feature interview jurie hanekom · jurie hanekom ceo, swartland group just below the lion in the...

Driving Force:The DNA of Strategy

Stealth Competitionin the UK Grocery Sector

F E A T U R E I N T E R V I E W

Jurie HanekomCEO, The Swartland Group

Interview:Paul-Marie Chavanne

Chairman and CEO, GeoPost Group

T H E C E O s G U I D E T O S T R A T E G I C T H I N K I N G V O L . 2 7 , N O . 2

About

Decision Processes International-AfricaHeaded by Greg Carolin, Managing Partner

The DPI Africa consultancy group, a member of the Decision Processes International globalorganisation, was founded in South Africa in 1994 by Rex Glanville, current Chairman of the Africaoperation. Headquartered in South Africa and drawing support from the resources of the globalDPI network, DPI Africa is now headed by Managing Partner Greg Carolin and offers the full rangeof our critical thinking processes—Strategic Thinking SM, Strategic InnovationSM (Product andBusiness Model) and Situation Management SM. The firm also serves the Nigerian market throughits operation in River State, Nigeria.Greg Carolin’s career began in banking, with several strategy development positions at First

National Bank of Southern Africa (then Barclays Bank South Africa) and FirstRand. Introduced toDPI while involved in these ventures, Greg learned firsthand the power of Strategic Thinking concepts, seeing such results as the exceptional growth of the FNB HomeLoan Division, from R375million to R550 million, as the result of a refocused strategy.

Greg’s knowledge and experience in strategy creation and deployment have enabled him to lead the Strategic Thinking Processin reshaping the strategies of over 150 major players and emerging companies. The story of Swartland, one such company, is featured in this issue. Recently, he and the DPI facilitation team assisted MMI Holdings management to create a highly successfulstrategy as the company was formed through the merger of Momentum Group and Metropolitan Holdings.In 2012 Greg co-authored the book, Leadership Pure and Simple, with David Wilkins of DPI Asia, which encapsulates DPI’s

unique approach to harnessing and empowering people within organisations to create and deliver world-class strategies for growth.

DPI Strategic Thinking ProcessWe’ve been the catalyst of success for over 3,000 CEOs, delivering clear, focused corporate strategies created with

consensus and commitment that ensures implementation. It’s Strategy Pure and Simple.A complete departure from traditional strategic planning methods, the DPI Strategic Thinking Process™ enables

management teams to create their own strategies. No army of consultants. No endless "strategy project." Just a concisecommon-sense process that draws on the knowledge of the people that know the business best — your management team!

What value does a corporate strategy developed by your people deliver?Growth and profit are the obvious answers. And the DPI Strategic Thinking Process™ has helped CEOs from a

cross-section of industries achieve these results consistently for over 30 years.

The other essential benefits of the DPI hands-on approach are:

Clarity:When your management team finishes the process, they will possess a single vision of the future. Clarity is thebeginning of mastery!

Focus: A clear filter for decision making that enables your managers to direct their efforts towards activities/opportunitiesthat complement the desired strategic direction and prevent wasted efforts on unrelated issues.

Consensus and commitment: Agreement on, and ownership of, the future corporate strategy among the managementteam, delivers a strong commitment to successful implementation because they created it and own it. For any strategy tosucceed, your people must understand it, embrace it, and make it happen.

Time efficient: A winning corporate strategy is created in a matter of days, not weeks or months, with shorter meetings, fewer arguments, less dissipation of energy because everyone knows what's important. And budget setting becomes a simple process, not a time consuming game.

Greg Carolin

Decision Processes International South Africa was awarded Institutional Accreditation by the Services Sector Educationand Training Authority and has now officially been confirmed as a Provider of education and training in terms of theSAQA Act 1995 for the delivery of our Strategic Thinking Process Decision No: 1133

TheStrategistTM

Dear Executive:

Welcome to The Strategist, a

publication which offers you articles by

some of today’s leading thinkers on the

subject of corporate strategy.

DPI’s core technology is our

Strategic Thinking Process which enables

corporate management to create and

implement strategy. A common sense

approach to strategy, Strategic Thinking

is making traditional strategic planning

obsolete. This process enables a compa-

ny’s management team to reason out a

strategy as a group, assuring thorough

understanding, consensus, buy-in, and

effective implementation. In the “war

rooms” of more than 3,000 companies

throughout the world, global companies

such as 3M, FedEx Custom Critical,

Caterpillar, Prudential, Lubrizol and

Motorola as well as regional companies,

such as Rand Merchant Bank, Ascendas,

SATS Group, Cancer Treatment Centers

of America, and hundreds of small to

medium sized emerging companies—

this methodology has been refined and

validated by DPI for more than 30 years.

We hope you enjoy this issue of

The Strategist.

Good reading,

The Strategist is published by Decision ProcessesInternational, 4 Cranbrook Road, Shrewsbury, MA 01545 (508) 842-9291. Subscription information appears elsewhere in this issue. Submissions, subscriptions,address changes, and other correspondence should be sentto the above address. All reprints are published with permission, as noted. All other material is copyrightDecision Processes International © 2014, all rightsreserved. No material in The Strategist may be reprintedor reproduced in any form without written permission.

D e c i s i o n P ro c e s s e s I n t e r n a t i o n a l

The Strategist

3Visit DPI on the Internet at

www.decisionprocesses.co.za

4Interview:Jurie Hanekom CEO, The Swartland Group

8Driving Force:The DNAof Strategyby Greg Carolin, Senior Partner, DPI Africa

12Stealth Competition in the UKGrocery Sectorby John Acton, Senior Partner, DPI Europe

15Interview:Paul-Marie ChavanneChairman and CEO, GeoPost Group

Kay Phillips former COO, GeoPost Group

4

The Strategist

“I am third generation, thereis no short term thinking here,”says CEO Jurie Hanekom. “If Imust make a decision or action,I think about how it will impactthe next generation, and whatothers did before us. We haveto look at the legacy. So ‘Thinklong term’ means our productmust work long term, our cus-tomers stay long term and ourpeople must stay long termwith us. We must do the rightthing for the long term gain.”More than 60 years ago,

