Individual businesses are built one at a time. Groups are built differently
three case studies
Individual businesses grow by deepening customer relationships, expanding capability and entering new markets. Groups have an additional option: creating value at the intersections between their businesses. However, because that opportunity sits across businesses, few are set up to pursue it systematically.
Below are three short case studies - each from a different start-point - showing what can happen when Groups start to realise the value that exists between their businesses.
Four successful businesses - one connected community
Financial & Professional Services | $30m of value on a $200m revenue base
Each of the businesses in this well-established group was growing fast. The next step was pursue opportunities beyond the reach of any individual business .
That required something more than simply asking the businesses to work together more often. The approach we took centred around 'community' - building a network that connected people across the Group.
Rather than investing time and effort trying to identify specific opportunities or develop cross-business propositions, we instead invested in bringing together the most 'cross-group receptive' people around the most likely clients, propositions and capabilities - a bit like lighting the blue touch paper and seeing what happens .. with just enough governance and a dedicated 'internal broker' to nudge, catalyse and un-block.
The result was c.$30m of additional value in year 1 on a $200m revenue base, accelerating and increasingly self-sustaining, with the framework subsequently adopted across a significantly larger business.
Three successful businesses - one stronger market offer
Insurance Services, InsureTech & Outsourcing | Public-to-private transformation
The Group comprised three successful businesses, each performing well in its own right. Following its take-private, the value strategy called for cross-business revenue to materially change the trajectory of the Group.
In this instance, we invested in proposition - finding the handful of cross business offers that could boost competitiveness in existing markets or take the group into new market segments.
That required some level of strategic review of product-market attractiveness and competitiveness followed by tightly time-bound product development (or more accurately perhaps, product alignment) and then a go-to-market campaign to the most likely key clients and prospects.
The result was a group more able to pursue a set of opportunities that any individual business would have struggled to credibly target - and able to leverage emerging Group key account management 'in pockets' where it mattered. In other words, a business better aligned to its new ownership and with a growing pipeline of joint opportunities.
TWELVE SUCCESSFUL BUSINESSES – BUILT FOR BIGGER OPPORTUNITIES
Specialist Manufacturing | Buy-and-Build M&A
The Group had grown rapidly through acquisition, bringing together twelve successful specialist businesses. The next step was to equip the Group to compete for the larger, more complex opportunities that its new scale opened up.
The approach centred on client - building a cross-group sales and client management capability that could match-up to (and peer with) global clients.
To make that possible, we connected the capabilities that already existed and built a few where they didn't. Collating and aligning client leadership, specialist expertise, bid management and delivery around a small number of clients that the Group served and targeted in a fragmented way.
The result was a business that could compete for larger international opportunities while preserving the strengths, agility and customer relationships of its individual companies. Able to operate and behave as an at-scale market leader when the opportunity demanded it, without sacrificing the entrepreneurial strengths of twelve successful businesses.