Success Stories

Below are examples of a selected number of projects that our consultants have been involved in, both in the United Kingdom and globally. For additional examples, please visit our corporate site.

We were engaged by a global leader in logistics to develop a negotiation strategy to achieve its objective of substantially increasing the size of its business with its leading customer. A very compelling rationale was required to initiate dialogue, as the customer's existing contracts with our client, and also with competitors, were not up for renewal until several years down the line. A senior Roland Berger team of two Project Managers and two Partners worked closely with the client's management team to develop a negotiation and customer communication strategy, supported by a robust underlying business case. Our deliverable, a white paper on expanding the client's customer relationship, was received well by both parties and resulted in the setting up of further dialogue at a senior management level to take the proposed ideas forward.

Following the acquisition of a leading UK luxury car maker, the company's new owner, a large Asian conglomerate, required a restructuring programme to improve the company's performance, the need for which was accentuated by the automotive industry downturn triggered by the recent global economic crisis. A team of c. 20 Roland Berger consultants, drawn from offices across Europe and the US, developed a comprehensive restructuring & turnaround programme designed to leapfrog competition in line with long-term corporate objectives. Modules of work included brand & product portfolio review, operations and footprint improvement, cost reduction and cash flow improvement. Following a planning and implementation phase lasting more than a year, the company returned to profitability and is now well-placed for its next phase of global growth.

The Energy Retail division of a leading integrated UK utilities company required a comprehensive performance improvement programme to meet its financial targets. A team of nine consultants, including two Project Managers and a Partner, developed a comprehensive business process improvement programme to align activities with customer needs. Our process reengineering covered all the main Energy Retail functions such as Metering, Collections, and Customer Service. We also identified the potential to reduce operating costs by optimally organising and relocating support functions. The potential profit improvements exceeded GBP 100m and we set up a detailed benefits tracker to manage their realisation. Owing to the successful implementation of our ideas, we were brought back into the business after another 15 months for a second phase of work that involved the conduct of a "quick audit" to unleash further improvements in the business.

A leading private equity firm commissioned Roland Berger to examine the ground and cargo handling market and, in particular, to review a global ground handler that the firm was considering acquiring a large equity stake in. Our team of six consultants was led by two Partners and conducted an extensive assessment of the ground and cargo handling industry fundamentals including industry structure, industry profitability, competitive intensity, and regulatory evolution. This was complemented by a review of the target's performance assessing company financials vis-á-vis industry volume and price development, and of its competitive positioning based on more than 60 detailed interviews of key customers, competitors and industry experts. A further phase of work involved the identification of attractive growth opportunities for the target to inform the final valuation of the target by our client.

A FTSE-250 company with diverse interests in the aerospace and aviation sectors engaged us to conduct a strategy review for one of its divisions. Over seven weeks, a team of three consultants sized the global market for a key (type of) aircraft equipment, assessed our client's positioning and market share, conducted interviews to understand customer perceptions of the business, and developed recommendations for the company's strategy supported by a high-level business plan. Our recommendations centered on tapping the aftermarket for growth and allocating resources accordingly, whilst only pursuing selected niches within new aircraft programme tenders for the supply of new equipment.

We were asked by an international petrochemical company to develop the global pricing strategy for one of its downstream products. Over a period of two months, our team of three consultants conducted extensive data analysis and customer interviews to segment the market across geographical, end-market and volume-of-spend categories. This enabled us to develop a complex, yet intuitive, market model, which offered recommendations on the best contract type and optimal pricing strategy at a customer level. The model had the capability to deliver optimal pricing for both current and new customers, and was used by the client to help guide pricing, resource allocation and business prioritisation decisions.

An international utilities company was concerned about how to respond to planned deregulation in one of its European markets. Roland Berger was asked to run a War Game for the company in order to help prepare for this situation. Our team of four consultants spent six weeks preparing the material for the War Game, followed by a two-day session with 25 of the clients' senior management in which the War Game was played out.

Our client gained four principal benefits from the War Game:
• A well-developed strategy to respond to deregulation that had been stress-tested in a simulated environment
• A good understanding of the likely behaviours of its competitors
• An insight into the value to customers of bundled offers spanning gas and electricity
• A view on the desirability of investing in new generating capacity, including both conventional capacity and renewables