Jurie’s grandfather OupaHanekom opened an electricalcontracting and building supplybusiness in the small agricul-tural town of Moorreesburg, afew kilometres north of CapeTown, South Africa. Over theensuing 50 or so years, thebusiness evolved into a woodenproducts manufacturer with variousfamily members involved in manage-ment. When Jurie Hanekom becameCEO, the company had sharpened itsspecialisation, focusing on making

wooden windows and doors while stillmaintaining a small building supplybusiness which was eventually closed.Gradually, sales in the doors and win-dows business had grown and by 2002

had reached roughly 350 millionRand. By then, the company wasmarketing its products in severalsouthern African countries, andexporting to U.K. and the U.S.It was about then that Hanekom

ran into an obstacle eventuallyencountered by many entrepre-neurs, particularly those involvedin successful privately-ownedbusinesses. Swartland had becomelarge enough that it was no longerpossible for one man to manageevery aspect of the business everyday. And his management group,though operationally skilled, tend-ed to focus decision-making onshort term issues, simply becausethey did not have an understand-ing of the long term strategy.“We were doing quite well,”

Hanekom recalls. “We were thesmall fish in the pond but weregrowing quite quickly. And as we

were growing we realised that thestrategy was all in the head of one per-son—mine. We realised that this wasplacing restrictions on the companyand its growth. It had become more

I N T E R V I E W

Jurie Hanekom CEO, Swartland Group

Just below the lion in The Swartland Group’s logo is a phrasethat guides decision-making of the 60-year-old company everyday—Think long term.

Successful entrepreneurial companiesoften face a common problem—the strategy that made them successful exists solely in the head of the CEO.Those trying to execute the strategy struggle because they don’t reallyknow what it is. Such was the case at Swartland, a third generation family-owned manufacturing firm. In this interview with CEO Jurie Hanekom, he recounts how he used DPI’sStrategic Thinking Process to articulatethe company’s strategy, enabling his management team to honor theSwartland motto, “Think long term.” Copyright © 2014 Decision ProcessesInternational. All rights reserved.

D e c i s i o n P ro c e s s e s I n t e r n a t i o n a l w w w. d e c i s i o n p ro c e s s e s . c o . z a

Jurie HanekomCEO | SWARTLAND GROUP

http://www.decisionprocesses.co.za

5D e c i s i o n P ro c e s s e s I n t e r n a t i o n a l S t r a t e g i c T h i n k i n g C o n s u l t a n t s

difficult to change direction or bring innew ideas. People frequently had to betold what to do. There were no easytools to use to focus their actions orplans to guide them, to ensure thatthey would make good decisions follow-ing my strategy.”Hanekom realised that they needed

to create a clear, written strategy sothat managers could think indepen-dently and make daily decisions basedon their grasp of that strategy. SoSwartland did what many companiesdo in this situation. They brought invarious consultants to help them gettheir business strategy clarified, artic-ulated, and committed to paper. Theresults were disappointing at best.Says Hanekom, “We had consul-

tants come in and try to help us. Theyasked questions and wrote strategies,and when they were finished, theyhanded us books, and said, ‘Here’syour strategy.’ Those books wentstraight to the book rack, gatheringdust. Nothing happened because theywere not our strategies. We tried thatapproach a couple of times and none ofthat was successful. So we decided totry the DPI Strategic ThinkingProcess facilitated by DPI SeniorPartner Greg Carolin. These othertries at strategy development showedus that the strategy doesn’t work ifyou don’t use information from withinto build it. You need to get buy-in fromwithin the company. The DPI processworks in such a way that it pulls theinformation out of the heads of yourpeople, who know the business best.”

The initial Strategic Thinking sessions were a bit of a test for boththe management team, who had never been asked to participate in such an undertaking, and also forCEO Hanekom.

“It was the journey of my life,” hesays. “I am CEO, the ‘Head Lion’ aswe call it in Africa. I am a controlfreak, rehabilitated to a degree now. Iwas like a hen over her chickens. I hadto learn to sit down and let the otherscontribute their input.”As the teams went through the

process, evaluating all the aspects ofthe company—products, markets,threats and opportunities—Hanekombegan to see the process giving themthe structure and permission to voiceopinions and debate issues. He gradu-ally gained confidence, not only in thestrategy process itself, but also in hismanagers, the people to whom hewould entrust his company’s future.“This, at first, was not easy for me.

But I learned to stand back, trust theprocess and let the people do theirwork,” says Hanekom. “The DPI wayis such a well-defined process. The compilation of the outcomes

of the varioussteps became aworking docu-ment for thecompany. Thisbrought togeth-er all the

departments, levels of managementand shareholders and in the end gavethem a common goal that they them-selves had created.“When the DPI people started

asking about what our Driving Force

was, I said, ‘It’s me, and my boot!’ but we learned to think about this concept strategically and came to theconclusion that our Driving Force isour Product—wooden doors, windowsand trimmings.“There are fine lines between the

various Driving Forces and at firstyou may think they all apply to you, soyou must think and define these lines. We decided to be a Product-dri-ven company, not Distribution orProduction Capacity-driven. We havedone revisits over ten years anddebated this each time. We have madesome adjustments but are stillProduct-driven. Understanding ourDriving Force gives us direction forcapital investments which for us arebased mainly on raw materials and product enhancements. Withoutthese investments, we would not havestayed competitive or seen any positive growth.“The first Area of Excellence we had

to concentrate on then was ProductDevelopment, because the best prod-uct wins. And we must strive for excel-lence in Brand Equity. We have createda concept called ARK which stands forAvailability and Reliability andKnowledge of our products and ser-vices, which has given us a focus onbeing the supplier of first choice. Wenow operate on the principles of world-class systems across the business,using the Theory of Constraints,

“When the DPI people started askingabout what our Driving Force was,

I said, ‘It’s me, and my boot!’ but we learned to think about thisconcept strategically and came to

the conclusion that our Driving Forceis our Product—wooden doors,

windows and trimmings.—Jurie Hanekom

“It was the journey of my life,”—Jurie Hanekom

6

The Strategist

World-Class Manufacturing, LeanManufacturing and Speed to Market—and all of these come into it.”So the company turned its attention

to designing and building the best,most innovative products in its mar-ket. Swartland products have becomeknown for exceptional quality, such aswooden doors and windows designedfor their African markets, made fromsustainable hardwood, and kiln driedto consistent 8% moisture for longterm stability and durability.Continuous product development hasalso led to unique, new-to-the-marketproducts, such as its R2F (Ready toFit) product line, developed to savesignificant money in material costs forcontactor customers and reduce timeof installation.

