Strategy & Business models
Activate or reactivate internal drivers of growth, identify external growth opportunities: in the face of a sluggish economy, it is time for creative strategies, unique brands, different customer relationships, revamped sales organisations… in short, original and tailor-made approaches and solutions to the strategic, marketing and commercial issues that organisations and brands face every day. Uniqueness above all else!
How we support
our clients
The disruptions underway — and those to come in the years ahead — are reshaping the traditional parameters of companies’ value equation. Together with our clients, we observe a profound shift in historical logics and the need to integrate this new reality at the scale of the enterprise. Increasing volumes alone is no longer sufficient to secure a sustainable trajectory. Tomorrow, value will become plural — economic, environmental, and human — and embedding it as such into strategic planning appears essential.
Our R&D work and recent strategic engagements with clients converge toward the emergence of five major parameters that serve as key lenses for composing a new equation of value creation for business: (I) the scarcity of resources, skills, and social bonds, (II) sovereignty, (III) the value ecosystem, which amplifies, sustains, and shares value, (IV) key technologies, (V) unpredictability — the uncertainty and low confidence in companies’ ability to cope with the unexpected.
We are rethinking strategy methodologies in light of these new parameters, leading us to define a new value equation. This means taking a critical look at alternative business models and sources of disruption through a strategic perspective.
We adapt to circumstances, the specific questions to be addressed, and the particularities of our clients:
- in some cases, this may involve conducting a strategic audit to assess an investment strategy and develop associated business plans and growth strategies;
- in others, using foresight to position the company against weak market signals or leveraging the organization’s intangible assets to build lasting distinctiveness;
- and in more complex cases — particularly for organizations with multiple stakeholders — designing and implementing strategic dialogue processes, one of our fields of methodological innovation, to co-create a shared strategic direction.
Discover the approaches and tools Kéa has developed through our projects: intangible assets, strategic dialogue, customer centricity, and labs.
We are committed to defining and implementing a strategy that guarantees both short-term performance and future growth. Our added value is measured by our ability to combine internal development levers and external growth drivers over different time horizons in a visionary approach.
Jean Baudrillard
Our
expertises
Strategic studies
& strategic plans
We conduct studies and strategic plans in all sectors in which we operate (industry, consumer goods, distribution, services) using robust methods covering all aspects of this type of exercise: development of business plans and multi-year strategic plans, opportunity studies and market sizing, development models (including international), innovation and business model transformation.
To do this, we draw on our dedicated information centre, our international network The Transformation Alliance, and our ecosystem of French and international sector experts.
Furthermore, in terms of our strategy consulting practice, systematically applying ‘traditional’ strategy development methods seems unsuitable for many organisations, particularly those with horizontal structures and flat hierarchies. In such contexts, a top-down or overly participatory strategic approach proves ineffective, which is why we conduct certain projects in the form of Strategic Dialogue. This topic continuously fuels our innovation work for our clients and our publications in La Revue.
Vision
& strategic narrative
We have long been working on collective vision and narrative as pivots and ‘conveyors’ of strategy to transformation. The way in which this vision is written, shared, amended and disseminated is (almost) as important as its content: far from being a slogan that is as grandiose as it is hollow, we work with teams to build a comprehensive narrative, informed by the seven pillars of the vision, in order to write a shared future.
The challenge is to synchronise three time horizons corresponding to different work processes, which strategists, financiers and operational staff are each accustomed to working with: the time frame for strategy projection; strategy modelling; and strategy implementation, which is the daily routine for many operational staff. Added to these three timeframes is the need to convince and engage teams around a shared understanding and vision.
We regularly conduct vision and strategic storytelling exercises in many organisations of all sizes and have made them a cornerstone of our socio-dynamic transformation approaches.
Strategic programme
management
With extensive experience in complex strategic programmes, from structuring to management, we place two concerns at the heart of our approach:
- maintaining, over time, the direction, consistency and meaning of the initial strategic intention, including in terms of figures (ROI, contribution to economic trajectory, etc.);
- taking into account the human factor, and in particular the dynamics of management teams, in the management of the project portfolio.
Strategic exercises often lead to a proliferation of initiatives that resource constraints (time, financial and human resources, etc.) do not allow to be carried out with the same energy.
We therefore approach strategy as an exercise in renunciation that establishes criteria for arbitrating between projects in order to allocate resources to the right place at the right time, striking a balance between the short term and the long term. At the heart of the process is customer focus.
