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Questions

Topics

These are the questions that business owners, boards and executives ask me most often, each with a short answer and a longer explanation.

The role

What a business strategist does, how the role differs from a manager or a coach, who it works with, and why it is a role people rarely see.

  • What does a business strategist do? A business strategist helps an organization, together with its owners and board, decide what to do and what to stop doing. The work is to set priorities, separate what creates value from what only uses up resources, and stay with the company while those choices take hold in the daily work.
  • What is the difference between a business strategist, a manager and a coach? A manager leads people and answers for the daily work; a coach works with one person. A business strategist works on the whole organization with the owners and the board: he sets the direction with them and keeps it current, without managing people in place of those who are responsible for them.
  • Who do you work with? First of all with the owners and boards of large companies and of small and mid-sized ones. Then with cultural institutions and public bodies, foundations and trade associations, and with creators and educators online. Inside a company I work with the people who run it and the people who keep it going, down to department heads.
  • What does deciding what not to do mean in practice? It means going through projects, products, markets and investments, and asking of each one whether it moves the company in the chosen direction or uses up resources without taking it anywhere. The second kind gets stopped or rethought. It is often the most useful decision, and the hardest.
  • Can I hand you the strategy and get a finished plan? No. A strategy is not a document to hand over: it is a course that is built with the company and updated along the way. Results are measured in six-month periods, over six to eighteen months, and they need access to information, regular meetings and the involvement of the owners.
  • Why is it hard to understand what a business strategist does? Because it is connecting work: it holds together the owners, the departments, the suppliers and the tools, and when it works it stays almost invisible. That is why my role gets confused with others, and why most of my clients come to me because another business owner explained what I do.
  • Do you work alone or with a team? I handle the strategic work myself, in person. When something has to be built (digital platforms, AI tools, communication materials) I work with Tadao Agency, the agency I founded in 2008. For everything else I bring in professionals chosen for the project.

How an engagement works

Who I talk to in the company, how I work alongside agencies and suppliers, what I deliver, how often I am there and how the strategy changes along the way.

  • Why do you talk to everyone, from executives to factory workers? Because problems are easier to see where they start. I begin with the executives, then spend a lot of time with office staff and factory workers, and work my way back up the chain of command. That gives me a view in both directions, as wide as possible, and lets me build a strategy that holds up in the departments too.
  • Do you replace our agency or our marketing director? No, I work alongside them. I am nobody’s competitor, whether agencies, suppliers or managers inside or outside the company. I look for collaboration, because a real collaboration makes every party stronger. I know their language because I did their job for years, and today art directors, creative directors, photographers and managers often call me in to work alongside them.
  • We need a new website: is that a job for you? That is often exactly where I start. A request for a new website usually hides something bigger: who you are, who you are talking to, how you work. The website comes after work on clarity and strategy; when the time comes, Tadao Agency builds it.
  • What do you actually deliver? A strategy and an operating plan for each area of the company, built with the owners and with the people who will put them into practice. They do not stand still: we update them month by month. Along with the plan, the company keeps written criteria for making choices, to use even when I am not there.
  • How often are you at the company? Usually every week. Strategy and operating plans change with the company and with the market, and my steady presence keeps them current and makes sure they reach every level. For well-defined issues there are also engagements of one day, one month or one quarter.
  • Does the strategy change during the work? Yes. The direction stays; the path to get there is updated. Markets, people, technologies and regulations change, and a plan that is identical to itself after a year has stopped working. That is why strategy and operating plans are reviewed month by month, sometimes case by case.

Timing, formats and fees

Why engagements usually last a year, how to start with something shorter, and what the fee depends on.

  • Why an engagement of six months or a year? Because strategy is a course of action, and its results are measured in six-month periods: it takes at least six to eighteen months for the decisions made with the owners to become the way the company works. A strategy of a few weeks is incomplete; there are shorter formats to get started.
  • Can we start with something shorter, even a single day? Yes. Besides yearly engagements, I take on engagements of one day, one week, one month or one quarter, each with its own price range. They are for well-defined, specialized issues, or for starting to work together. In-company training is another way in.
  • How much does working with a business strategist cost? It depends on the format and the scope of the work. Each format, from a single day to a quarter to a yearly engagement, has its own price range. The figure is set after the first meeting, which is free of charge, once it is clear what needs work and how much presence it takes.

In-company training

Topics, formats and participants of the training sessions, and why they are often the first step.

  • Do you run training in companies? On what topics? Yes. There are four topics, and they can be combined: workflows, with methods such as Kanban; artificial intelligence in the company; IT infrastructure and digital platforms; and sales processes that need strategy, communication and marketing.
  • How is the training organized: a single day or a series of sessions? It depends on what needs to change. It ranges from a single three-hour session on a specific topic to two hours a week for a few months, when the company wants to change a way of working and not just learn about it. We choose the format together in the first meeting.
  • Who is the training for? Only executives? No. I train executives, and also office staff, factory workers and department heads, because strategy work also runs through the people who put it into practice every day. On artificial intelligence I also run one-to-one training, person by person.
  • Why start with a training day? Because it asks little of the company and lets it see how I work, on a concrete topic and with its own people. Meanwhile I get into the company and start to understand how it works. From there, if needed, we decide on the next step.

