STRATEGIC CONSULTING PROJECTS
APOPO
‘Market Research and Business Planning for APOPO Expansion’
BART WEETJENS, FOUNDER AND DIRECTOR, APOPO
"They were just an excellent team, well balanced competencies, and highly productive. Their deliverables are extremely useful in the transition process APOPO is currently in. An A* for all four team members!"
APOPO has developed a unique detection technology using rats and applying this technology to humanitarian issues in Africa. The first application, landmine detection, has been accredited and implemented in Mozambique. Currently, there are 11 African countries interested in adopting the technology. Therefore, APOPO is embarking on a multi-country expansion of its demining program and needs a business plan to guide its growth.
Rats are also being trained to detect tuberculosis in human sputum. For this, APOPO has been conducting clinical trials and is working with the Tanzanian government’s health program. Before operationalizing this new technology, APOPO needs to develop a business model for the TB social enterprise/program and conduct feasibility studies identifying the most viable and scalable model.
Lastly, APOPO is also interested in exploring commercial application for its rat detection technology. One possibility could be cargo detection. At this point, APOPO would benefit from a market study on potential commercial applications as well as strategic recommendations for conducting ancillary commercial activities. Recommendations would consider risk/return criteria such as margin, initial investment, development time, social benefit, reputation, etc. and be used by APOPO’s leadership to make decisions regarding investments in commercial activities.
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CORPORATE EXPRESS AUSTRALIA
‘Project Oxford’
GARRY CHALMERS, CHIEF LOGISTICS OFFICER
"It has been my pleasure to collaborate with the Saïd Business School in acting as a sponsor for MBA students to complete a Strategic Consulting Project. The Project report delivered commercial business benefits that exceeded my expectations. The quality of the work and the commitment of the students during the project was outstanding.
The Executive Board of our Company has fully endorsed the recommendations of the report and commissioned an implementation pilot. I look forward to further opportunities to work with the University on additional projects."
This project was undertaken to evaluate a fast/slow distribution network initiative involving the delivery of consumer goods for Corporate Express within Australia. Detailed research and analysis was performed to assess qualitative/quantitative costs and benefits involved in undertaking this initiative.
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DIAMOND TRADING COMPANY
‘Project Jason’
HOWARD DAVIES, HEAD OF COMMERCIAL
"This year’s SCP team has come up with a coherent and integrated set of proposals in which there is demonstrable commercial value for the DTC. Thanks to the team’s professional and self-assured presentation of their ideas within the business, they have created a real buzz of excitement in the organisation. I am convinced this will lead to a genuine commitment within the DTC to take their ideas forward towards implementation.
I would like to add that this is not a unique experience for us. Previous years’ project teams from the Saïd Business School have also developed seminal ideas that have subsequently been incorporated into the DTC’s operating model. This track record of success has created a ‘following wind’ of credibility and gravitas within the organisation for the current team’s proposals. The team this year has responded to this opportunity by creating an insightful and well-considered suite of recommendations that directly address a number of our real and present business needs. Their energy, professionalism and commercial focus have certainly enhanced the already high reputation of Saïd Business School MBA teams at the DTC."
The team was given a wide-ranging strategic brief: to examine the way in which the DTC currently selects its customers and orchestrates its distribution, and to suggest ways in which these activities could be improved to generate incremental revenue for the organisation.
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FACILITATE DIGITAL HOLDINGS
‘NEXUS Media Exchange’
JULIAN BARING, SENIOR MANAGING DIRECTOR
"The team from Saïd Business School provided a fresh point of view into their evaluation of the NEXUS project. Being able to tap the brains of a team that could research the market, the academic literature and synthesize the input from all different parts of our business – helps ensure, validate or challenge and thereby improve the quality of our own decision making. By providing objective and fact-based research and insights, we are able to ensure that embarking upon this business opportunity is in fact a viable, positive NPV and worthwhile endeavour."
The Nexus media exchange project has been a high-profile effort within the business as it paves the way for the long-term extension of the product portfolio. Facilitate Digital operates in the online advertising space, providing technology to media agencies to help them maintain their value proposition and competitive differentiation against the encroachment of publishers such as Google and Microsoft Advertising.
Media agencies are being squeezed by publishers providing technology and services direct to Advertisers. Media Exchanges are a new evolution in this space – predominantly provided by publishers as a clearing house and electronic exchange whereby publishers can sell inventory. The issue is that these exchanges have been developed by publishers and do not suit the needs of media agencies.
This project was to evaluate the opportunity and how Facilitate Digital could extend its existing product portfolio, to develop a Media Exchange solution that more closely met the needs of media agencies.
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IBM
‘As Retail supply chains become more consumer demand driven, and more global, how important to the Retailer is “Supply Chain Visibility” in meeting the new business challenges, and what are the key people, process and system challenges to delivering this organisational capability in a non disruptive way, while delivering sustainable competitive advantage?’