Swartland has also created aunique strategic asset which would bedifficult for its competitors to dupli-cate—its game-changing supplychain, comprising a specialised quickresponse production process and anextensive distribution network, whichenables them to respond to orders in afraction of the time of its competitors.“Through ARK we have been able

to change the game—the other manu-facturers always take the order fromthe market and then deliver in 20 to30 days. We changed the game tobeing in-stock, and delivering on thenext route. The next routing can be 24hour delivery. We have set up a com-plete warehousing network in ourindustry that none of our oppositionhas. This distribution gives us theability to reach the customers withsmall quantities very quickly.“Right now, for example, it’s late in

the month, almost the last week, and Isaw that our order intake is accelerat-ing. This type of acceleration at thistime of the month is because theopposition is not delivering. Theircustomers have ordered at the begin-ning of the month, and they didn’t gettheir stuff. So they know they cancome to us and we’ll deliver, and weget premium pricing for that.”

Swartland has also learned thatinnovations have a shelf-life, drivingthe need to continuously deliver newconcepts throughout the value chain.“Changing the rules of the game,

as DPI refers to it, was a new con-cept for us,” Hanekom says. “It doeshowever create the urgency torealise that to stay competitive youhave to implement changes. Therules of the sandbox have to bechanged to make the playing fieldmore challenging for your competi-tors. And we realised that anychange we make in our sandbox is toour benefit for a year at most. One ofour competitors has a ‘fast-follower’strategy. They are very good at copy-ing us. A year at most is the advan-tage we get. So we must continue toinnovate in product and service, andbuild loyalty to our brand.”Applying these principles,

Swartland has continued to grow andmaintain competitive advantage in avery difficult economic environment,against considerable headwinds.“During the buildup to the econom-

ic crisis in 2008, manufacturers invest-ed in capacity to cope with demand,”Hanekom recalls. “After the bubbleburst, the manufacturing sector in ourindustry sat with surplus capacity,which is still the case today.Competition is fierce. It is tough to

ensure that you get enough volume tosustain your operations. So pricing isvery competitive and merchants arespoiled for choice.“Also, Swartland’s U.S. export busi-

ness was severely affected by thebuilding downturn. At one time wewere exporting up to 100 containersper month to the U.S. Now we aredown to 3 or 4. It is chalk and cheesefrom where it was, to where it is now.”Determined to win in this environ-

ment, Swartland has done StrategicThinking reviews several times in thepast ten years, to check progress, con-tinue to push the edges of the enve-lope, and fine-tune their strategicunderstanding.“Each time we do the process, we

get more familiar with it. The moreyou ‘exercise,’ the better the strategythat you develop out of it becomes. Wehave learned that the strategy is onlyas good as the feedback chain,” saysHanekom, “and you must always workon making your Critical Issues hap-pen which is not always easy.“The Critical Issues are something

that we are now using much moreeffectively than in the beginning. Weare evaluating people based on theprogress on the Critical Issues, thethings we’ve determined we have toaccomplish to make our strategywork. This adds another dimension to

Changing the rules of the game, as DPI refers to it, was a new concept

for us,” Hanekom says. “It does howevercreate the urgency to realise that to staycompetitive you have to implement

changes. The rules of the sandbox have to be changed to make the playing fieldmore challenging for your competitors.




ensure that our focus is in the rightplace. For this we have created a scorecard methodology to drive the successof the implementation.”The Business Concept derived dur-

ing the strategy sessions has alsobecome embedded in the minds of keymanagers, providing a concise, com-mon filter for decisions.Says Hanekom, “In man-

agement meetings, whensomebody is to report backon an area of responsibility,they must open with theBusiness Concept weagreed upon in the process.They must open with, ‘Ourstrategy is to profitablyincrease our leadershipposition in value-addedwooden products for thebuilding and DIY industrywithin Southern Africa andother selected internationalmarkets. We will achievethis by … and so on.’ Theymust say, ‘My responsibilityis this and this, and ourgoals to achieve are this andthis.’ We put it right in frontof our brains by repeatingand repeating it!“I always tell them

‘what’s in/what’s out.’ Wedon’t want to talk about the outthings, only the in things. And theyknow what the in and out things are.Does an opportunity get through ourStrategic Filter? The idea came up atone point about making aluminumwindows and doors, or PVC. Then weclearly said we are only working withwood. Nobody is going outside thatline. So this filter helps us stayfocused on our direction.“Another benefit to doing the

process regularly is the developmentof managers. The process hasempowered them to make decisionsthey know are correct, if they use thestrategy as a filter. This enables thecompany to act more consistentlyand ‘Think long term.’ We have been

using this process for ten years andwe now know how to motivate ourpeople to speak up and get theirinput in and get the feeling ofbelonging and sharing in it, so youget the buy-in.“If we kept on the way we were

going, I could never have beenrelieved from running the business.The vision that we had as to what wewanted to do with this company wasnot understood back in 2002, so wehad to change. Otherwise, I wouldnever have been able to take a lesserrole and have professional manage-ment in place.”Today sales have roughly doubled

since 2002 to just under 1 billionRand, and management is looking at

the future of its business, where it willgo from here.“Swartland is now managed on the

principles and philosophy of ‘Thinklong term,’ Continuous Improvement,our World Class Manufacturing, andTheory of Constraints. To make thestrategy the people’s strategy, every-body has to be able to relate to it. Theprocess has given the necessary peo-ple the opportunity to give their input,and buy-in is created via the process.“Our business is evolving and will

continue to do so. It doesn’t just hap-pen by accident. It happens becauseyou think about it; you work itthrough and keep using this process.You and your people learn to thinkstrategically into the future.”

Today sales have roughly doubledsince 2002 to just under 1 billionRand, and management is looking

at the future of its business, where it will go from here.

The Strategist

8D e c i s i o n P ro c e s s e s I n t e r n a t i o n a l w w w. d e c i s i o n p ro c e s s e s . c o . z a

o achieve competitive supremacy,and deliver sustainable growth,a company needs to have a strat-egy that establishes a significant

and sustainable point of differentia-tion — one that enables it to addunique value that competitors willhave difficulty duplicating. Of course,most companies have a strategy ofsome sort. Yet few are able to create aclear definition of that single differen-tiating factor — if there is one — thathas enabled the company to be suc-cessful in the past. Still fewer havelooked down the road to create a sce-nario, or strategy, that will enablethem to be successful in the environ-ment they will face in the future.

We call that defining factor theDriving Force. It is the component ofthe business that is unique to that com-pany and is the key determinant of thechoices management makes withregard to future products, future cus-tomers, and future markets. Withoutan understanding of, and agreementupon, that Driving Force, managementwill have a difficult time creating astrategy for the future that will breedsupremacy over its competitors.

