Strategic Plan Development for a Municipal Utility
ScottMadden partnered with a municipal utility to develop a forward-looking strategic plan that addressed infrastructure risks, workforce turnover, and capital allocation amid regulatory and economic uncertainty.
Prioritization
Co-developed six strategic priorities and 23 initiatives to drive execution of the new strategic direction
Team Alignment
Achieved cross-tier alignment among board, executive leadership, and senior management on key priorities
Scenario Workshops
Guided the organization through a scenario-based planning process to support informed, resilient decision-making
Challenge
ScottMadden’s client, a municipal utility providing electricity, gas, water, wastewater, and fiber services to its customers, had not updated its strategic plan since 2020. It was facing new challenges across the organization due to aging infrastructure, workforce turnover, changes in local economic conditions, and regulatory uncertainty. The utility also had to make several important capital planning decisions in the next six months. The executive leadership team recognized they needed expert support to develop a strategic plan that established the right priorities and incorporated informed decisions about its prioritization of resources over the planning horizon.
Process
- ScottMadden led the team through a rigorous process that began with 10 executive and board interviews to identify strategic themes, planning assumptions, and key business drivers
- Afterward, ScottMadden facilitated a scenario planning workshop to weigh possible future scenarios and potential impacts to the organization for each strategic theme
- Next, ScottMadden co-developed six strategic priorities with accompanying core actions and contingencies for each of the strategic themes
- Lastly, ScottMadden developed a strategic framework in partnership with the client and aligned on next steps
Result
- Generated a common understanding of the breadth of challenges facing the organization and the utility’s degree of readiness to confront them
- Developed six new strategic priorities with 23 related strategic initiatives to execute the strategy
- Achieved alignment on strategic direction with the board, executive leadership, and senior management
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