StratIQ: a board-ready strategic diagnostic, built from public filings
Context
Executive teams and boards ask the same set of questions every cycle. Where are we strong, where are we exposed, what does the competitive structure of our industry actually do to our margin, and does our governance hold up to scrutiny. The answers usually arrive as a consulting deck: expensive, slow, and stale by the time the next board pack is due.
Faolan Consulting wanted to test whether an agent fleet could produce that diagnostic to a defensible standard, at a fraction of the elapsed time, and then keep it current as a standing product rather than a one-off report.
The problem
Strategic analysis is not hard because the frameworks are hard. Balanced scorecards, ratio diagnostics, five forces and governance registers are all well understood. It is hard because assembling the inputs is slow, the interpretation criteria are usually left implicit, and the output is rarely reproducible. Two analysts given the same company routinely produce two different pictures, and neither can show their working.
The approach
StratIQ is built and maintained by Snotra, the Strategic Analysis agent in the FaolanIQ Strategy and Intelligence pillar, under the pillar head Frigg.
The product is six methodology modules rather than a single template: a balanced scorecard with explicit interpretation criteria, financial ratio diagnostics, a weighted competitive strength assessment, a five forces industry read, a King IV governance register, and an executive synthesis that carries the recommendation. Each module states the scoring rule before it states the score, so a reader can disagree with the judgement without having to re-derive the arithmetic.
Two delivery artefacts sit on top of the methodology: an Excel toolkit builder that produces the working model, and a self-contained HTML client demo that opens in any browser with no install and no network dependency.
The demo was built on Harmony Gold (JSE: HAR) using published public data only, and is labelled illustrative throughout. That was deliberate. It proves the diagnostic on a company anyone can check, without touching a client''s confidential numbers.
The outcome
The demo went from product brief to a client-ready artefact inside a single build cycle, and cleared a full review on 2026-07-07: brand compliance, writing standards, methodology, and a check that nothing client-confidential had leaked into an illustrative product. It carries a demonstration disclaimer and the trademark footer, and it is now in use in business development conversations.
The commercial shape matters more than the speed. Populated from public data, StratIQ is a credible conversation opener. On engagement it runs on the client''s own numbers and becomes a standing board review pack that is refreshed, not rebuilt.
What this demonstrates
The FaolanIQ platform is not a chatbot with a consulting voice. It is a fleet of scoped agents with an owner, a review gate and an audit trail. StratIQ shows the pattern: a specialist agent owns a product, the pillar head reviews it, and nothing reaches a client without an explicit go decision recorded against a named reviewer. Reproducibility and provenance are the product, and the speed is a side effect.