KCJ was asked to conduct research on business practices in a country with weak public institutions. Special emphasis was to be placed on how long-term investment was threatened by potential political turmoil.
A European client was considering entering into a business partnership with a local company abroad. Despite an unstable political situation, the trade partner described the business environment as secure and portrayed a country with high investment quality.
After an initial examination of market conditions in general and the investment potential in particular, KCJ applied its advanced modelling techniques to illustrate that the decision-making environment was largely unaffected by internal political shifts. Instead however, KCJ uncovered that the market was highly volatile due to underlying, unethical competitive practices and ambiguous decision-making processes on a public policy level. KCJ Simulation tools then made it possible to show the client in which areas and what stages difficulties could arise. This was done both conceptually and graphically in order to present the multi-layered dimensions of possible scenarios.
The KCJ results identified Decision-Making Corridors for the investor and set up an appropriate monitoring system to detect at which point changes in the business environment would affect the client´s investment negatively.
A client in the transportation industry was experiencing sales growth difficulty in eastern Europe. The customer asked KCJ to look into the market and clarify why sales were not taking off as expected, despite the superiority of the price-performance ratio of the product. At the same time the client instructed KCJ to suggest new ways to expand the market share.
The market in question was dominated by domestic players catering to the domestic market with a lower technological standard. The client's brand was foreign and suffered from low brand awareness. Cheaper manufacturers were challenging the brands' growth.
By gaining a better understanding of the requirements of key customers within the market, the client was in a far better position to screen and categorize demands. The brand's potential was also differentiated justifying a premium price and helping the client to build stronger market claims.
KCJ's research and insight allowed the client to build a long-term growth strategy and has provided solid direction for the brand to build a competitive edge.
A major European travel agency commissioned KCJ to develop a travel management concept for countries with difficult travelling conditions. This included exploring all aspects of a customer's journey, from booking and departure, through the actual journey, to arrival at the destination and the return trip back home. KCJ introduced a series of service audits, which evaluated the performance of potential sub-contractors providing relevant services.
KCJ ran separate programmes for a variety of locations. The service audit focused on sub-contractor performance against defined service standards. Assessment included an evaluation concerning professionalism, reliability and safety.
KCJ identified relevant sub-contractors and supplied the client with detailed background information concerning the countries that were under consideration for market expansion. Feasibility studies were conducted in line with KCJs Sustainability Management tools. KCJ also developed a user-friendly in-house reporting system that allows managers to examine the company's experiences with current services.
By presenting the opportunities and risks entailed, the client was ideally positioned to decide whether expanding into countries with difficult travelling conditions will be profitable in the long-run. KCJ presented the key findings to the clients' managers at workshops ensuring that the know-how is passed onto the company and can be developed further internally.
A company was overhauling its strategic planning methodology and its risk assessment in particular. This had previously been based solely on business and economic indicators. KCJ was asked to draw up a system that not only takes these developments into account but also factors in political changes.
In this case, the client's strategic planning identified future trends, examined opportunities, analysed risks and concentrated heavily on business and economic factors. However, since political decisions significantly impact these issues, strategic planning lacked elements of political risk analysis.
Country and political forecasting methods including political and economic risk assessment modelling techniques were applied. KCJs tools were adapted to the client's portfolio and incorporated in the overall strategic planning methodology.
With its expertise in combining economic and political risk assessments, KCJ was in a strong position to hand the client tailor-made strategic planning tools. KCJs innovative PERAMO-approach was especially useful in this context as it factors in the decision-makers' risk tolerance and filters out cognitive and systemic biases. This approach proved particularly effective as it not only analyses linear “cause and effect” relationships, but instead takes all conceivable risk determining factors into account.