“In no time, we started to open our minds and challenge our own thinking, simply by being exposed to new futures and possibilities, together.”
The CEO’s question to us
We have a plan to grow our current business to 1 billion in the coming three years. However, we need to start preparing for how we will develop our business beyond that time horizon: there are signs that our market is changing in substantial ways. Otherwise we might have only a part/little left of that 1 billion euro business in 10 years.
Background
This leading B2B e-commerce platform had grown, from a small family business, to a leading player, connecting the supply chain for over 500,000 products. With digitalisation, disintermediation, platformisation and artificial intelligence on the horizon, their suppliers were building direct connections with end users, and their traditional client base was shifting from a dealer to a service center model. What is their sustainable, relevant position in the chain for the future?
The challenge as we saw it
- How to open the minds of 30 senior leaders who typically spent their entire career inside this company, have a ‘hands-on, operational’ approach, and are busy running a successfully growing business today?
- How to build the relationships across the leaders, to exchange ideas, explore possibilities, and converge to one common direction while their interpersonal trust is under pressure due to operational performance issues, strong functional silos and differences in perspective and opinions?
What we did
- We set up an outside-inspiration journey, for the Board and their Senior Management, to experience ‘the future’ by engaging into strategic reflections with suppliers, clients, end-users, but also technology providers and start-ups from different industries, across two different continents.
- We designed and delivered a series of intense strategising sessions among the top 30 to deepen different future perspectives and gradually converge towards one path for the future.
- We designed and delivered every year a Management Meeting for the top 150 of the company, to gradually engage them into the new direction for the company.
What the client got out of it
- Clarity and alignment on the future path.
- A series of concrete innovation and business development projects launched.
- Ownership and commitment for the roadmap with concrete actions towards that future.
- An Executive Board glued together, and a Senior Management community ready to work across silos.
- Outside-inspiration reflex and a multitude of antennas to challenge the relevance of their business model in light of emerging trends, inside and outside the industry.