STEPHEN LENG, SENIOR MANAGING CONSULTANT
"As consultants we work with clients to help them develop solutions for their business issues and challenges. Working with the Saïd Business School and the student team, we have an opportunity to see the business issues, and the industries we work with, in a different way and from a different perspective and context. The learning and insights generated from this interaction allow us to take a fresh look at how we interpret business issues and provides an important challenge to our ‘ways of working."
The Retail industry is facing greater and more complex challenges to the traditional business model than ever before, and in the race to become ever more competitive, are having to build more extensive, collaborative, and global supply chain networks to ensure product and service costs are as low as possible.
At the same time, retailers are faced by an ever more knowledgeable and demanding consumer, seeking an ever more ‘personalised’ purchase solution.
The Retailer is traditionally a ‘reactive strategist’ and therefore typically inclined to make investments in new capabilities in a piecemeal fashion as customer and market needs dictate. Therefore the central question of this project is to gain an insight into how important retailers see a ‘step change’ in supply chain visibility capability to meeting their strategic business objectives, and understand what level of change they are prepared to embrace to achieve it.
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INTERNATIONAL CRICKET COUNCIL
‘Understanding the Impact of Twenty20 Cricket’
DOUG WALLER, BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT MANAGER
"Engaging the MBA students from Saïd Business School to deliver this project has aided ICC management to crystallize its thinking around key issues arising from the rapid ascendancy of Twenty20 cricket. It is clear that cricket as a sport and business is undergoing transformational change and if ICC is to successfully lead this change it requires the kind of intelligent and independent analysis offered by the team from Oxford."
The primary objective of the project was to deliver an informed perspective on how best to manage the growth of Twenty20 cricket. The broad nature of this project topic reflected the large number of moving parts which the team considered to produce credible results. The key research areas of (i) economic evaluation (ii) corporate governance and (iii) market strategy have been combined to provide ICC management with a blueprint for strategic product development of Twenty20 cricket and a deeper understanding of the potential impact of Twenty20 cricket on the global portfolio of cricket events.
The MBA team needed to engage a wide array of stakeholders from within the ‘cricket ecosystem’ as well as experts capable of commenting on best practise from other international sports. The team encountered some resistance from certain stakeholders but rose to these challenges to ensure a balanced assessment of Twenty20 cricket could be achieved. The project deliverables demonstrate high level testing and analysis yet are relatively easy to comprehend, which ensures that the project will retain its utility of implementation over time and across a range of end users.
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INFINEON
‘Strategies to deal with the Competitive Pressure in the Semiconductor Industry’
ANDREAS ROTHER, DIRECTOR
"This Project helped the Corporate Strategy Team to significantly better understand the drivers of competitive pressure. The results will influence the further procedure for a range of upcoming projects."
Infineon faces increasing competitive price pressure, partly due to the effects of the commoditisation in their served markets. This is forecast to have a significant negative impact on EBIT over the next few years, in the region of 100s of millions of Euros. Therefore, finding strategies to prevent, hedge against or reduce the impact of competitive pressure is one of the most important ways to improve the performance of the company and make a significant bottom line impact. The IFX CEO and Board have decided that competitive pressure will be a major area of focus for Infineon over the coming years; the Corporate Strategy team have the lead in tackling this issue and this project will provide a major contribution to that effort.
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INFINEUM
‘Value Chain Strategies for New Business Development’
KIRSTEN BAYES, BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT MANAGER
"It gave the chance to have four new enthusiastic and bright colleagues to work with to evaluate some key business opportunities, bringing fresh eyes and creating new ideas and perspectives."
To look at four potential competitive strategies in four potential markets:
- Becoming a value added component supplier in the paints industry
- Capturing the formulation space in cleaning products
- Disintermediation in the bitumen industry
- Product as a service model in treatment of cargo oil
And then:
- Using a common approach, create a value chain analysis for each of the four industries shown, quantifying value at each stage in the chain
- For each strategy proposed, quantify the strengths and weaknesses of the proposed approach for Infineum in this business; give detailed recommendations for action (which might include modifying or discarding the proposed approach)
- Based on the learnings from the above, to suggest which generic competitive strategy might apply to which generic value system, in the Infineum context; and identify what kind of industries / competitive strategies Infineum should most usefully focus on to grow its business in new areas.
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INFINEUM
‘Feasibility Study and European Market Entry Strategy for Crude Anti-fouling Additives’
SHAUN HARKIN/FABIEN THAUVIN, FUELS SEGMENT AND BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT MANAGER
"Benefits:
- A good way to identify future talent and promote Infineum as a key additive supplier in the oil/chemicals sector
- Efficient way to obtain detailed market analysis through desktop searching that we would not have had the time nor necessary available skills and experience to perform.
