & Organization by Cândido and Santos found that published estimates range from 7% to 90%, and that the evidence behind them is — in the authors' words — outdated, fragmentary, fragile or simply absent. The trail leads back to two pieces in Fortune magazine, from 1982 and 1999. Neither was research.
A harder number does exist, and it is far less dramatic. Bridges Business Consultancy has run a repeated survey of strategy implementation since 2004. In the 2020 wave, 48% of organisations failed to reach even half of their strategic objectives — down from 90% in 2004. Separately, Mankins and Steele calculated in Harvard Business Review that companies deliver on average 63% of the financial performance their strategies promised.
Why put this on a service page? Because advisers like to frighten clients with a number nobody has checked, then sell a document as the cure. We think it is more honest to say plainly: nobody knows how many strategies fail. What is known is that formal planning has a measurable, positive effect on small-firm performance — shown by the meta-analysis of Brinckmann, Grichnik and Kapsa in the Journal of Business Venturing. And it is known that a business strategy without an owner, a deadline and a budget attached to every action is not a plan but an opinion.
Sources: Kaplan & Norton, HBS Working Paper 05-071 (2005); Cândido & Santos, Journal of Management & Organization 21(2), 2015; Bridges Business Consultancy, 20-Year Results (2020); Mankins & Steele, Harvard Business Review (2005); Brinckmann, Grichnik & Kapsa, Journal of Business Venturing 25(1), 2010.
Who do we work with, and who not?
We work with B2B companies in the SME segment, most often between 10 and 250 employees. That is the dominant part of the Polish economy: in 2024 there were 2.37 million active enterprises in Poland, 99.8% of them SMEs, while medium-sized firms — our most frequent client — account for just 0.6% of all entities, roughly 14,400 companies.
Business strategy makes sense if
- You sell B2B and have a working product or service
- The decision sits with the owner or the board, not a committee without authority
- There is a budget and a person who owns execution and has time for it
- You are weighing a new segment, a new market or a change of revenue model
- You need a document that will stand up to a bank or an investor
- Working in three languages without translators in the middle matters to you
Better to wait if
- You need a document for the drawer, with no intention of executing it
- The company does not yet have repeatable sales in its home market
- You operate in B2C, e-commerce or retail — that is not our area
- You expect a ready-made contact list instead of work on the offer
- What you actually need is a business plan for a loan, not a strategy
Sector structure: PARP, Report on the state of the SME sector in Poland 2026 (2024 data).
What did our business strategy projects change?
Three projects where business strategy changed not the presentation but the structure of revenue. We give the sector, the starting point, the decision and the effect — without percentages we could not document.
A roofing company with a solid local reputation but no price advantage — competing in tenders the cheapest bidder always won.
We repositioned the offer towards the premium segment and rebuilt the B2B sales process: a different order of conversation with the client, different qualification criteria for an order.
Effect: higher average contract value and a portfolio shift towards more profitable projects.A technology company looking for an edge in a saturated sector where every supplier said the same thing about itself.
We built a go-to-market strategy and a partnership structure with integrators in three EU countries — including margin split and channel protection rules.
Effect: a partner channel launched and first international contracts within 6 months.Entry into a new market with an offer that worked well at home — the classic situation in which copying the model costs the most.
Demand analysis, positioning adapted to the local buyer, and a distribution model chosen instead of building an own sales structure.
Effect: a controlled entry without burning budget, with measurable KPIs from the first quarter.If your direction is selling outside your home market, we start from a separate service: market expansion strategy or Polish market entry. Business strategy is then the first stage, not a separate project.
Who will you work with on the strategy?
Dima V. Nechyporenko
Founder of the nech · B2B strategy adviser
Entrepreneur and consultant with 19 years of B2B experience. He has worked across nine markets — Poland, Ukraine, the European Union, Canada and the United Arab Emirates — in construction, energy, IT and business services.
He runs projects personally, from the first call through to execution. There is no layer of junior associates rewriting a template from the last engagement — and no presentation that is not backed by a conversation with a real buyer in your market.
View LinkedIn profileFrequently asked questions
Twelve questions we hear most often before a project starts — about time, scope, documents, and when a business strategy is genuinely needed.
How long does it take to develop a business strategy?