What Makes Your StrategyTick?The best way to determine whether

a CEO and the management teamhave a strategy is to observe them in

meetings as they try to decidewhether or not to pursue an opportu-nity. When we have sat in on suchmeetings, we have noticed that man-agement would put each opportunitythrough a hierarchy of different fil-ters. The ultimate filter, however, was always whether there was a fitbetween the products, customers, andmarkets that the opportunity broughtand one key component of the organi-sation. If they found a fit there, theywould feel comfortable with thatopportunity, and would proceed with it. If they did not find a fit there,they would pass.Different companies, however,

looked for different kinds of fit. Some

Driving Force:The DNA of Strategyby Greg Carolin — SENIOR PARTNER, DPI AFRICA

What single element of your organisation sets you clearly apart from—and hopefully ahead of—your competition? Many CEOs will find that ifthey pose this question to their senior managers, they will get as manyanswers as there are managers. Lack of consensus on what we at DPI callyour Driving Force is guaranteed to waste resources and weaken yourcompetitive position.Excerpted from the ground-breaking book Leadership Pure & Simple, by Greg Carolin and David Wilkins. Copyright © 2013. All Rights Reserved. Published by McGraw-Hill Books.Copyright © 2014 Decision Processes International

T



companies looked for a fit betweensimilar products. Others were lessconcerned about the similarity ofproducts than about a fit with the cus-tomer base. Still others were notinterested in the similarity of prod-ucts or of the customer base, butrather a fit with the technologyinvolved, or a fit with its sales andmarketing method, or its distributionsystem. Some quick examples:What fit was Daimler looking for

when it bought Chrysler? Obviously,the fit was one between similar prod-ucts. Johnson & Johnson, on the otherhand, looked for an entirely differentkind of fit when it acquiredNeutrogena creams from one compa-ny, and the clinical laboratories ofKodak, each bringing dramaticallydifferent products. J&J was lookingfor a fit between the class of cus-tomers served — doctors, nurses,patients, and mothers — the heart-beat of J&J’s strategy.

Ten Strategic AreasThe next question that came to

mind was: “What are the areas of anorganisation that cause managementto decide how to allocate resources orchoose opportunities?” We discoveredthat each of the more than five hundred-plus companies we hadworked with consisted of ten basiccomponents.

1. Every company offered a productor service for sale.

2. Every company sold its product(s)or service(s) to a certain class of customer or end user.

3. These customers or end usersalways resided in certain categoriesof markets.

4. Every company employed technol-ogy in its product or service.

5. Every company had a productionfacility located somewhere that had acertain amount of capacity or certainin-built capabilities in the making ofa product or service.

6. Every company used certain salesor marketing methods to acquire customers for its product or service.

7. Every company employed certaindistribution methods to get a productfrom its location to a customer’s location.

8. Every company made use of natur-al resources to one degree or another.

9. Every company monitored its sizeand growth performance.

10. Every company monitored itsreturn or profit performance.

As a result of these observations,two key messages emerged. First, allten areas exist in every company.Second, and more importantly, one ofthe ten areas tends to dominate thestrategy of a company consistentlyover time. Favouring or leveragingthis one area of the business time andagain determines how managementallocates resources or chooses oppor-tunities. In other words, one compo-nent of the business is the engine ofthe strategy — that company’s so-called DNA, or Driving Force. ThisDriving Force determines the array ofproducts, customers, industries, andgeographic markets that managementchooses to emphasise more andemphasise less.In order to explain this concept

more clearly, one needs to look at anorganisation as a body in motion.

Every organisation, on any one day, isan organism that has movement andmomentum and is going forward insome direction. Our contention is thatone of the ten components of a company’s operation is the strategicengine behind the decisions that management makes. Some typical examples follow.

A Strategy Driven by a SingleProduct or ServiceA company that is pursuing a prod-

uct-driven strategy has deliberatelydecided to limit its strategy to a singu-lar product and its derivatives.Therefore, all future products and the“current” product are linear, geneticextrapolations of the very first prod-uct that company ever made. In otherwords, the look, form, or function ofthe product stays constant over time.Such companies grow by offeringproduct derivatives that fragment andgrow the market. Examples are Coca-Cola (soft drinks), Boeing (airplanes),Michelin (tires), Harley-Davidson(motorcycles), and many of the auto-mobile manufacturers (GM, Toyota,Volkswagen).

Strategy Driven by a User orCustomer ClassA company that is driven by a user

or customer class has deliberatelydecided to restrict its strategy to adescribable and circumscribable classof end users or customers (people).These end users or customers are theonly ones the company serves. Thecompany then identifies a commonneed of the user or customer class andresponds with a wide array of geneti-cally unrelated products. Examplesare Johnson & Johnson (doctors, nurs-es, patients, and mothers), AARP(adults over 50), and CancerTreatment Centers of America(patients with advanced stage or complex cancers). User/customer classcompanies grow by expanding the poolof users they serve and/or by expand-ing the set of needs they address.

Our contention isthat one of the tencomponents of a

company’s operationis the strategic

engine behind thedecisions that

management makes.


Strategy Driven by MarketType or CategoryA company that is driven by market

category has deliberately decided tolimit its strategy to a describable mar-ketplace or market type. The companyidentifies a common need among buy-ers in that market and then respondswith a wide variety of genetically unre-lated products, adding to this stable asmarket conditions change. Examplesare Staples (supplies for offices),Disney’s concept of “wholesome enter-tainment for the family” and SingaporeTechnologies Aerospace (the largestnon-airline MRO in the world).

Strategy Driven byTechnology/Know-HowA technology-driven company is

rooted in some basic, hard technology,such as chemistry or physics, or somesoft technology, such as know-how orexpertise. The company then goeslooking for applications for its technol-ogy or expertise. Once it finds anapplication, the company develops aproduct that is infused with its tech-nology for that application, and offersthe new product to all the customersin that market with a similar applica-tion. While growing that business, thecompany goes around looking foranother application to repeat the sameprocess. Examples are DuPont (chem-istry), 3M (polymers), and Intel(microprocessor architecture).UPS is an example of a company

that transformed itself by changingits Driving Force from DistributionMethod (package delivery network) toKnow-How (logistics), opening up arange of new service opportunities.

Strategy Driven by ProductionCapability or CapacityA company driven by production

capacity has a substantial investmentin its production facility. The keyphrase heard around the company is“keep it humming” — three shifts perday, seven days per week, 365 daysper year. The strategy is to keep the

production facility operating at a max-imum level of capacity. Examples aresteel companies, refineries, and pulpand paper companies. Service relatedcompanies, firms such as airlines andhotels, are also often “productioncapacity” driven.A company driven by production

capability has incorporated some dis-tinctive capabilities into its productionprocess that allows it to do things toits products that its competitors havedifficulty duplicating. As a result,when the company goes looking foropportunities, it restricts its searchto opportunities in which these capa-bilities can be exploited. Specialtyconverters in a variety of industries fitthis category.

