Consumer Goods & Retail

Quality and value for demanding customers

Consumers are becoming increasingly demanding. They want more quality and value for less money, time, and effort.

This is where the Consumer Goods & Retail Competence Center comes into play. We put the spotlight on the consumer, offering our clients market-driven, rule-breaking strategies that work. Expert teams in FMCG (fast moving consumer goods), textiles, and retail focus on the needs of specific industries. They offer advice on the full range of relevant issues, from strategy and organization right through to brand management and efficient consumer response, thus covering the entire consumer goods value chain.

We provide a truly international perspective, offering our clients knowledge and insights gained from other continents and industries. Our consultants have a wide range of cultural and business backgrounds and hands-on experience in the consumer goods and retail industry. This allows us to develop and implement innovative concepts that result in substantial performance improvements for our clients.

In China

Chinese consumers are becoming increasingly demanding. They want more quality and value for less money, time, and effort. At the same time, more international players are fighting against strong domestic brands, which have started export offensives of their own. We put the spotlight on the consumer, offering our clients market-driven, rule-breaking strategies that work, covering the entire consumer goods value chain. In China, Roland Berger :

• Defines overall strategy or market entry strategy
• Designs corporate organizational structure
• Understands customer needs and defines product portfolio
• Develops right brand strategy and brand architecture
• Supports to improve sales & marketing efficiency

Our project examples:

Client Issues

After years of rapid growth, our client had established a certain brand leadership in the local market. Going forward, the company expected to leverage the prosperity of sports-related industries and its own competence to pursue a leading position among all international and local players. However, certain international players expanded aggressively into regional markets that were previously dominated by the client company. Our client focused mainly on one sub-sector of the industry while maintaining little presence in others. To realize its vision of becoming the industry leader, the company needed to expand into new sectors employing tactics to create synergy without diluting its core competence. Having a desire for growth but facing fierce competition, the client turned to Roland Berger Strategy Consultants for assistance in developing a winning strategy for its core business as well as in designing a strategy for diversification.

Project Approach / Impact

The client continued its double-digit growth and further solidified its leading position in the sports product market. The project also helped the client to refocus on core competence building and future investment priorities.

Client Issues

Our client is the food and beverage arm of a top-tier global FMCG conglomerate. After pouring massive investment into the China market, its business never took off. Its market share and contribution to total global revenue were below 5%. In contrast, international counterparts and certain innovative domestic players were making steady progress through effective M&A or organic growth strategies. Lagging seriously behind, our client was eager to readjust its local strategy and to turn around its slipping operations.

Project Approach

Facing market consolidation, a changing pattern of consumer demand, and an increasing number of new entrants, our client needed to re-examine its business portfolio as well as to apply suitable sales and channel strategies. The project team worked with the client to establish a decision-making model with which market size, growth potential, key success factors of every business sector, as well as the client company's own competitive edge were analyzed, compared, and cross-checked. By taking a comprehensive view of every business in which the company had a presence, the team developed key recommendations for the business portfolio. With the overall direction of growth clearly in mind, the team proceeded to evaluate the company's current sales structure. By integrating the needs of the client with our insights into the value chain dynamics of the local food and beverage market, the team suggested a multi-channel mix and developed a sales strategy.

Impact

Following our recommendations for the new business portfolio, the client decided to retreat from certain sectors and to redeploy resources to certain key businesses. As a result, its competitive capability was substantially improved and it managed to take a leading position in some business areas. It successfully turned around the business by realizing double-digit growth and gross margins increased by 20%.