Distribution
A strategic sector for the French economy, Retail is undergoing constant transformation—driven by artificial intelligence, digitalisation, evolving consumer behaviours, geopolitical tensions, and growing environmental and regulatory pressures.
These shifts are prompting a fundamental rethinking of the value generated by retail players for all stakeholders: customers, shareholders, partners, and suppliers.
How we support
our clients
For over 20 years, we have supported leading players in the retail sector—grocery chains, specialty retailers, department stores, and investment funds—in their strategic and operational transformations.
We help them act across four key dimensions:
- Growth drivers: activating the right levers for profitable growth (massification, densification, diversification, digitalisation, internationalisation…), while innovating on each front
- Business model: reallocating investments and operating costs to reflect the rise of digital (downsizing retail space, adopting aggressive e-commerce strategies, adapting supply chain and IT)—all within a necessary rethinking of cost structure
- Company culture: building a strong brand and retail identity anchored in a customer-centric culture
- Data and omnichannel distribution
Beyond our transformation expertise, our clients benefit from our full range of capabilities, including:
A strategy only delivers its full impact when it is well executed. Drawing on Kea’s proven transformation expertise, we are deeply committed to helping our clients move from vision to action—to truly make it happen. Our goal? To reconcile growth, competitiveness, and leadership imperatives.
Our
capabilities
Retail
We support the leaders of both food and non-food retail banners—generalists and specialists alike.
Our broad range of expertise includes:
- Defining new growth territories: geographies, formats, and concepts
- Redesigning economic and business models
- Optimising the supply chain
- Securing sourcing, boosting purchasing competitiveness, and forging strategic alliances
- Unlocking the full potential of data across the value chain
- Enhancing the organisation and efficiency of head office functions, buying centres, and stores
- Building and supporting responsible retail brands
Marketing,
Sales & Customers
Marketing and commercial teams are at the heart of sustainable performance and brand distinctiveness.
They face a range of critical challenges:
- Driving sustainable, profitable growth in an increasingly competitive environment
- Designing offers and customer journeys in an omnichannel logic, aligned with new consumer expectations and behaviours
- Rethinking customer activation, engagement, and loyalty strategies in the era of digital and data
- Fully leveraging data and technology to personalise the customer relationship and optimise performance
- Expanding their view of the competitive landscape and identifying new strategic opportunities through suppliers and partners
We support marketing, sales, and customer leadership teams in building, optimising, and deploying their strategies to generate profitable and sustainable growth.
We operate across all high-impact levers—both strategic and operational—including:
offer and assortment design, commercial policy, pricing and promotion, offer and service innovation, customer activation, commercial performance optimisation, organisation and processes, tools and platforms, and data-driven performance management.
Our areas of intervention in detail:
- Offer & Assortment: Designing a clear proposition aligned with customer expectations and margin ambitions;
- Commercial Policy, Pricing & Promotion: Striking the right balance between attractiveness and profitability; managing promotions with a data-driven, ROI-focused approach;
- Offer & Service Innovation: Creating new, differentiating sources of value that drive loyalty and recurring business;
- Customer Activation: Enhancing relational performance through CRM, customer insights, and loyalty strategies;
- Commercial Performance Optimisation: Redefining go-to-market approaches and improving channel and network efficiency;
- Organisation & Processes: Evolving ways of working for greater agility and impact—clarifying roles, integrating new skills, simplifying structures, and embracing agile practices;
- Tools & Platforms: Activating digital levers—from retail media to CRM strategies—to capture, analyse, and unlock the value of data;
- Data & Performance Management: Implementing advanced analytics (e.g. Marketing Mix Modelling, sales-enabling data tools, dashboards) to support smarter decision-making.
Strategic
collaborations
These projects reflect our deep commitment to supporting clients in aligning economic, social, and environmental performance — as a driver of long-term, sustainable success.
Redefining the Vision and Transforming the Governance & Management Model of a European Food Retailer. Objective: achieve greater profitability and efficiency, while reigniting a growth and market conquest dynamic.
Results of our intervention:
- Target Operating Model Design: 35 business contributors engaged; outcome: CHF 10M in annual savings by 2026, 15% FTE reduction, 6 cross-functional processes redesigned;
- Cultural Transformation: 1,000 employees responded to the culture survey; 10 cultural markers identified and championed by a network of 30 volunteer ambassadors;
- Strategic Vision for 2030: forward-looking market analysis and co-development of the vision through mixed working groups (Executive Committee & Field Teams).
Our
experts
Céline Pagat-Choain
Senior Partner & DG
Christophe Burtin
Senior Partner
Mathieu Daude-Lagrave
Senior Partner
Hervé Baculard
Senior Partner
Matthieu Winisdoerffer
Director
Armand Chevallier
Director