AI in your company

How artificial intelligence is brought into processes, what the strategy decides, what Tadao Agency builds, and how people are trained.

  • How do you bring artificial intelligence into a company like ours? With a process that starts from a decision about direction: which activities to use it in, and who is responsible for it. I build the adoption strategy, oversee the checks and train the people; Tadao Agency builds the tools. The work usually runs through every department.
  • Why do you need a strategy before AI tools? Because a tool answers a choice that someone has to have made. Companies need more than someone to bring in artificial intelligence; they need someone to decide where and how to adopt it. Without that decision, they buy tools that nobody uses.
  • What do you do, and what does Tadao Agency do? I build the strategy, with the owners and the people who run the company, and I follow it over time. Tadao Agency, the agency I founded in Macerata in 2008, puts it into practice: it develops and maintains digital platforms and builds AI tools and communication materials.
  • Do you also train people to use artificial intelligence? Yes. Alongside the tools there is training for executives, office staff and factory workers, one-to-one as well: what artificial intelligence is, what it can do for their work, and how to manage it. I run it myself while the adoption process moves forward.

Trust and confidentiality

How I handle client information, who I have worked with, and which engagements I turn down.

  • How do you handle confidentiality? Do you sign nondisclosure agreements? To do my work I need to see the company as it is: the numbers, the open problems, the hard decisions. What I see stays confidential, and some engagements are covered by nondisclosure agreements. That is why part of my work does not appear on this site.
  • Which companies and institutions have you worked with? As a strategist and with Tadao Agency, I have worked with companies and institutions such as Teatro alla Scala, Arena di Verona, Clementoni, Lube, Nuova Simonelli, OK Camper, CNA, Fondazione Carima, Musei di Macerata and Pesaro Photo Festival. The full list is below.
  • Do you take on any engagement? No. I do not take on speculative or unethical projects, and that rule does not change. I also always weigh the request, because sometimes a business owner calls me to tell me what to do, while the work only works when it starts from a real dialogue.
  • You founded an agency: isn’t that a conflict of interest? No. I founded Tadao Agency in 2008 and I say so openly, but I am nobody’s competitor: I work with many other digital agencies, with the long-standing suppliers of the companies I work with and with their managers. I look for collaboration, because a real collaboration makes every party stronger.

My background

Where my experience comes from, why I founded Tadao Agency, what I talked about at TEDxMacerata, and what I do in the United States.

  • Where does your experience come from? From a career built in layers. I have worked in marketing and communications since 2004 and moved through each stage: photography, graphic design, art direction, all the way to management. In 2008 I founded Tadao Agency, and I have worked in business strategy since 2015.
  • Why does a classical, humanities education matter in strategy work? Because it makes it possible to hold together the technical and the cultural sides of the work. I come from classical and humanities studies, and I brought that education into my experience in communications and strategy. It is one of my strengths, and the source of the way I look at companies.
  • What is Tadao Agency, and why did you found it? It is the strategy, communications and digital platforms agency I founded in Macerata in 2008. I founded it to keep control of the part of the work where strategy meets digital, which matters a great deal to companies today: it is the operational arm of my consulting work.
  • What did you talk about at TEDxMacerata? About identity in the digital age. In July 2022 I argued that digital does not reflect our identity but duplicates and fragments it, and that metrics, created to help us find our way, have become the measure of our worth. To find a balance again, I proposed two words: slowness and lightness.
  • What do you do in the United States? Since 2023 I have been in New York about four times a year. I take the Italian companies I work with into the U.S. market, after preparing them for international standards, and I assess Italian projects for family offices and companies investing from the United States. I call this service International expansion.

The first step

How to contact me, how quickly I reply, and what the first meeting is like.

  • How can I contact you directly? Write to me at [email protected] or call +39 331 178 6035, on WhatsApp too: it is Tadao Agency’s number, staffed Monday to Friday, 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Italian time. There is also the form on the Contact page. I answer myself, within one business day.
  • How quickly do you reply? Within one business day. I reply myself, in person, by email or by calling you back, and we set up the first meeting, which is free of charge.
  • How much does the first meeting cost? Nothing: the first meeting is free of charge. I prefer to hold it in person, at your company or at one of the offices where I meet clients, but it can also be online. I use it to understand what is going on and to explain how I work.
  • Can the first meeting be online? Yes. When possible I prefer to meet in person, because meeting the client right away helps me explain what I do. But if it is more convenient, we meet online.

For journalists and event organizers

How to cite my role, public talks and interviews.

  • How should your role be cited? Andrea Barchiesi, business strategist. He helps the owners and boards of companies and institutions decide what to do and what not to do. He is the founder of Tadao Agency (Macerata, 2008); he has worked in marketing and communications since 2004 and in business strategy since 2015.
  • Do you give talks and lectures? Yes. In July 2022 I spoke at TEDxMacerata about digital identity and metrics, and I run meetings and training in companies. To invite me to an event, a lecture or a meeting, write to me and choose “Talk or interview” in the form.
  • How do I contact you for an interview or a talk? Through the same channels as everyone else: [email protected], or +39 331 178 6035, on WhatsApp too. I reply myself, within one business day. In the form on the Contact page you can choose “Talk or interview.”