- In the context of a business school study, we managed to obtain more information from market players than we would have done directly
- Provided opportunity for ‘cold eyes’ assessment of an emerging business opportunity"
As crude oil is passed through heat exchanger tubes at high temperatures, there is a tendency for the crude to decompose and form coke deposit residues. These interfere with the heat transfer efficiency by as much as 50%. Anti-foulant additives are added to the crude to reduce this fouling tendency, saving energy and downtime for cleaning at the refinery. Although Infineum currently sells to refineries around the world, the anti-foulant market is a new area for the company and they have limited experience in dealing with the crude heat exchanger section. Refinery service companies often supply anti-foulants to refineries due to other miscellaneous supporting services that accompany these products, such as monitoring and dosing equipment. Key project objectives were:
Based on refinery feedback, determine the annual economic benefits of using anti-foulants in a typical refinery operation and what drives their use e.g crude type, temperature etc.
Identify how anti-foulants are used in a refinery and what supporting services are required to compete successfully in this market
Identify major European competitors and their anti-foulant strategies and value propositions
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INFOSYS TECHNOLOGIES
‘Non-Linear Opportunities for Infosys in Climate Change’
ATUL AGRAWAL, SENIOR PRINCIPAL
"I believe that this collaboration was mutually beneficial. It was an opportunity for the students to learn about Infosys as well as a corporate environment of a modern global organization. It was also very beneficial for Infosys to have bright students working on a real problem and apply management thinking for the same. I would like this partnership to continue in the future as well."
Climate Change is a very hot topic and presents an innovative business opportunity for an organization like Infosys. The charter for the students was to research the space, develop industry drivers and present a strategy to Infosys to succeed in this space in terms of non-linear business opportunities and become a trusted transformation partner of organizations worldwide.
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LINDEN LABS
KALPANA KASHYAP, DIRECTOR, PRODUCT MANAGEMENT
"We worked with four students from the Saïd Business School in the summer of 2008. The students showed exceptional dedication and flexibility in the course of their work, and delivered to their goals in the midst of constant change. This has been a great collaborative experience and we commend the school and the students for the excellent training, skills and dedication they brought to the project."
The goal of the effort was to assess the use of Second Life by institutions of higher education in Europe and the US, and evaluate the successes and challenges of the virtual world initiatives from these institutions, with the aim of informing ongoing improvements to Second Life service for educators.
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MACQUARIE BANK
‘The long run viability of agricultural renewable energy’
KONA HAQUE, COMMODITY STRATEGIST
"The work, as always, was appreciated and valued by Macquarie Bank, as is the partnership with Saïd Business School."
- Assess long term outlook of industry through 2020
- Understand profitability of the different feedstocks, regions, technologies
- Understand government mandates, their effects, and prospects for future
- Explore the role and viability of 2Gen biofuels
- Gain detailed knowledge of ethanol business in Brazil – Mill economics
- Estimate Brazil’s potential as a worldwide ethanol supplier / exporter
- Assess business opportunities on the ethanol industry for Macquarie
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MAN INVESTMENTS
‘MGS Risk Reporting and an Analysis of Fundamental Economic Factors’
KIRSTEEN AITCHISON, PRODUCT PERFORMANCE MANAGER
"The partnership between the Man Group and the Saïd Business School has enabled us to access highly skilled and intelligent individuals, who have provided meaningful analysis within a short space of time that is of real value to the business."
Part 1: A review of competitor risk reporting, consider most appropriate measures for MGS clients, and provide a template proposal for MGS risk reporting to investors.
Part 2: Using price histories of funds, price histories of economic variables and knowledge of fund positions and strategies, build up an understanding and calculation methodology of the undiversified systematic risk in the overall portfolio. Identify macro drivers of performance, and build up a matrix of factors at a style level, and produce a written report of findings, investigative methods, sources (data and academic research) and demonstrate supporting evidence.
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MAN ECO
‘Research in environmental finance covering the sectors of biomass, waste to energy and 2nd generation biofuels.’
MELANIE HERBERT, COO
"The research reports that resulted from the work of the Saïd Business School students will contribute to the origination and the due diligence process of the Man-Eco team."
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MAN GROUP
‘Building the Man Family – Communications & Knowledge Sharing’
CLAIRE ATTWELL, GRADUATE RECRUITMENT
"The partnership between the Man Group and the Saïd Business School has enabled us to access highly skilled and intelligent individuals, who have provided meaningful analysis within a short space of time that is of real value to the business."
- Provide a detailed review of our current communication capabilities within the firm
- Provide key recommendations on how we can achieve our vision to create “a united Man family’’
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MAN GROUP
‘‘The War for Talent’ - Best Practice in HR’
CLAIRE ATTWELL, GRADUATE RECRUITMENT
"The partnership between the Man Group and the Saïd Business School has enabled us to access highly skilled and intelligent individuals, who have provided meaningful analysis within a short space of time that is of real value to the business."
