Consumer Goods and Retail

The continuous changes taking place in the consumer goods and retail ecosystem are requiring strategic transformations. Brand strategies are a major focus in this sector. Strong and successful brands are superbly oriented to specific customer groups. Moreover, digital and disruptive business models are playing ever greater roles in gaining competitive advantage. They can include everything from introducing company-specific e-commerce channels or new marketplaces to expanding existing business models or developing entirely new ones.

We advise companies on how best to align and implement their business models as well as their corporate, product, and administrative strategies. As a subsidiary of and management consultancy for a globally successful sports-car maker with well-known brand essence, we know how to build brands, evoke fascination, and both generate and sustainably meet customer needs.

The customer is king—this maxim is truer than ever at a time of changing customer journeys and disruptive business models. It requires a comprehensive grasp of multi-channel customer journeys and individual needs. Analytic tools and top-notch data evaluation can be used to adapt and enhance pricing, customer loyalty, and advertising. Customer experience can be maximized via the knowledge of customer groups based on user personas, which compile demographic and/or personal features of specific customer types.

We support companies especially in taking both customer and company perspectives to secure growth. Aims include facilitating seamless connections between sales channels and orienting both the company and its processes toward the customer. A greater focus on end customers has enabled us to observe continuous growth in sales in numerous projects.

Persistent cost pressures remain a central challenge in the consumer goods and retail sector. To reduce costs, companies regularly assess their processes along the entire value chain. Process-oriented KPI systems can help identify process-related inefficiencies. New market dynamics arising from the appearance of new competitors or changing customer preferences require systematic revision of operational models as well as individual processes. The focus here is on procurement, production, and sales. Supply chains must be flexible, efficient, and sustainable. That applies to both incoming and outgoing processes. Additional efficiency levers lie in optimizing core procurement processes as well as supplier relations. New technologies and analytics need to be applied in targeted ways and key production processes automated. Development and sales can achieve greater proximity to end customers by establishing or expanding data-supported management of product groups.

We support our clients in mastering the challenge of shaping the value chains and organizations of the future, while at the same time raising productivity and reducing costs. Our strategies cover ways of increasing cost efficiency: automating factory production, improving control of production processes, and introducing better control processes at branch locations. Examples here include a retailer that increased both staff productivity and customer satisfaction.

The transformation of the customer goods and retail ecosystem is altering value chains and demanding deep-seated organizational changes. These adaptations in turn require structured change management, which means clear and transparent communication of relevant outcomes as well as risks and barriers for the entire organization. Employee participation is a crucial factor in transformational success. In fact, it is the only way for companies to anchor their success sustainably. Training programs to prepare employees and managers for their new tasks and responsibilities are another important factor. Further developments in job requirements are closely connected with changes in leadership style and collaborative models. Innovative New Work practices place a greater focus on people and thereby increase employee motivation and productivity.

We support companies in identifying relevant stakeholders and taking suitable transformational measures. We ensure that changes are communicated in emotionally evocative ways to each respective target group and successfully addressed by developing specific programs and measures. This consolidates the acceptance of change and fosters idea management among employees. At the same time, artificial intelligence and a greater incidence of joint projects with digital start-ups are requiring new ways of thought. And new job profiles. In a collaborative project with a global consumer goods producer, we successfully developed a range of digital skills in coordination with its strategy for the future.

Sustainability has become a key competitive factor, figuring ever more largely in the decisions of potential customers. However, lower prices and image factors are also of critical importance. Successful companies succeed in squaring their commercial goals with socially and environmentally responsible actions. Transparency plays a decisive role for end customers in the consumer goods and retail sector, with sales of sustainable goods rising continuously over recent years. Sustainability extends far beyond product portfolios, however. Considerable weight is also attached to sustainable packaging and transport as well as social responsibility.

We support companies in defining and applying their individual sustainability strategies. This includes introducing and further developing sustainability initiatives and deriving realizable actions. With overall solutions and strategies, we guide organizations along the road to becoming sustainable and carbon-neutral companies.