Strategy Driven by Sales orMarketing MethodWhen a strategy is driven by a

sales or marketing method, the com-pany has a unique or distinctivemethod of selling to its customers,such as Avon and Mary Kay. All theopportunities it pursues must utilisethat selling method.

Strategy Driven by DistributionMethodA company driven by a distribution

method has a unique or distinctive

approach to moving tangible or intangible things from one place toanother, such as Wal-Mart, FedEx andNetFlix.

Strategy Driven by NaturalResourcesA company whose entire purpose

is the pursuit and exploitation of natural resources such as oil, gas, ore,gold, timber, or other resources, suchas Exxon, Shell, and Newmont Gold.

Strategy Driven by Size orGrowthA company driven by size or growth

is usually a conglomerate of unrelatedbusinesses. Its sole strategic interestis growth and size for their own sake.

Strategy Driven by Return orProfitA company whose sole strategic

focus is a minimum level of return orprofit is also a conglomerate of unrelat-ed businesses. Western examples suchas Tyco, AlliedSignal, and GeneralElectric are decreasing, but due to dif-ferent market and political structures,return/profit firms remain prevalent inAsia, such as Jardine Matheson (HongKong), Keppel Group (Singapore),Fuson International (China), CP Group(Thailand) and Chaebol (Korea).

Key Strategic QuestionsWhen we take a client through our

Strategic Thinking Process, we askthe CEO and the management teamto debate three key questions toenable them to identify the company’scurrent and future Driving Force.

QUESTION 1: Which compo-nent of your business is current-ly driving your strategy and hasmade you look as you look todayin terms of current products,customers, and markets?

If there are ten people in the room,how many answers do you think we get?Ten, and sometimes more … the reason

Any strategy needs to accommodate the environment the company willencounter in thefuture, and that

environment could be very different from the one encountered in the past.

The Strategist



is simple. Each person has a differentperception as to which component of thebusiness is the Driving Force behind thecompany’s strategy, often due to theirfunctional bias. These different inter-pretations lead to different visions ofwhere the organisation is headed. Thedifficulty, while this is going on, is thateach member of the team makes deci-sions that pull the company left andright, so the company zigzags its wayforward without establishing suprema-cy in any one sandbox. The inevitableresult is that resources are wronglyemployed and growth is patchy.The methodology we bring to bear

at DPI encourages management tolook back at the history of decisionsthey have made and, by doing so,recognise a pattern. Typically, most oftheir decisions were made to favourone component of the business. Thus,the management team recognises thecurrent Driving Force behind theircurrent strategy.

QUESTION 2: Which compo-nent of the company should bethe Driving Force behind thecompany’s strategy in the future?

Future strategy should not neces-sarily be an extrapolation of the cur-rent strategy. Any strategy needs toaccommodate the environment thecompany will encounter in the future,and that environment could be verydifferent from the one encountered inthe past. This question is the basis forenvisioning “breakaway” strategiesthat explode the assumptions of thecurrent sandbox to envision a new onethat offers significantly greateropportunities to establish supremacyover competitors. Such a strategyenables the company to create, orreposition itself in, a future sandbox ina way that offers it more growth andprofitability than competitors, andcontrol of that sandbox.Since different Driving Forces bring

different growth characteristics, thedesire to achieve higher growth is

often the primary rationale behind achange of Driving Force. Montblanc isan example; from product (pens) tocustomer/user class (luxury accessoryneeds of business executives).Teckwah Industrial Corporation, aDPI client based in Singapore, is a rar-ity, having successfully changed itsDriving Force twice in recent years.

QUESTION 3:What impact willthis Driving Force have on thechoices the company must makeregarding future products, futurecustomers, and future markets?

The Driving Force the companychooses as the engine of its strategywill determine the choices its manage-ment makes as to the products, cus-tomers, and markets that they will andwill not emphasise in the future. Thesechoices will shape the profile of thecompany, and maybe even the indus-try, over time. Each Driving Force willcause management to make very dif-ferent choices that will make the com-pany look very differently than theway it looks today. In other words, justas your personal DNA determineswhat you look like and why you lookdifferently from other people, thesame is true for your corporate DNA.The company component you select asthe DNA of its strategy will determinewhat that company will eventually looklike and what will differentiate it fromits competitors.

The concept of Driving Force — tous at DPI — is fundamental for anysuccessful CEO to understand. It isthe recognition and understanding, byall members of the management team,of that one predominant component ofthe business — its Driving Force —that will allow the organisation to for-mulate a strategy based on a distinc-tive and sustainable advantage thatcan give it long-term supremacy overits competition.The perils of failing to gain consen-

sus on the business’ Driving Force andresultant strategy can be deadly. At what turned out to be the keycrossroads of its story, DigitalEquipment Corporation had three dif-ferent management camps that theCEO never rationalised, leading toschizophrenic strategic behaviour.The company stagnated before even-tually being acquired by Compaq (andthat’s another story!)Each Driving Force brings with it a

requirement to excel in a very differ-ent set of skills. No company can out-excel its competitors across the board.One cannot out-muscle every competi-tor in the market. Therefore, itbecomes important to identify thecompany’s Driving Force and the cor-responding Areas of Excellence,which are then given preferentialtreatment. These areas keep thestrategy strong and healthy and builda long-term strategic advantage overcompetitors.

The Driving Force the companychooses as the engine of its strategy

will determine the choices its management makes as to the

products, customers, and markets that they will and will not emphasise in the future.

The Strategist


ur experience with thousandsof companies in nearly everyindustry has led us to believethat every robust strategy

process must look beyond the conven-tional competitive environment anduncover any unexpected force thatmay disrupt your business arena.DPI has named this competitive forcethe Stealth Competitor. The StealthCompetitor—or disruptor—has theability to enter an industry and dra-matically change the way the gamegets played. The disruption caused byAldi and Lidl to the UK grocery sector is a very recent example ofhow the Stealth Competitor has

wreaked havoc on an industry. For the “Big 4” (Sainsbury’s, Asda, Tesco and Morrison’s), their StealthCompetitors didn’t even appear ontheir radar. Let’s take a closer look athow Aldi and Lidl have re-shaped theGrocery Sandbox and changed therules of the game:

The rise of the LADs (limitedassortment discounters):Despite their strong market posi-

tion, the Big 4 have experienced sig-nificant declines in recent years.Tesco has dominated the media inrecent months with the departure of Chief Executive Phillip Clarke. A

further investigation into misreportedprofits culminated in their Chairmanalso announcing his departure.Shoppers meanwhile have started

to turn to the LADs such as Aldi andLidl. Both Aldi and Lidl entered theUK market in the early 1990s andafter 2 decades of moderate success,they seem to have finally built a killerproposition that resonates with UKshoppers. This has contributed tostellar growth since 2010. Lidl nowhas more than 600 stores in the UKand Aldi more than 500. Aldi expectsto generate record sales of £7bn in2014 and Lidl UK expects to enjoy asimilar turnover.

