Case studies

The project involved consultation with all departments, review of technology infrastructure, competitive analysis, strategic options development and strategy translation into a business plan, balanced scorecard, change program and governance process. Several innovative commercial opportunities and margin improvements were identified, as well as organizational structure changes to deliver client-centric service. The strategic dialogue process involving Partners helped to clarify and answer several fundamental questions concerning the firm’s culture and future ownership status.

The business was successfully sold to a trade buyer maintaining strategic links with the
previous owner company.

Identification of best practice and organizational changes required to improve the success rate of new business scale-ups.

Board approval for market entry and investment for biojet production facility.

Development of a strategic framework designed to dive increased synergy between businesses and guide future group acquisitions. Significant portfolio changes were subsequently made and changes implemented to strengthen group governance and strategic planning.

Consultation with a large cross-section of employees and development of medium-term scenarios. Sixteen opportunity areas identified and prioritized, including innovations in go-to-market and client solutions, followed by pilot initiatives in each area.

All staff were introduced to principles of ‘lean’ and gathering process improvement proposals from the front-line. Over 250 proposals were received and evaluated, ranging from simple procedure changes to advanced technology projects. The result was multi-million pounds of approved savings, plus initiatives to step-change competitiveness in key drivers of operational performance.

The process resulted in a portfolio of new product innovation opportunities ranging from packaging to ingredients and new marketing concepts. The approach and toolkit was subsequently adopted in other business units.

The project led to the identification of four major growth technology platforms in areas including sustainable energy, sugar substitutes and food safety. Investment in ventures contributed to a significant increase in corporate value that was subsequently realized through successful M&A. 

As part of a strategic transformation, the business had invested several hundred million 100m in new ventures over a 10-year period but achieved relatively little return to date in the form of successfully trading new businesses. The aim of the project was to identify process and governance-related impediments to new business creation that would unblock the new business portfolio. Effectus helped to diagnose issues through in-depth process documentation review and discussions with portfolio teams and corporate leaders. The output was a set of recommendations to bring the business building process in line with best practice in corporate venturing and scaling.

The project included analysis of the potential alliance synergies and costs, impact on members and scenarios for further global market consolidation. The recommendations were adopted by the Board and a subsequent agreement was entered into on these terms.

The strategy ensured ongoing competitiveness of the site relative to other global locations and generated many new high-skilled jobs, benefiting both the site and the local economy. 

enior leadership team and government stakeholders aligned on new long term plan including major initiatives in digital infrastructure and public engagement.

Effectus carried out a comprehensive product-market adjacency analysis, matching product features to industry-specific applications; then carried out a large number of voice-of-the-customer interviews to validate potential benefits and customer needs. The result was a set of customer-qualified new product opportunities with a projected sales revenue potential of over $100m within 3 years.

Development of a strategy including cost reduction, pricing, channel development, product innovation and financial restructuring.

Development of an IoT propensity index tool, ranking of industrial sub-sectors, customer research and identification of unmet needs and applications for IoT, high-level solutions design and benefits analysis. The business subsequently launched several of the concepts into the corporate market.

A successful decision was taken to reposition the channel towards click-and-collect model, freeing up capital and human resources for core business growth.   

The outputs included a multi-billion dollar investment model over 20 years, incentive packages and deal structures for developers, and a complete organizational blueprint for unit including roles, processes and policies at a detailed level.

The business succeeded in gaining growth investment and establishing key linkages with major Business Units to drive next stage growth.