Client cases
Three real situations. We leave out the names, but not the questions or the outcomes.
Wholesale
The company is profitable. A strategic cost analysis reveals that one division is deeply loss-making. The follow-up question is whether and how this division can be made profitable again through a dedicated sub-strategy. After a thorough analysis of the division's cost structure, the answer is that this will not be possible with the current proposition. The advice is therefore to discontinue the division's activities.
Private label producer in FMCG
The company operates in a rapidly growing market. Revenue is growing faster than the market, but margins are eroding at the same time. The company struggles with scalability and quality issues, is steered on financial targets, and has neither a clear strategy nor strategic choices.
Although the company performed better than its peers on average, partly because product development outperformed, the rapid growth turns out to be driven mainly by a temporary shortage of production capacity in the market. The role of private label producer is normalising. The company lacks the scale to keep playing in this rapidly internationalising league, and risks being overtaken by volume players on one side and specialists on the other.
We define a strategy focused on new, fast-growing niche segments. Product development is strengthened again. The commercial department shifts its focus from firefighting internally to knowing the customer and the market and opening up new business. Despite flattening revenue growth and rising costs, EBITDA grows substantially as a result of margin improvement.
International producer in FMCG
A supplier of food supplements was driven by an undirected ambition. As soon as an apparently successful product appeared somewhere on the market, the company wanted to be able to supply it too. The result was a proliferation of product introductions across different categories that were subsequently left unsupported. And this while the company could be highly competitive with its core products.
After a thorough market and competitor analysis, the decision was taken to part with the odd ones out and commit fully to the company's real expertise. With new product introductions in that category and by actively listening to what customers need.
This made the company the preferred supplier in its category for many retailers across Europe and beyond. It resulted in very strong revenue growth and an even stronger improvement in results.
