Cases

The Element Group was in an enviable position. After four short years since start-up, this retail bank construction firm was profitable and had recouped a portion of it's start-up costs. Leadership wanted to take the next step - achieve scale. They sought help in three areas:

1.Improve loyalty - incr. % repeat

2.Develop new lines of businesstensions that generate reoccurring revenue - 100% revenue from highly cyclical capital projects.

3.Build a brand voice/equity – as a commercial real estate savant - best-in-class capabilities: consumer insight, customer experience, design & build, expertise in consumer behavior, retail design, branding and real estate.

A thorough situation analysis along with both qualitative and quantitative studies, generated insights led to execution of the following over the following three years:

Strategy: Continued successful drive for new customer design/build projects while leveraging TEG expertise in real esate and branding as new lines of business to offer current and lapsed customers. Establish TEG brand voice - in both owned & earned media. Position the brand a trusted branch "Full lifecycle" partner thought leader across high-value capabilities beyond branch design/construction –

•Customer experience - Merchandising and marketing

•Consumer insight leader

• Real estate sherpa - site selection and development

• Branch fulfillment – Be the low cost fulfillment partner for all customer branches

In the seven years since…

•Revenue has quadrupled

•Several large regional banks count TEG as agency of record – TEG has 100% share-of-wallet

•The annual release of key customer awareness and attitude insights has improved brand awareness and industry redibility

Giant Eagle Grocery Chain

Giant Eagle is a privately held, top 20 US grocery chain that was losing market share as consumers were spending more at value players Aldi & Walmart.

McKinsey & Co., was commissioned and guided GE's strategy shift - Differentiated/advantaged CX: Fresh (perimeter categories), Pharmacy and Exclusive brands/products.

Giant Eagle's private label business was financially material delivering 13% of sales 27% of gross margin. The firm lagged competitors in financial contribution and growth. Within GE, PL was managed as a strategic after-thought by category mgrs. The brands lacked unifying characteristics or consistency across categories.

Mr. Cox was hired to lead the company's pursuit of relevance and eventual "fame" for its' exclusive brands/products.

First, alignment was req. for a strategy of focus, simplification and consistency behind meaningful brands with high quality products. New org. capabilities in product management, product development and pkg. engineering while mproving capabilities in Comms., Digital, Procurement & Quality Control. The goal was to replicate the approach & abilities of a leading FMCG firm while leveraging advantaged data, access and merch. priority to build brands.

The portfolio lacked coherance, consistency, direction and discipline. GE owned 14 brands, with 5k+ skus and was active in 314 categories (even firewood).

Deep analysis, benchmarking, stakeholder input, qualitative consumer input & quantitaive validation informed the overall strategy of focus and simplification, innovation & ownership.

The new team set-about transforming Giant Eagle's brand business:

Simplification -

• Brands - Consolidated from 14 to 5

• Strategies - 7

• Categories - Exited 30

• Products - 40% net sku reduction over 3 yrs.

Focus -

• Brands -

  • Reign in / Defined Gint Eagle brand copet. spaces

  • Build 2 emerging brands as differentiators

    • Market District - Indulgent,foodie focused

    • Nature's Basket - Natural & organic

  • Established Brand Standards - Quality, price, on-shelf nerchandising, pkg., & consumer preferance

• Innovation

• Advertising/promotion

Results:

• Share of chain sales grew 1.5Pt/yr over three years +41% top-line

• Improved GM 25bpt/yr

• Doubled annual products launched - cut cycle -50%

• Grew two new brands (Foodie & Organic) to $150MM in three yrs

• Immproved th balance sheet & simplified the portfolio

  • Exited 7 non-strategic brands

  • Reduced sku countby 35% over three years

The Goodyear Tire co. was losing mkt. share in the High performance tire segment. All three of their brands
(Gy, Dunlop & Kelly) were decaying from lack of news/investment. GY Eagle had lost its leadership position to Michelin due to atrophy. The decay was amplified by an unclear view of the category

To compound the issue, GY lacked a clear market view - use of different, and flawed segmentation models prohibited a clean evaluation. Third, while the company had great customer relationships, they were out-of-touch with high performance consumer needs/wants/attitudes.

Not surprisingly GY wasn't seeing an acceptable ROI from their R&D investment.

There were five important org. needs -

1. An accurate segmentation of the High Performance Tire market - drive org. alignment .

2. Consolidate all decentralized resources pursueing alternate agendas

3. Leverage segmentation and comprehensive situation analysis - alignment for GY portfolio Innvation strategy

4. Rank and prioritize opporunities/threats based upon probability and impact.

5. Codify a three year portfolio roadmap - Insure full org. alignment and support

In yr. one of the road map, GY launched three new lines - Yr. one revenue $150MM