Consumer Products and Retail

To navigate turbulent market conditions and stay ahead of competitors, businesses need to consider whether their supply chain has the resilience to operate within a high-inflation environment with rising costs, where customer behaviours are ever-changing and multifaceted. It is critical for organisations to develop and nurture a supply chain that can keep up with these fluctuating market conditions and manage the increasingly complex realities of operating on a global scale.  

Whether it is managing the growing pressures of designing Supply Chains to address growing uncertainty and risk, developing a sustainability agenda for the climate-conscious consumer, keeping up to date with the latest technologies and AI advancements, or managing attraction and retention of the best talent, we can support.  

Here’s where we can help:  

• Supply Chain intelligence – Efficient decision-making networks that enhance human intelligence to understand the current state of a supply chain, can predict what’s coming next and prescribe a solution to manage an outcome 
• Agility and Resilience – A supply chain that has the flexibility to quickly adapt to the evolving needs of the customer while also adjusting to the ever-changing availability of supply  
• Responsible Supply Chains – A trusted and transparent community of stakeholders (customers, shareholders, suppliers) working to protect and promote the human condition and intentionally operating within planetary boundaries 

Some of the common challenges we have seen and helped our clients resolve are:   

Procurement Cost Optimization: 

• Conducted a full expense review for a leading UK Grocer  
• Identified 30% of operating cost reduction benefits annually, through a portfolio of transformation projects 

Enhanced Planning Capabilities: 

• Redesigned the current planning processes for a global FMCG   
• Implemented an end-to-end planning tool to improve forecast accuracy by 20% (from 60% to 80%), enabling enhanced planning capabilities and reduced volatility 

Dynamic Logistics Operations: 

• Designed the operations of a future network for a global Food Manufacturer  
• Identified cost optimisation opportunities up to 13.3%, optimised by location and cost, detailed warehouse benchmarking and transport costs

To be tomorrow’s market leaders, consumer and retail companies must continue to innovate, moving beyond optimizing existing businesses models and products lines for incremental benefit. Developing world class innovation, culture, and capability will enable companies to leapfrog the competition and drive ambitious growth agendas - leading to products, services, and business models that deliver increased value and relevance, ahead of the market.  

Baringa’s unique approach leverages data and insight to prioritise key growth territories, develop and validate new innovative propositions and accelerate innovation to market. Always embedding sustainability into our core thinking and processes. Though our cutting edge expertise we create value from strategy through to deployment, market acceleration and scale-up.  

Here’s where we can help:  

• Achieve successful innovation in months not years - Reduce idea to shelf timelines from two to three years, to circa six months   
• Build and embed world class innovation capabilities - Build repeatable reusable skills, knowledge, processes and tools in your teams to sustain business innovation once we’ve left 
• Deliver tangible ROI - Through a more efficient and effective process deliver higher quality innovations, faster times to market with greater chances of success 

Some of the common challenges we have seen and helped our clients resolve are:   

Net-new Innovation to drive top line growth 

• Structured and delivered a series of innovation strategy and acceleration projects to the UK market for a global food and drink retailer  
• Defined growth territories, developed cost MVPs for pilot and tested in market to prove the business case with a roadmap to scale 
• Reduced the time to market by 1 year while developing the client’s innovation capability 

Development of new packaging format 

• Co-created a sustainable packaging format with a global beverage manufacturer 
• Led a cross-market squad running multiple R&D and prototyping sprints to assist to develop a new format for drink concentrates in the UK market  

Innovation to extend current Product Lines 

• Supported a multinational FMCG with market analysis and proposition development for product extension 
• Utilised data, lean canvas and sprint design methodology to create 8 prototype projects over 6-week period, with 4 going live in market

Stores are the showrooms for retailers and consumer products, providing a vital physical contact point between businesses and consumers. The way we shop has changed profoundly over the past decade, with traditional bricks-and-mortar stores having to adapt to changing consumer preferences and technological advancements to remain competitive.   

As the pace of change increases, agility across the entire store proposition is key. From strategic analysis to seamless execution at scale, our team brings a blend of consulting and deep industry experience to support clients across the wide Consumer Products and Retail category landscape.  

Here’s where we can help:  

Definition of store vision and strategy – with customer service propositions to enable innovative store formats that are financially and environmentally sustainable and aligned to brand values. 

• Defined the UK store vision and strategy for a global food and drink retailer (30,000 stores) 
• Designed a leaner store format at a 50% lower cost base enabling regional growth by targeting new and different customer occasions at increased profitability and ROI 

Optimisation of your operations – leverage a data-led design approach to enable a store operating model that ensures the right people, are doing the right things, in the right place, at the right time.  

• Designed a new, consistent store operating model for a leading UK grocer (~1500 stores) 
• Drove improvements to customer experience (increasing NPS) and reduced operational costs through identifying people, processes and technology efficiencies across the store estate 

Delivery of best-in-class experience – that merges online with offline for a truly seamless experience for both the customer and store colleagues 

• Adapted the strategy, business models and customer engagements of a global food & drink retailer (~700 stores) in response to COVID-19 
• Co-designed new membership and loyalty proposition that significantly improved critical store metrics 

Embedded change at scale – quality assurance to end-to-end transformation planning and programme management, leveraging clear frameworks for measuring success, building advocacy, and driving compliance to new ways of working 

• We are the long-standing delivery partner to a global jewellery retailer (~2500 stores)  
• Provide ongoing programme and change management expertise for their most complex initiatives, offering quality assurance to ensure strategic priorities remain on track and to the highest quality – a ‘critical friend that brings the best out of all parties’

Every business reaches a point where they cannot make the step change in business performance needed to unlock their full potential. When this happens, they need to move from evolving to transforming.  

We help our clients deliver strategic and purposeful transformational outcomes for customers, consumers, employees, shareholders, people and the planet. From talent blind-spots and lack of executionary preparedness, to an imbalance in your transformation risk management, we’re experts in detecting the tell-tale signs of when an organisation is calling for change and where support is required.  

Here’s where we can help:  

• Providing strategic advisory to guide organisations future transformations  
• Defining transformation approaches  
• Transformation set up and mobilisation   
• Bringing in transformation capability engineers  
• Executing and building capability for transformation  
• Coaching and aligning with leadership  
• Providing assurance capability for in-flight and historical transformations  

Some of the common challenges we have seen and helped our clients resolve are:   

Providing strategic advice and defining an actionable roadmap to meets strategic objectives   

• Co-created a supply chain planning transformation roadmap for a global FMCG company 
• Helped align transformation objectives to strategic vision, reviewing standardisation and automation opportunities, building a case for change and roadmap to achieve their goals   

Implementing, people-focused, process and tech-led transformations  

• Embedded new, efficient ways of working for a UK retailer while replacing outdated legacy systems  
• Led the programme blueprinting phase, collaborating with the third-party system integrator to deliver feasible and tailored future state system and process design 
• Delivered a complex programme with 10+ workstreams, establishing a governance and assurance approach to drive maximum value from third parties 
• Built long term capability, creating a proactive PMO office with ability to manage similar programmes  

Managing divestment, separation and post-merger integration end-to-end   

• Worked with a multinational FMCG global legal entity restructuring from planning to delivery  
• Established governance and project managing multi-system, multi-partner delivery workstreams across process redesign, op model and change management    
• Equipped the client with rigorous change control processes, robust risk and issue management, and scenario analysis frameworks