Periodically, every business needs to take the big decisions that create and renew the basis of its competitive advantage. Lansdowne bring a refreshing approach to direction setting which focuses on building a shared fact base and aligning the management team behind the way forward. We integrate the delivery roadmap and implementation strategy into the centre of the decision making process rather than tacking it on as an after-thought, leading to achievable, prioritised plans with commitment from across the business.
Why is this important? Because it is not the norm. Most consulting firms are essentially analytic in their approach and focus on industry and competitor analysis believing it to be worthwhile in its own right. We disagree – on two points. Strategy work is only valuable in so far as it supports better decisions, and the required fact-base has three core elements, not just one. We bring a higher level of attention to the other 2 areas – what your customers really want, and what your business is the best in the world at delivering to them, and we bring a new toolkit in each area that enables us to get better information, faster.
We combine this with the analytic excellence required to create new insights into where the industry and competitor set are going, founded on a clear view of the economic drivers of the sector. What makes us different is that we strive to define the right answer for your company and its capabilities, building on our operational insights into the underlying ability of your firm, rather than a generic strategy for any business in the sector.
Our approach to customer insight combines high volume quantitative research with one-to-one diagnostic interviewing techniques that get past the superficial buying-decision context to the underlying drivers of what customers really value in the product or service being provided. This is combined where possible with comprehensive data on how customers actually buy and use the service, which helps to correct errors that arise because real behaviour deviates from the rational models we construct afterwards to explain our complex and not always optimised behaviour.
We apply these principles and toolkits in all of our strategy work. The core products we focus on are shown below, together with examples of our recent work. In the turnaround and transformation section we discuss how these ideas are applied to delivery and how our model has been optimised to enable us to confidently tackle the most complex implementation challenges.
Case Studies
Rapid Strategic & Operational Diagnostic
Case Study: Working for a leading high street retailer facing mounting losses we developed a highly prioritised six-week process which identified the burning strategic and operational issues that the business had to address in order to repair profitability resulting in an agreed high-level roadmap to deliver the urgent initiatives
Corporate and Business Unit Strategy
Case Study: Working with a leading retailer we developed a new business unit strategy covering their North American service and distribution business which created radical new insights into what was driving customers buying behaviour. This resulted in broad management alignment behind the plan and the re-orientation of every aspect of the business over the following multi-year planning period to focus on quality and customer service. The business subsequently enjoyed a radical increase in customer retention rates and profit growth.
Customer Insight
Case Study: Working with a leading automotive company we developed a new customer insight programme which combined diagnostic interviewing techniques to test hypotheses about the drivers of customer behaviour, with quantitative high volume research to prove them. In this way we helped the client to gain a new level of insight into customers which was directly linked to the key investment decisions the firm was about to make.
Customer Acquisition and Retention
Case Study: A leading media and entertainment business had rising customer churn and was unsure of the underlying causes or options to respond. In a rapid 6 week diagnostic we identified the real drivers of churn in their core products and developed a practical implementation plan to address which the client enthusiastically implemented over the following 24 months, resulting in a radical 20% improvement in churn and major revenue benefits.
Revenue Growth
Case Study: A global media-telecom and internet business was facing rising customer churn and falling profits. We used our revenue growth diagnostic tool to identify the underlying issues and opportunities to address. We developed a revenue growth roadmap covering both process-related and customer-driven interventions to reduce churn and increase profitability.
Implementation Strategy
Case Study: A major public sector organisation was tasked with coordinating the implementation of a massive cost reduction programme covering over 4000 independent organisations. We helped to develop an innovative collaboration model that made it easy for organisations to work together and developed an overall roadmap to support implementation across the many organisational boundaries.
Strategic Partnerships
Case Study: Working for a major automotive OEM with outdated products but booming domestic demand we developed a radical modernisation strategy centred on the creation of two major strategic partnerships with established global players. This strategy was adopted by the business and led to the creation of the two partnerships and a multi-$bn transaction.
New Market Entry
Case Study: A European manufacturer was keen to expand into a new country but had failed over many years to find an appropriate partner for acquisition. We profiled the market, structured negotiations with a short-list of targets and developed an overall business plan for the process which was adopted by the client.
Transaction Support
Case Study: Working with an emerging market OEM we led the target profiling and due diligence process to find an Eastern European partner including commercial, technical and financial due diligence and senior stakeholder management in the target country public and private sectors.