A full business strategy takes four to eight weeks. The shorter end usually means one market and one product line; the longer end means several segments or a plan for entering foreign markets.
A direction audit closes in 1–2 weeks and a strategy workshop in two working days plus the write-up. We agree the date on the first call and do not move it without the client's agreement.
How much does a business strategy cost?
Pricing follows the first conversation and is quoted in Polish zloty (PLN), with no hidden costs. It depends on the number of segments and markets, the depth of analysis, and whether we stay through execution.
We do not publish a price list because the scope of analysis for a single-segment company and for one entering three markets differs several times over. You receive the proposal within 2–3 business days of the call.
How does business strategy differ from a business plan?
Business strategy answers where the company plays and why it wins. A business plan answers what it costs and when it pays back. The strategy is a decision document for the board; the plan is a financial document for a bank, an investor or a grant authority.
In practice the strategy comes first. If you need a document purely for financing, the right service is a business plan.
Does a bank require a business strategy for a loan?
Usually not a strategy but a business plan with a financial model. The same applies to grant bodies: PARP requires a financial model as a mandatory attachment in the Ścieżka SMART call.
A business strategy can nevertheless be decisive with a private investor or a fund, where what counts is not only the forecast but the justification of the direction and the reality of the advantage.
Can we write the business strategy ourselves?
Yes, and some companies do it well. The meta-analysis by Brinckmann, Grichnik and Kapsa in the Journal of Business Venturing found that formal planning has a measurable, positive effect on small-firm performance — regardless of who runs it.
An outside adviser brings two things that are hard to generate internally: market data from outside your own network, and no loyalty to decisions taken three years ago.
What are the most common mistakes in building a strategy?
The most common one: a strategy nothing follows from, because it contains no trade-off. A document saying "we grow in every segment" is not a strategy, it is a wish list.
The second: no owner and no date attached to each action. The third: no communication to the team — a 2023 Grant Thornton survey found that over 60% of large and medium companies in Poland claim to run on a multi-year strategy, but only about one in three has it as a formal document, and half had communicated it to staff at all.
Do you work with companies outside Warsaw?
Yes, we work with companies across Poland and beyond it. Meetings happen online or in Warsaw, whichever suits the client's team.
Warsaw is the natural base: the Warsaw capital region produces 18.5% of Poland's GDP, and the REGON register lists over 1.08 million entities in the Mazowieckie voivodeship, 55% of them headquartered in Warsaw itself.
Which languages do you work in?
Three: English, Polish and Ukrainian. That covers the calls, the strategy document, the financial model and the board presentation.
In practice it means a Ukrainian owner can speak Ukrainian, their Polish sales director can speak Polish, and an investor can speak English — with no translator in the middle and no meaning lost on the way.
What happens after the document is delivered?
As standard you get three months of review sessions: metric reviews, corrections to assumptions, and support on the first decisions that follow from the strategy.
If the team needs more, we move into execution mode for 3–12 months. A business strategy that ends with handing over a file will not survive the first difficult quarter in most companies.
Does the strategy cover entering foreign markets?
Yes, if that is the chosen direction. We then analyse two or three priority markets, entry barriers, the presence model and the cost of launching a channel.
On larger projects expansion is a separate service: market expansion strategy. Business strategy is then the first stage, deciding whether and where to go at all.
Do you sign an NDA?
Yes. We sign an NDA before any sensitive data changes hands, usually before the second call. We accept your template or send ours.
Financial and commercial data are used solely for the project. Client names are published only with consent — some projects we describe anonymously.
How do we start?
With a free 30-minute call. We talk about your situation, what you have already tried, and whether a business strategy is even the right next step — sometimes the right answer is a sales audit or a business plan.
After the call you receive scope, schedule and a price in PLN within 2–3 business days. Book a call or write to info@thenech.com.
Ready for a concrete conversation about strategy?
Thirty minutes is usually enough to see whether the problem sits in the direction, in the offer or in sales — and whether a business strategy will solve it faster than another quarter of trying.
Book a free consultationFree and without obligation. We reply within 24 business hours.
Where we work
Warsaw office — ul. Williama Lindleya 16, 02-013 Warsaw, Poland. We work with companies across Poland and with the markets of the European Union, Ukraine, Canada, the United States and the United Arab Emirates. Contact: info@thenech.com · +48 733 765 023