Sims Hulings

CEO, PARTNER

Sims Hulings has been helping companies and public sector organizations develop and execute their strategies since 1992.  He specializes in developing strategies for organic and acquisition-led growth.  He has worked with numerous firms to grow their sales, share and profitability both in their core markets and in adjacent markets.  Often this work involves some combination of identifying new markets, building and exploiting core competencies, opening new sales channels, redesigning pricing and promotion strategies, and launching new products.  Sims has applied this fundamentals-based approach to growth across a range of industries, including financial services, technology, industrial goods and consumer goods.

Growth Strategy Development and Implementation

Sims works with his clients to institute a disciplined, but not straight-jacketed, process that collects information from inside and outside the company to both spot new growth opportunities and catalog already-known ones.  These opportunities are then passed through a set of evaluative screens incorporating both quantitative data (e.g,, market sizes) and qualitative data (e.g., sales force preparedness) to identify the best ones.  Sims then works with his clients to execute on the best opportunities, doing things ranging from training the sales force to creating web-based tools.

Customer Insight

Sims also helps companies collect unbiased, unvarnished feedback from their customers, or potential customers.  He has conducted hundreds of interviews, ranging from C-suite executives of multi-billion dollar firms to individual consumers in their homes.  These interviews allow the customer to give honest feedback that can then be used to evaluate growth opportunities and the existing product and/or service set.

Competitive Intelligence and War Gaming

Sims helps clients research competitors and how they are perceived by customers, channel partners and key influencers.  These insights are then often used in war gaming or similar competitive strategy simulations to improve the decision-making of senior executives and sales people negotiating key deals.

Prior to joining Market Strategy Group, Sims worked as a manager with the Boston Consulting Group and a consultant with Price Waterhouse.

Sims Hulings holds an M.B.A. with high honors from the University of Chicago and an A.B. in Economics, magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa, from Georgetown University.

sims.hulings@mkt-strat.com