Structuring a strategy for exit

We were approached by Lobster Ink, a European-based educational technology company, to assist them in compiling a relevant, future-focused business strategy.

Lobster Ink provides on-the-job, online training services to the global hospitality and hotel industry (the business has clients in over 130 countries around the world) and had, at the time, an annual turnover of US$24 million.

Challenge

Lobster Ink had grown rapidly since its founding in 2008 and had a globally-dispersed workforce that occupied offices in Geneva, Amsterdam, Dallas, London and Cape Town.

The culture of the business was different in each of these regions.

The business operated in a fast-paced environment where the needs of clients, and the technology required to deliver an effective solution, were changing constantly.

The internal stress of this constant change to simply keep up with developments was taking its toll on team members.

Up until that point the business had never had a future-focused strategy and had never before used metrics to measure progress towards a future-located business ideal. This meant that strategic decision-making changed constantly with no coherent collective vision of success. 

Solution

We approached the challenge internally at first, spending weeks interviewing key team members and managers to understand the default way of working that was pervasive throughout the business as well as within regional nodes.

From the research we assessed and positioned the existing internal culture of the organisation.

A thorough research analysis of the competitor and contextual environment was undertaken and key drivers of change were identified. 

A pivotal on-site workshop with the executive team in Geneva, Switzerland was conducted where the culture map along with the external drivers were used to assess possible future scenarios for the business, as well as plausible business consequences of each.

The scenarios were then used to develop consensus amongst the executive team to pursue the preferable future of the business.

Key leverage points were identified as strategic drivers along with objectives, milestones and initiatives. A full set of metrics were agreed on and compiled into a comprehensive strategy map.

As a part of the process, we compiled a comprehensive strategic stack for the business, which included key aspects such as clearly defining their value proposition, mission & vision, values, ethical and governance frameworks and business model - and then took this clarified view of the organisation through to the operational teams to get their buy-in to the vision.

We worked with each operational team on their individual frameworks to make sure that there was cohesion between them and the collective strategy and assisted with the implementation of the plan through months of coaching sessions with team leaders as well as key team members that were identified as having higher-levels of influence within teams.