Helping companies become better at the things that matter most to customers.
Creating Distinctive Value Propositions The Problem: This company was a leader in its market, but the market was mature and increasingly congested with products that consumers found hard to differentiate. Winning customers increasingly depended on "buying" more distribution. The company wanted to review its product range and find ways to protect and grow its market share.
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The Solution: The solution was to assist the marketing leadership to focus on what would create "consumer
pull" for its products, by defining a clearly articulated customer proposition capable of answering four core questions:
What problems do consumers face?
How can we help them solve these problems?
Who will buy our products?
Why will they buy our products?
Through a series of workshops and one-to-one coaching, Marketing Directors were assisted to understand the key information
requirements and analysis required to develop robust, externally driven strategies and distinctive value propositions. This
included providing guidance (including appropriate tools and techniques) on how information can be gathered and synthesised to
answer key strategic questions. The strategies produced by Marketing Directors were then subject to our independent scrutiny to
identify gaps and provide challenge to assumptions, conclusions and proposed value propositions. Following this initial work, the
approach used was mapped to become a standard planning process so that a systematised approach to setting marketing strategy could
be developed across the marketing area.
Developing Customer MI For A Globally Diverse Company The Problem: This global company had traditionally operated as a series of discrete business units, each largely following an independent strategy. The challenge was to ensure consistent and accurate reporting of customer-related
performance to the Group Executive and Board, while acknowledging that each business unit operated in very different markets and
had to have the flexibility to pursue differing strategies. read the solution »
The Solution: We worked with senior managers at Group and in business units to define a series of principles
outlining how the company should act towards its customers. These principles represented the company's core beliefs and could be
applied to whatever market the company operated in. From these principles, a set of common metrics were defined that would
indicate each businesses' performance against the customer principles. These were able to be rolled up to provide a country,
region and group view of performance against each principle in a single customer dashboard which is reported quarterly to the
Group Executive and Board.
Helping Senior Managers Connect Customer Focus To Individual Roles The Problem: The Board had articulated a customer-focused vision, but behaviours were not changing. Senior and middle managers remained unconvinced about the Board's commitment to customer-focus, struggled to manage what they saw as
conflicting priorities between customer focus, cost management and shareholder value, and were unsure how the new vision translated into how they should do their jobs. read the solution »
The Solution: To help managers better understand how to relate the customer vision to their role, it was translated into a series of operating principles across the business that allowed managers to explore how to work with the vision
and to discuss its implications with their teams. A series of high-impact master classes were held for Directors and Senior Managers to help them better understand the company's customer ambition, have the opportunity to articulate and resolve concerns,
identify how their behaviours could change to support the vision (both as leaders of the change and to be part of the change), and to define personal action plans.
Bringing Clarity To European Expansion Programme The Problem: In a growing, but highly competitive and overcrowded market, this US company had launched a
pan-European expansion programme. However, there was a lack of clarity as to what customer segments should be targeted and what
the product and service proposition should be. This was leading to different teams within the business working to different
priorities and conflicting blueprints for the future size and shape of the business. read the solution »
The Solution: For this client, it became clear that a key challenge for management was its inability to turn its
back on any potential segment. But, by wanting to do everything, and say "no" to nothing, operational paralysis was
setting in. Drawing on research already undertaken by the client, plus bespoke market insight, work with the senior management
team helped to identify and select the customer groups it should - and should not - target. Different hypotheses for product and
service design were developed and tested for market attractiveness and commercial feasibility. In contrast to managements'
initial thinking, this resulted in propositions being adjusted for each country. Throughout this work, a considerable focus was
to support the senior team to improve prioritisation, tackle and resolve issues and maintain alignment on a single, compelling
direction for the European business.
Outside-in Market Analysis The Problem: In response to its traditional competitors pulling ahead in market share and profitability, this
leading business and IT consultancy was embarking on a strategy to reposition itself in the market place. The CEO was concerned
that in devising this strategy, there had been insufficient focus on how potential clients selected their consulting suppliers and
whether the company could offer a compelling reason to choose their company over the competition. read the solution »
The Solution: By gathering market insight from across the industry - on both the supplier and buyer side - it
was possible to identify the key criteria used by clients to select consulting partners and how the leading players in the market
had organised their businesses to address their clients' core needs. From this analysis, and an assessment of the company's own
capabilities, it was clear that the current strategy was unlikely to be compelling enough to win a sufficient share of business in
return for the investment it would require. With the benefit of this outside-in perspective on how potential clients would view
their capabilities, the Board was able to re-evaluate its strategy and select a more appropriate strategy.
Reshaping Organisation Design To Deliver New Strategy The Problem: Under a new CEO, an international, institutional asset manager required a new organisational design
to support the strategic objectives of the organisation. read the solution »
The Solution: Drawing on knowledge of world-class organisations, and through identification of key drivers to
deliver the organisation's strategy, re-designed the high-level organisation structure, reporting lines, and senior management
roles, responsibilities and integrating mechanisms (committees and information exchanges). The new design streamlined reporting
and decision making, clarified responsibilities and accountabilities, and reduced excessive burden on the CEO.
Fast-Track Product Redesign The Problem: This company had built up a dominant share in a highly specialised niche of the market. However,
impending new legislation was likely to make the market more attractive to new entrants who would erode the company's market share
with more up-to-date products and stronger service propositions. read the solution »
The Solution: A rapid-response team was set up and a fast-track assessment and design programme allowed the
company to redesign its product to meet the new legal requirements ahead of the competition and to enhance the company's service
capabilities to support evolving customer needs. Work with this client extended from analysis and design through to product
launch and implementation of new customer service structures in support of the updated product and service proposition - ideas to
action.