O

Stealth Competitionin the UK Grocery Sectorby John Acton — SENIOR PARTNER, DPI EUROPE

Many corporate strategies are based on past andcurrent conditions, failing to anticipate hiddendisruptors in the business landscape of the future.DPI calls these threats Stealth Competitors in its Strategic Thinking Process, which enablesmanagers to uncover them. In this article JohnActon, Senior Partner, DPI Europe, recounts arecent case where four major companies havebeen severely impacted by Stealth Competitorsthey should have seen coming.Copyright © 2014 Decision Processes International –Europe. All rights reserved.

12


D e c i s i o n P ro c e s s e s I n t e r n a t i o n a l S t r a t e g i c T h i n k i n g C o n s u l t a n t s

Impressively, whilst Aldi’s share ofmarket is still modest, it has managedto reach No 1 in YouGov’s list offavourite brands, overtaking JohnLewis and Samsung. It also expects to announce a 25% jump in annualsales when it issues its full-year figures. In comparison, October 2014’sKantar figures showed Tesco’s salesto be down 1.5% year on year;Sainsbury’s down 4% and Morrison’sdown 4.6%.

How the two StealthCompetitors, Aldi and Lidl,have turned the grocery sector upside down:The Big 4 have been playing to one

set of rules; providing choice, a multi-channel shopping experience, and cus-tomer-focused add-ons such as loyaltyschemes. They have built a pricestrategy centered around defendingthemselves from each other. Theyhave invested heavily in price-match-ing schemes, as a cornerstone of theirstrategy to compete on price witheach other.Behind the scenes, the discount

retailers have been changing the rulesin the Grocery Sandbox. They havebeen truly customer-centric in build-ing their offer. They are reshaping theway we shop, and we like it!

There are several key tenets totheir strategy:

1. Becoming “more British”Their success has partly been the

result of a wide-ranging customer

review into customer perceptionscommissioned in 2010, which showedfor instance that shoppers wantedthem to become “more British.”They now source all their fresh

meat, milk and eggs from Britain.

2. A more limited offeringThe secret to their business model

is having a limited range of goods.While Aldi sells 1,500 lines, a Tescosupermarket can sell 40,000. RonnyGottsclich, the UK boss of Lidl puts itsuccinctly: “If you [and another cus-tomer] don’t know each other, wouldyou like to pay for his choice of a dif-ferent type of water? If you go toanother retailer that has got 20 differ-ent types of water, someone has got topay for that space, someone has got topay for that rent.”Whilst breadth of choice is a unique

selling point for the big hypermarketsand superstores, not only is the cus-tomer paying for this, but to someextent they are bamboozled by it.Sales are declining in the large for-mat stores; there is too much choice.For cash and time-strapped shoppers,the simplicity of Aldi and Lidl isappealing.

3. Capitalising on longer andmore short-lived trendsThey have also shrewdly cottoned

on to trends, such as locally-sourcedproduce and producing dinner-partyshow-stoppers at bargain prices.The fashionable and decadent steakof the moment is Wagyu, and Aldisells Waygu sirloin for just £6.69. Ina sport-obsessed summer, with the

Tour de France in Britain, theylaunched a limited range of high-endbikes and a £65 GPS watch that mea-sured your heartbeat, location, aswell as the time.

4. An assurance of quality atthe lowest pricePerhaps most importantly, they

have seduced the shopper by offer-ing random luxury goods, such aslobster tail and prosecco at incredi-bly affordable prices. This has creat-ed a viral buzz about the new Aldiand Lidl. In addition they carryinternational lines that have growingappeal. Whether it is extra virginolive oil, Parma ham or mascarpone,the prices are significantly lowerthan those in both Waitrose or Tesco.They have also recently introducedfine wines into London stores in a bidto attract more affluent shoppers.DPI’s Stealth Competitor Process

enables leaders to flush out hidden threats like these. Had theBig 4 searched out the StealthCompetitors they might not be in thedefensive position they find them-selves in today. The LADs arebecoming seemingly unstoppable.They have changed the game, theyare dictating the new rules ofengagement in the sandbox. The Big4 and Waitrose were so busy watch-ing each other they missed the Stealth Competitors. This is a good example of why the DPIStrategic Thinking Process includesfocus on understanding your sand-box and the potential entrance ofStealth Competitors.

The Stealth Competitor—or disruptor—has the ability to enter an industry and dramatically change the way

the game gets played.

DPI’s StealthCompetitor

Process enablesleaders to flushout hiddenthreats.

13

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GeoPost, Europe’s largest road-based express parcel delivery service,nearly suffered the same fate. Butthrough a unique capability of DPI’sStrategic Thinking Process, the com-pany uncovered an unseen “StealthThreat” from the e-commerce arena,avoided disaster and created a prof-itable growth business.

An Initial Strategy ReviewGeoPost had expanded steadily over

a decade from its beginnings inFrance, through a combination ofacquisitions, joint ventures and organ-ic growth. The company concentratedon a Business-to-Business model,serving the needs of corporations andretail shops, not individual consumers.Its network had spread to includemost of Europe, UK, and parts ofRussia, China, India, South Africa andeven the U.S. Today GeoPost Groupemploys some 24,000 people, with revenues approaching €5bn, mainlyunder the DPD brand.In 2008, CEO Paul-Marie Chavanne

decided the company needed a strate-

gic review. Based on a recommenda-tion from one of GeoPost’s key execu-tives, Chavanne opted to use DPI’sStrategic Thinking Process to assessthe company’s strategy and futuredirection with DPI Senior Partner,Craig Bowers, as lead facilitator.Chavanne explains, “The way I wasintroduced to DPI was that I haddecided to appoint the first COO forthe GeoPost Group, Kay Phillips, who

had been CEO of the UK businessunit. It had become too big for me tomanage all of the issues myself. SoKay accepted, and said, ‘If we’re goingto do this right, there is something weneed to do first. I know of a strategyconsulting company called DPI, whohas an absolutely fantastic process forcreating and deploying strategy. Weneed to make sure the business unitsare all together on our strategy andthis process is excellent for that.’ Shehad a very good experience with DPIin the UK, and recommended we takeour CEOs and other senior managersfrom most of the BUs through DPI’sStrategic Thinking Process.”Says Phillips, “I had been through

a traditional consultant’s strategyproject previously, and I was not veryimpressed. They tended to write astrategy along the lines of the CEO’sthinking which was then communicat-ed to the managers. In contrast theDPI approach involves your key peo-ple from the start—giving them theopportunity to use their knowledge ofthe industry, market and customers to

