Company Context

NorthBridge Advisory is a mid-sized strategy consulting firm with $420M annual revenue, focused on growth strategy and commercial due diligence. One of its top 10 clients, Asteron Health, is a digital health company with $180M revenue growing 22% annually. NorthBridge has supported Asteron for three years across pricing, market entry, and salesforce effectiveness projects, generating $8.4M in fees last year. You are a Manager preparing a recommendation for the Partner on a new engagement: Asteron wants NorthBridge to help design a go-to-market plan for a new AI-enabled care coordination platform.

Strategic Situation

Asteron is asking for an aggressive recommendation: enter the market within 6 months, price 20% below the category leader, and commit to a broad national launch. However, NorthBridge's preliminary analysis suggests the client may be underestimating implementation complexity, channel conflict, and likely sales-cycle length. If NorthBridge fully endorses the client's preferred plan and the launch underperforms, the client relationship and NorthBridge's credibility may suffer. If NorthBridge pushes back too hard, Asteron may reduce scope or move the work to a competitor. The core question is how to advocate for the client’s growth ambitions while protecting the firm’s reputation, economics, and long-term relationship.

Data Points

Additional facts:

• Asteron expects the new product to reach $25M ARR in 24 months.
• NorthBridge utilization is currently 81%, below the firm's 85% target.
• Similar launches in adjacent health-tech categories have shown 30-40% pilot-to-scale drop-off.
• Asteron’s procurement team has signaled they may ask for a 15% fee reduction if scope expands.

Deliverables

As the candidate, address the following:

1. Define the core strategic tension between serving the client’s stated objective and protecting NorthBridge’s interests.
2. Assess whether NorthBridge should support Asteron’s preferred launch plan, recommend a modified approach, or decline parts of the scope.
3. Evaluate the commercial and reputational implications for NorthBridge under at least two strategic options.
4. Recommend how NorthBridge should structure the engagement, pricing, and governance to align incentives.
5. Outline how you would communicate the recommendation to both the client and internal firm leadership.

Constraints

• Recommendation must be prepared for the Partner within 48 hours.
• NorthBridge cannot materially increase delivery-team headcount in the next 3 months.
• The firm wants to preserve at least 20% project gross margin.
• Asteron is a strategically important account with a likely $15M+ lifetime value over the next 5 years.