The CEO’s question to us
We have an ambition to inspire our 54 million plus customers to be healthier. We notice competitors are starting to offer more than simply health-based products and we have increasing pressure from investors and consumer groups to take up our role in the public health crisis. I want to challenge the leadership of company’s brands to explore a full range of opportunities in the health space from food products, to non-food products, to services and potential new business models that support customer health. Together, I want to agree on what kind of impact we want to have on our customers as a common guiding direction from which all brands will define their own roadmap to meet their customers’ health needs in the coming years.
Background
This 150-year-old company, grew from separate family-owned supermarkets, into a multi-brand, international food retailer, operating 7,000 plus stores throughout the USA, Europe and South East Asia.
The company has its ‘health’-focus primarily on ‘health products’. These products, though profitable on their own, have not been a main business engine for the company which has been driven by the conventional merchandising dynamics of larger brands buying shelf space. Past financial issues encouraged some leaders to be biased towards following the trends of the market and not to take (perceived) risks in being a leading first mover. At the same time, facing the increasingly turbulent market, with new players entering, omnichannel developments coupled with pressure on consumer data privacy, being a ‘follower’ can quickly turn to reacting to play a catch-up game you can never win. Where to choose to play in the health space and how to find new growth paths while still delivering today’s and tomorrow’s sales?
The challenge as we saw it
How to mobilise the commitment of the leaders to:
- see the urgent need to revitalise the company’s positioning, reflecting the changes in a highly turbulent market
- make a conscious and explicit choice of where to play
- take action to create new business models across the innovation spectrum
- anchor our choices, action and learning in day-to-day operations
What we did
- We started with a small coalition of senior leaders to gather input from the Top 100 to identify the current as-is, aspiration and bottlenecks related to the healthy ambition. The group defined a draft framework to bring into a dialogue with the Top 100 during the annual leadership meeting. The dialogue resulted in a breakthrough with the group wide leadership committing to a common framework as a basis to define their yearly and three-year strategic plans.
- With a group of cross-brand representatives, in a series of meetings and workshops, we supported the further translation of the strategic choice of where to play in the health space into brand roadmaps and an overall group roadmap. We challenged the leadership of brands to translate the commonly agreed framework in their own markets as a core differentiator in their value proposition towards customers.
- We re-designed the governance and operating model locally, regionally and globally to reflect the strategic choice of where to play
- Building up and during the next annual global leadership meeting, we checked on the progress made on realising the strategy. Based on this progress, we engaged the leaders in a dialogue on the five main dilemmas to reconcile and for which it is needed to find innovative and creative solutions.
- We supported the global leadership team with a framework for anchoring of processes, skills, ways of working in the business as a way to continuously drive innovation by learning
What the client got out of it
- Clarity, alignment, ownership and commitment from the top 100 leaders on common framework of where to play in the health space.
- Space for senior leaders to engage in the difficult conversations of when and how to stretch their ambitions and find new ways of running their business.
- A methodology for developing new business cases as way to launch propositions going beyond selling products to inspire customers to be healthier.
- A methodology for translating showcases of leading practices in the business into a common language for others to easily copy with pride.
- A new operating model reflecting the chosen strategic direction and clarity on key roles needed at the local, regional and global level.
- An architecture to create a movement for continuous innovation by learning across the brands.