Paul-Marie ChavanneChairman and CEO | GEOPOST GROUP

Kay Phillipsformer COO | GEOPOST GROUP

Paul-Marie Chavanne, Chairman and CEO,GeoPost Group

The Internet, one of the most disruptive technologies in history,has given rise to thousands of new services, companies, evenindustries. It has also meant disaster for some of the world’smost successful businesses. Kodak, Blockbuster, and Borderscome quickly to mind.

In the back of every CEO's mind is thesuspicion that an unseen threat to thebusiness lurks somewhere ahead. A newtechnology, a competitor with a uniquenew advantage, an unexpected conse-quence of a subtle demographic shift. In this interview with Paul-MarieChavanne, the GeoPost CEO explainshow the DPI Strategic Thinking Processhelped to uncover an Internet-based trendthat could have devastated the company. Copyright © 2014 Decision Processes International

16

The Strategist


create your strategy, a strategydeployment structure, and an excel-lent process for delivering results. Italso is very valuable in developingmanagers, bringing them new insightsand skills. The financial results weregood for us in the UK. We deliveredgrowth, major investments were madeand profitability was up.”The 2008 GeoPost Group strategy

team included about twenty key man-agers, including CEOs of most of thevarious business units across severalcountries, many of them recentlyappointed.Chavanne explains, “Instead of

delivering hundreds of slides andlessons to the management, as manyconsultants do, this process is mainlybased on the work and thinking of thepeople themselves. So they create thestrategy. I was very impressed by themethodology, by the questions thatwere raised before beginning themeeting. Everybody received adetailed questionnaire with questionspresented in a very precise way to gaininitial inputs.“From the beginning, I sensed the

real essence of DPI’s methodology,which is to drill down into the funda-mentals of the business to help usclearly understand what we weredoing in order to discipline our minds.It was not to merely create emptywords, which is always the risk withstrategy development, but to drive usto develop a very deep link with our

substance and consistency, to reallyunderstand and agree on what theessence of our company is,” saysChavanne. “I think, in business lifeand in life in general, you alwaysbelieve that you understand what youare doing. But in fact, when you drilldown a little bit, you discover that thesituation may be more complex thanwhat you initially believed.”

Driving Force, the Heartbeat ofStrategic Thinking“An important part of the process

for us was to select our DrivingForce,” Chavanne recalls. “We select-ed a Distribution Driving Force aftera great deal of discussion, which givesus a definition of what aspects of thebusiness we will need to emphasiseand nurture in the future. It was a bigmind-shift for everyone, but itbecame accepted because everyonecould eventually see the part theywould play.”Says Kay Phillips, who has since

retired from the company, “At first,some people could not understandhow you can have just one DrivingForce. ‘Aren’t all of the parts of thebusiness important?’ That’s wherethe experience of our DPI facilitator,Craig Bowers, came in. He explainedexamples of how various companieshad chosen their Driving Forces, andhow that choice has deep implicationsfor what the business will be in thefuture. That helped our strategy team

to understand why one area of thebusiness drives it forward—in ourcase, our Distribution Network—butthat every area contributes supportto make it stronger.”As the GeoPost management team

progressed through the process, theygained a new understanding of thecombined businesses, and the differ-ences and commonalities between thevarious countries and business units.But no startling revelations had cometo light—until the very last step.Chavanne explains, “We were in theposition where most of the businesseswere profitable, going well, goodgrowth. Everything at that timeappeared very calm, very strong,without any clouds on the horizon.

“If we’re going to do this right, there is something we need to do first.

I know of a strategy consulting companycalled DPI, who has an absolutely

fantastic process for creating and deploying strategy. We need to make sure the business units are all together on our strategy and

this process is excellent for that.”—Kay Phillips

Kay Phillips, former COO, GeoPost Group

“Instead of deliveringhundreds of slides and lessons to the

management, as manyconsultants do, thisprocess is mainly

based on the work and thinking of the peoplethemselves. So they create the strategy.”

—Paul-Marie Chavanne



This was our mindset.“We were very satisfied at this

point because we realised that wewere going much deeper into a knowl-edge of what we were doing as a busi-ness. The atmosphere was very opti-mistic. There was no big shift indicat-ed, just that we were all thinkingtogether. But then the exercise I callthe ‘Stealth Threat’ was a big one forus,” says Chavanne.This phase of the DPI process

enables teams to scan their businessarena, including adjacent “sandbox-es” as well as trends in technology,demographics, and so on, to look forthe potential of unexpected new com-petitors and disruptive threats.

Stealth Threat, a StartlingRealisationChavanne explains, “In that exercise,

at first we didn’t see any threats. Andthen, two of the teams looked at theBusiness-to-Consumer market, whichwe were not really involved in then. Forthe traditional B-to-B express deliveryplayer, B-to-C was thought to be a badgame. Postal operators drove that fieldof the business with low price, bad com-mercial habits, and so on.“And somebody said, ‘Hey guys,

when you look at the trends, when youlook at what some people are now feel-ing about the development of theInternet, what could happen if in a fewyears the Internet, e-commerce,explodes?’ In 2008 the Internet was inexistence but it was not what it is now.It was a smaller business.“Then somebody else said, ‘What it

means for our business is that theshops, our core customers, will sufferand our growth in B-to-B will come tozero, perhaps even be negative. Sowhat would that mean for us?’ And sud-denly everyone began to discuss thatissue. It was a fantastic experience. Inthree hours of discussions we all cameto the conclusion, without trying toforce anybody to agree, that if the B-to-C business were really growing, itwould threaten all of our B-to-B busi-ness, and our entire business model.

