Artifacts

Approach

No one else's business is quite like yours. Factors like industry, geography, business model, culture, philosophy, structure, market, lifecycle and finances all play a role in shaping your company into what it is today. For better and for worse.

You probably already know what isn't working. But you may not have the time, knowledge or buy-in to dig deep into why and find the path to fix it. Sometimes a large-scale intervention is needed with all the research, analysis, experiments and implementation that goes along with that. Other times, a few small tweaks can be leveraged into meaningful change across the company.

An MBA means I have a bag full of frameworks. Twenty years of work across countries, industries and problems means I know how to adapt them for your business as it is, not what management theory assumes it should be. Workshops, sparring sessions, market analysis and strategy maps are not the product but the means of getting where you want to go. That's the magic.

About You

I Have a Big Problem

You've inherited a mess and don't know where to start. No one has done any marketing for 25 years. And/or your high-margin product has been disrupted and revenue is in freefall.

I'm Stuck

You started something — a process optimization project, launching new product or market, incorporating AI — the early momentum is gone and now no one's sure whether to restart, pivot or let it die.

I Need a Systems Check

Business is good but you know it won't last forever. You want to sharpen your market positioning, evaluate your pricing strategy, find value leaks or process inefficiencies, build a more experimental culture, or reduce your dependence on a single product, customer or market.

I Have an Idea

The "what if we…" that won't leave you alone. The "how could we…" your team has no time to chase. The "should we…" that only deep research and a fully built model can settle.

Working Together

Post-Succession Advisory

You've inherited a business. Or bought one. In addition to the problems you knew about, you've found that: the last marketing campaign ran in 1997; no one can make a decision without involving you; customers are choosing convenience over quality; Schröder was Chancellor last time the business model and pricing was reviewed; staff routinely quit three years after their Ausbildung; everyone is talking about AI and you've got people clinging to their fax machine; you're one retirement away from fifty years of institutional knowledge lost to a stack of crumpled post-it notes and a couple random spreadsheets.

Growth Strategy & Resilience

The business is still profitable. But only if things stay the same forever. Which you know they won't. You can be defensive — cut costs and hunker down — or you diversify and use growth not just as a revenue tool but resilience. SWOT, PESTLE and the Ansoff Matrix often make sense here. But so could a pricing review, capability inventory, a clear-eyed look at product/market fit or opportunities for collaboration. Once the best option is identified, then comes development. If it's a new business model, then which one; a new product, how might it be positioned and priced; a new audience, how might they be reached?

Workforce Fragility

It's difficult to find people with the right skills and once they are on the job, even more difficult to keep them. This has been true for at least ten years and is not going to get better, even if you did have unlimited money. What can change is internal — how can the way of work be altered to suit the skills that exist on the market, not the ones that were there twenty years ago? Not just AI and digitalization but also autonomy, lateral growth opportunities and upskilling. Employee Journey — how could recruiting change so candidates can be sourced outside the usual channels? Knowledge Transfer — is the culture to hoard information or share it? Are formal knowledge transfer structures in place or is it just left to chance?

Process Optimization

The business has been doing things one way for years. It works. But not nearly as well as it could. Perhaps suggestions from staff have been ignored or maybe they checked out years ago. Whatever the case, the time for incremental change has past. Redesign based on the Minimal Viable Process surfaces what is essential, what is helpful and what is simply deadweight.

Idea Calibration

Most innovation work concentrates on the idea. The one big lightning bolt from the blue that will change everything. But that's not how innovation works. It's much messier, a series of stops, starts and side quests. Ideas are never the bottleneck. It's concepts that can answer clearly Why This? Why Us? Why Now?

Project Stages

Gather & Map

Finding plateaus, quantifying value leaks, calibrating bets and mapping the way out.

Low-hanging Fruit

Change is all about momentum. What can we execute immediately with very minimal effort? What did that unlock?

Bigger Fish

Tackling core problems (positioning, product, pricing, resilience, culture). Short, mid and long-term strategy.

Momentum Snowball

Leverage what worked, learn from what didn't. Build the structure that keeps the wins coming.