This necessary prioritisation gives rise to the Programme in support of the strategic intention, with each project expressing a quantitative and qualitative ambition as well as a roadmap.
Our strategic programme management projects
In France and internationally, we support major players in the services, industry, distribution and consumer goods sectors in the design and operational and financial management of their strategic project portfolios. We draw on our know-how, methods and coaching expertise to make the implementation of the programme a joint project for the management team.
Business
Recovery
Economic performance is a strategic necessity for businesses: it ensures their competitiveness and, as a result, the financing of their development and innovation. These plans are no longer just emergency measures to respond to a crisis situation, but are becoming strategic levers to ensure the sustainability of businesses in an unstable environment. They enable companies to quickly free up significant financial leeway to preserve key assets while accelerating growth.
We assist our clients in structuring and implementing their performance plans to enable them to achieve significant and visible improvements in their income statements over a 12- to 24-month period. Fully committed to supporting them from the diagnostic phase through to the achievement of results, our specialised team, which is highly experienced in these issues, provides a turnkey solution and proactive, hands-on support, enabling them to quickly identify and evaluate the most relevant levers to activate.
We also pay particular attention to the following four areas:
- orchestrating a top-down vision backed up by a bottom-up consolidation that is rigorously quantified to ensure the company’s ability to achieve a goal that is consistent with its strategy;
- working across the entire value chain to strike the right balance between revenue generation and cost reduction, whether related to organisational efficiency, operational effectiveness or the optimisation of external expenditure;
- engaging employees in a programme that opens up new prospects for the company and adopting a communication strategy that maintains momentum throughout the project;
- prevent pitfalls and ensure complete execution within the allotted time frame by maintaining a steady and continuous pace and implementing governance that allows for quick and informed decision-making based on rigorously qualified and evaluated elements.
Our
strategic collaborations
These projects reflect our commitment to helping our clients combine economic, social and environmental performance in the pursuit of sustainable success.
Development of a strategic plan and roadmap for a French manufacturer
The new senior management team identified a number of priority issues (positioning in France and internationally, growth drivers, environment, etc.) and needed to get the executive committee on board with the strategy and its implementation through a participatory approach.
Our intervention resulted in:
- a strategic plan, setting out the company’s ambition for 2030 and the strategic priorities supporting this ambition;
- strategic and detailed roadmaps, including levers for action supported by concrete actions to be prioritised each year.
Implementation of a 10-year vision for a building materials and DIY distribution group. Comprising around twenty independent brands, this group wanted to develop a shared 10-year vision for its role as a distributor and for the construction market. Results:
- A 10-year Group Vision shared by all brands and developed by 250 employees;
- Twenty brands with a clear framework for defining their 3-4 year strategy;
- A united and aligned COMEX and Top 250 collective;
- 6,000 employees on board and committed in less than 3 months.
Strategic repositioning of the Trading BU of a luxury packaging company to turn it into a growth driver. The company wanted to validate the potential of Trading, build a shared vision and get the teams on board with it, in order to arrive at a proposal that brought together all the teams concerned and included recommendations that could be implemented as soon as the project was completed.
Results:
- a strategic plan, setting out the ambition for the Trading business and the shared vision for 2030;
- a detailed Target Operating Model (including an organisational chart) bringing together all teams within a dedicated entity linked to the group’s activities;
- a Business Plan incorporating development prospects for 2030 (turnover x2);
- a concrete and actionable implementation plan;
- teams that have taken ownership of the subject and united their ambitions to make Trading a key area of development in the coming years.
Turnaround plan for an agri-food player facing inflationary crisis and declining volumes.
Result of our intervention:
Co-construction with the teams of a plan consisting of 50 levers grouped into 8 projects and spread across 3 entities, enabling savings of €21 million to be achieved once implemented over a 3-year period.
Discover
PBM
To guide our clients on their journey towards a desirable economy, we have developed the Positive Business Map©: a compass for charting your own course through nine areas of corporate responsibility.
EN SAVOIR PLUS
Our
experts
Angelos Souriadakis
Senior Partner
Bruno Taborin
Senior Partner
Hervé Baculard
Senior Partner
Marie-Catherine Cerutti
Senior Partner
Nina Riverola
Director
Jean-Baptiste Brit
Director
