Situation
We were asked by our client – a top 60 UK food business with a significant international presence – to formulate a detailed five-year strategy to grow top-line and improve margins. The work covered both the commercial and operational strategy.
What we did
We initially performed a thorough situation analysis of the current state business in each of the business units. This included:
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- Analysing recent financial & operational performance against key metrics, and understanding the core drivers
- Analysing market data and consumer research, to understand performance relative to its competition in each of its categories, and the backdrop for recent performance
- Performed financial benchmarking to understand key metric performance including detailed SG&A analysis
- Attended site visits across the UK and internationally to understand production processes, equipment quality and CAPEX initiatives
- Interviewed management & non-executive directors to gather their perspective on the business and potential avenues for growth
- Performed store audits and web-scraping to identify respective category champion retailers, and distribution gaps
- Interviewed current customers to understand strength of relationships and areas for improvement
With a greater understanding of the current situation, we then devised a commercial and operational plan which included:
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- Formulating a clear commercial plan in each business unit with opportunities, size of the prize estimates, enablers and phasing considerations
- Identifying and estimating the quantum of operational cost-out opportunities and continuous improvement initiatives
- Devising the ‘strategy on a page’ document which summarised all of the above in a succinct manner for internal circulation
Results delivered
We delivered a clear, actionable five-year strategy to guide the overall group, business units and functions