Individual businesses are built one at a time. Groups are built differently
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 to compete for opportunities that lay beyond the reach of any one business.
That required something more than simply asking the businesses to work together more often. Rather than trying to coordinate activity across the whole Group, we focused on the handful of opportunities where it could genuinely compete differently.
We built a light-touch commercial community around those opportunities, bringing together the right client relationships, complementary capabilities and routes to market around each. Clear commercial ownership, simple governance and dedicated leadership provided just enough structure to maintain momentum, while the businesses themselves remained firmly in the driving seat.
The result was c.$30m of additional value 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 but making relatively little of the opportunity to work together. Following its take-private, the Group's next step was to develop a small number of distinctive cross-business propositions with the potential to materially change the trajectory of the Group.
That required something different from simply encouraging collaboration. The challenge was to organise the Group's commercial effort around the handful of opportunities where those propositions could make the greatest difference.
Alongside introducing the commercial pace and discipline expected by its new owners, we aligned the commercial agenda around those propositions, bringing together the capabilities needed to deliver them and concentrating investment and leadership on the opportunities that mattered most.
The result was a business better aligned to its new ownership, with emerging Group key account management, a growing pipeline of joint opportunities, stronger cross-business growth and the ability to pursue larger, more complex opportunities than any individual business could realistically secure alone.
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 no individual business could realistically pursue alone.
That required something different from traditional integration. The challenge was to give the Group the ability to behave like one when the opportunity demanded it, without sacrificing the entrepreneurial strengths of twelve successful businesses.
To make that possible, we built the small number of Group capabilities needed to bring together specialist expertise, client leadership, bid management and delivery around the opportunities where scale really mattered. Clear commercial ownership and governance helped the Group move as one, while the individual businesses retained their entrepreneurial focus.
The result was a business that could compete for larger international opportunities while preserving the strengths, agility and customer relationships of its individual companies.
next step
If any of these situations reflect a current or emerging priority, I’m happy to have a confidential discussion to explore whether and how I might be helpful.