“Why?” Chavanne explains, “As aDistribution-driven business we needgrowth because a distribution companyis made up of a lot of fixed cost. Wehave networks. We have a lot of logis-tics assets, a lot of people. So the fixedcosts of the business—energy, vehicles,buildings, salaries—are very high.Every year we need to have more rev-enues in our network, more parcels inour hubs. We need more volume. Weneed to increase our productivity andconcentrate on all the driving factorswhich can improve our fixed cost. “All these costs tend to go up, and

we need consistent growth in order tomaintain the business and our profitmargin. If we don’t grow it’s thebeginning of a vicious circle. Lessgrowth means less margin, and with asmaller margin you are forced to cutcosts where you shouldn’t. When youcut those costs, you risk decreasingthe quality of the service, and losingcustomers.“So by the time we finished the

process, everyone was convinced thatwe had to think a lot more about B-to-C. As the CEO of the company, I couldnot ignore this and we had to make it astrategic imperative to invest energy,imagination and creativity to assessthe threat and develop solutions. Thiswas the beginning of a fantastic jour-ney for our team, all the businessunits, which took us about threeyears,” Chavanne says.

Throughout the next couple ofyears the B-to-C strategy teams inthe various GeoPost business unitsset out to assess the e-commercetrends in their markets and formideas about how to mitigate the threator turn it into an asset.

Revisiting the B-to-C ConceptIn 2011, Chavanne felt it was time to

take another look at the company’sstrategic assumptions, with the B-to-C issue at the forefront. Once again hebrought in DPI.“The result of that refresher ses-

sion with DPI was that we confirmed,because of what our teams had beenlearning, that B-to-C was in fact thekey question,” says Chavanne. “Bythis time the development of theInternet was proven to be the future.So because of these two strategic ses-sions with DPI we decided to progres-sively convert our pure B-to-Bexpress parcel network into what wenow call a hybrid B-to-B and B-to-Cexpress parcel network.”

Managing Critical IssuesAcross the NetworkSystems, processes, people, assets

—everything in the company—wouldbe involved. Given the complexity ofthe undertaking, a comprehensiveproject management system neededto be put in place, under COO Phillips’direction.

“We were very satisfied at this point becausewe realised that we were going much deeperinto a knowledge of what we were doing as

a business. The atmosphere was veryoptimistic. There was no big shift indicated,

just that we were all thinking together. But then the exercise I call the

‘Stealth Threat’ was a big one for us,” —Paul-Marie Chavanne

18

The Strategist


“One of the great things about theDPI process is that it brings an excel-lent structure to manage the strategythrough the Critical Issues,” Phillipsexplains. “As an output of the strategyprocess, we set up the Critical Issueslist. We certainly had to have a multi-option B-to-C proposition that wouldbe flexible to fit differences betweencountries, yet seamless to our cus-tomers. We would have to know exact-ly what we needed to change in everyunit — in sales, IT, customer service,operations, marketing. And therewould be quite a major requirementfor investment. It touched every areaof the business.“One challenge, for example, was

that our volume, let’s call it 500,000parcels per night, could increase by athird or more to maybe 700,000 pernight in the run-up to Christmas in B-to-C, which doesn’t really happen inB-to-B. We had to be very cleverabout how to add people and facilitiesto cope with that, so we would notdamage service.“So we set up the Critical Issues

project teams whose individual planshad to be aligned with the ‘umbrella’Critical Issues. The teams reported toour central program office to monitorprogress and assure alignment acrossthe business units,” says Phillips. “Animportant issue was cost control.Because of the investment that wouldbe needed, a ‘war on cost’ waslaunched. We eliminated millionsthrough process improvements, shar-ing of best practice and expertise, anda greater alignment to our strategiccommon goals. We came out of it astronger company with a new, muchlower cost base. Every businessachieved its goal.“Another major Critical Issue was

rationalisation of IT. All our systems,many of which were legacy systemsfrom acquisitions, needed to be able tocommunicate seamlessly to handlethis new business and growth. Weidentified that the increasedEuropean and international flows in

B-to-C could put a strain on the system, so we invested €10m to ensurethat we had an effective IT systemand capacity for the future,” Phillipsstates.

A Strategic Filter for DecisionsThe management teams of the busi-

ness units went about building solu-tions based on the umbrella plan, buttailored to the needs of their own mar-kets. To do this effectively they need-ed to have the flexibility to make localdecisions quickly, being sure theywere in harmony with the Groupstrategy, without having to getapprovals from Group managementevery time. A Strategic Filter, a checklist of strategic criteria created in theDPI process, was instrumental inenabling them to make these deci-sions on their own.“We used that Filter across all the

projects that were managed centrally,and locally,” says Phillips. “It was cru-cial because with all these teamsworking in parallel, if everyoneunderstands the strategy and uses theFilter you don’t need to have endlessdiscussions. You put the decisionthrough the Filter, come to a conclu-sion and move on. It helps you workvery efficiently from strategic andtime perspectives.”

Implementing a SuccessOver the ensuing years, the new

hybrid B-to-B/B-to-C model cametogether and is now producing solidfinancial results. Says Chavanne, “In2008 our EBITDA was approximately7% of our revenues, today it is about10%. Our revenue is approximately 60-70% higher. We increased our EBIT-DA by 30% in terms of income andsales. All this despite major invest-ments. And this concept of hybridisa-tion—B-to-B and B-to-C in the samenetwork—is directly the fruit of thatDPI session. The beauty of it is thattoday we’ve realised somethingunique, for the time being in Europe—a full hybrid B-to-B/ B-to-C network

with very imaginative solutions. Wehave invented a lot of new products forB-to-C because we knew it was a diffi-cult market and we knew that we’dhave to have innovative new solutionsto grow. We still have three or so moreyears of work to do on this but thegrowth and results are very positive.“We are happily living with the

fruit of these two DPI sessions. I amvery passionate about the DPIStrategic Thinking Process becauseit totally changed our view and oblig-ed us to move outside of the box andthink of our market differently, tohave a new approach to this B-to-Cmarket,” says Chavanne.“Clearly, one of the greatest results

is that people realise it is really aboutdoing Strategic Thinking together.When you gather roughly twentypeople with a lot of experience—eachone has twenty, twenty-five, thirtyyears of experience in the parcel busi-ness—then you can leverage theglobal experience of the whole team.It is unbelievable. I have been veryimpressed with the DPI process. It is a real jewel. I have been workingin business for nearly forty years, andclearly, it was a milestone in my business life.”

“Clearly, one of the greatestresults is that people realise that it is reallyabout doing StrategicThinking together.”

—Paul-Marie Chavanne


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DPI Critical Thinking Processes

Strategic Thinking•

Strategic Product Innovation•

Strategic Business Model Innovation•

Strategic Sustainability Thinking•

eStrategy•

Strategic Information Management•

Strategy Deployment•

Situation Management

feature interview jurie hanekom · jurie hanekom ceo, swartland group just below the lion in the...

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