- Provide a detailed review of our current HR processes and operations
- Provide key recommendations on how we can improve productivity and increase our strategic value to the business without significantly increasing our headcount
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NOKIA
‘Business Modelling for Online Sales Channel & Service businesses
ANSSI RÖNNEMAA, DIRECTOR, FINANCE & CONTROL, NOKIA MARKETS GLOBAL PLANNING OFFICE
"The Project Team performed exceptionally well on this challenging consulting project which consisted of four interrelated project sub streams. They showed very good networking capability in a short time period and fast integration into organizations they worked with. The Project summary presentation to the executive finance team was well prepared and structured. Key findings and recommendations made by Project team are partly being taken forward in the organization and the rest will be assigned to initiatives in the teams responsible."
The Project work will concentrate on a current state analysis of the current pricing and business models for Online Sales Channel and Services & Software Business to give an understanding of the current status within Nokia, research and investigation into industry best practices and process design of desired target state for the Online Sales Channel and Service & Software Business together with the plan for implementation within sales organisation.
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PARHELION CAPITAL
‘European Put Option on carbon allowances (EUA) prices’
NICK SILVER, CHIEF ACTUARY
"This collaboration was beneficial to our organisation - it gave us an independent 3rd party view of a potentially new project. The team was able to get the views of leading industry players, and performed an excellent analysis of the options. The project will greatly inform the design and launch of the product."
A major limitation on attracting investment into the carbon market is that there is no guarantee that the market will exist beyond the end of the Kyoto period in 2012. The aim of the project was to develop a risk management tool, in the form of long dated out-of the money put option, which will enable investors to hedge against the collapse of Kyoto.
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ROYAL BANK OF SCOTLAND
‘Client On-boarding Target Operating Model’
HARPREET BATRA, HEAD OF REFERENCE DATA, CLIENT ON-BOARDING AND DATA QUALITY, CLIENTS TECHNOLOGY
"We found working with the MBA Students refreshing and productive. They provided a fresh perspective and original thinking to a problem we have been grappling with for some time."
Banks find themselves increasingly needing to balance regulatory constraints with commercial pressures of revenue generation and cost efficiency – in a global marketplace that has many local nuances. Client On-boarding is a key activity that must be completed in accordance with local and global legal and regulatory framework – but must also be done swiftly and efficiently. The Client On-boarding Target Operating Model defines the strategy for this. It includes processes, organisation design, tooling required, management metrics and the next steps to be taken.
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SIEMENS POWER GENERATION
‘Strategic Analysis of Workforce Demographics’
MARIO CANOVA, DIRECTOR
"The issue of demographics is an issue that is impacting major multinationals, including Siemens. The output of this project is very useful since it provides additional insight and consistency to our own internal outlook."
Issues and challenges that the industry faces with a demographic change and a rapidly ageing workforce.
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SWISS REINSURANCE COMPANY
'Scenario development for Swiss Re’s Emerging Risk Process.
Description and Application of a Light Scenario Methodology’
MARTIN WEYMANN, VICE PRESIDENT, SENIOR RISK MANAGER
"I endorse the collaboration with the four MBA students which was useful for both sides.
The most important benefits for Swiss Re were:
- Outside view on the use of scenarios for emerging risk assessments/evaluations.
- Emerging risk methodology development done by the MBA group ‘on the job':
The team chose renewable energies (i.e. solar, wind) as part of the ‘Changing and new technology of energy production’ topic to learn how to best apply the scenario methodology for emerging risks.
- Very useful and interesting interactions during the workshops with the MBAs and the James Martin Institute."
The purpose of the Strategic Consulting Project between Swiss Reinsurance Company and the Saïd Business School MBA team was to develop a fast track scenario methodology for the Emerging Risk framework of Swiss Re by developing and testing it with an application topic being ‘Changing and new technology of energy production’.
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WILLIAMS GRAND PRIX ENGINEERING
‘Williams Environmental Strategy’
ALEX BURNS, CHIEF OPERATING OFFICER
"In 2008, Williams F1 engaged with the Saïd Business School’s Strategic Consulting Project programme for the second time after a successful project in 2006. This year’s project has delivered a variety of useful outputs in an area that is of increasing strategic importance to Williams F1. The positive results of this and the previous project are evidence of the value that Williams F1 derives through its partnership with the Saïd Business School."
The 2008 Williams Environmental Strategy Project involved a comprehensive multiple-stakeholder assessment of the environmental and sustainability aspect of Williams F1’s activities. The project began with a rigorous internal carbon footprint audit, a review of environmental best practice and an examination of the public perception of motorsport. Based on these findings, a set of recommendations were made for internal and external initiatives as well as how they should be executed and communicated. The recommendations from the project are now a key resource to inform Williams F1’s strategic direction in this extremely important area.