Shifted from hands-off to operating group
Case study:
Shifted from hands-off to operating group
- Situation
- A global platform player had grown over decades with a largely hands-off model, granting regions and franchise partners extensive autonomy and leaving the group with limited operational grip
- Beyond marketing, there were few group-wide standards across strategy, concepts, operating systems, tools and ways of working
- Changes in the market environment raised customer expectations and saw the emergence of intermediaries closer to the end customer, requiring customer experience and technology investments individual countries could no longer drive on their own
- Actions
- Assessed market dynamics and customer expectations across countries and benchmarked performance to pinpoint strengths, gaps and key change drivers
- Redefined the group’s value proposition and key areas of differentiation versus competition
- Derived the required level of control across value chain steps, including the degree of operational involvement and proximity to end customers
- Structured the country footprint into clear clusters with defined roles and go-to-market archetypes to guide investment, execution focus and resource allocation (lead and consolidate through operational excellence, growth markets with high autonomy, partner-led growth options)
- Clarified where to set group-wide standards versus local leeway and translated this into the design of the operating model and the roles of the center, countries, partners and own operations
- Sharpened the center’s future service offering, defining where it actively supports with tools, services and group-wide standards and where it deliberately steps back
- Identified the capabilities required at group and country level and built a roadmap for capability build-up, investments and resource shifts aligned with the new strategic priorities
- Results
- Established a clear value proposition and defined key areas of differentiation, including where the group requires greater control along the value chain and direct access to end customers
- Introduced a clear country role model and prioritization, replacing a fragmented market portfolio with an invest, steer and support framework supported by group-wide process and tool standards
- Repositioned the holding from a passive umbrella to an operational group with own customer-facing activities and a more focused center service offering, enabled by targeted capability build-up and major resource reallocation from local to center
- New corporate strategy targeting 20% annual growth endorsed by the board with implementation underway through a focused roadmap and capability program