Capabilities-Driven Strategy + Growth

With our Capabilities-Driven Strategy + Growth approach, we place our clients’ distinctive capabilities at the center of strategy development to exploit competitive advantages and secure long-term success

Achieving sustainable growth with distinctive capabilities

Companies that focus on building and leveraging unique strengths have proven to be more successful in the market. However, what may sound like a simple strategy, is not so easy in practice. In many cases, a company's growth initiatives and investments do not match its distinctive capabilities. As a result, companies exploit only part of their potential.

This is where our Capabilities-Driven Strategy + Growth model comes in. With our consulting approach, we help companies find out what they can do better than anyone else, how to leverage these capabilities to fill an unmet need in the market, and how to further build their unique advantages. We then support them in aligning their goals, strategies, and operational decisions with precisely these strengths. This combination creates capabilities-driven solutions for long-term success.

Our Strategy Profiler valuates your corporate strategy with regard to these criteria, providing you with initial insights into how our Capabilities-Driven Strategy + Growth approach can effectively benefit your company in practice. Our case studies from various industries also illustrate what the development and implementation of a capability-driven strategy looks like in reality, how our consulting skills are applied in the process - and why our approach leads to ultimate success.

Success stories

IKEA is the world's leading home furnishing brand. IKEA uses its distinctive capabilities to deliver value through providing functional and stylish home furnishing at very low prices with a high level of customer engagement.

Distinctive capabilities:

  • Deep understanding of how customers live at home
  • Price-conscious and stylish product design
  • Efficient, scalable, and sustainable operations
  • Customer-focus retail design

Amazon.com is the world's largest online retailer. It uses its five distinctive capabilities to give people s seemingly endless variety of products and services in a one-stop online shopping experience.

Distinctive capabilities:

  • Retail interface design
  • Back-end supply-chain management
  • Rapid and effective online merchandising
  • Customer-relationship management
  • Advanced technological innovation

Starbucks has one of the world's most iconic brands and is known for the ambiance in its retail stores. It uses its four distinctive capabilities to be the purveyor of the "third place" for conviviality  ̶  a center for human activity after home and work.

Distinctive capabilities:

  • Stewardship of a globally available consumer experience
  • Distinctive delivery of product and service
  • Design and development of a premium product line
  • Recruiting and managing a cadre of dedicated employees

Apple has consistently ranked as the world's most innovative company. Apple uses its four distinctive capabilities to form the hub of a single digital system that enables customers to easily manage media production, consumption and communication.

Distinctive capabilities:

  • Customer insight
  • Intuitively accessible design
  • Technological integration
  • Breakthrough innovation

Inditex (often called by its main brand name, Zara) is a Spanish clothing company pioneered the fast-fashion industry. It uses its four distinctive capabilities to be a customizer and innovator, providing on-trend clothing at reasonable prices.

Distinctive capabilities:

  • Deep customer insight
  • Fast, fashion-forward design of products
  • Rapid-response manufacturing and operations
  • Globally consistent and pervasive branding

Why Capabilities-Driven Strategy works

How Capabilities-Driven Strategy works

Operating model

The engine of value creation is a system of capabilities that together allow a company to compete in a differentiated way. We can help you identify your unique areas of strengths, and build and manage the capabilities that are required to win with your strategy.

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Portfolio and M&A strategy

True advantage comes from having a steady stream of offerings that only distinctive capabilities can deliver. We can help you manage your portfolio and M&A strategy in a way that allows you to achieve sustainable advantage.

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Operating model

A company with a strong alignment between its strategy and its operating model is like an engine firing on all cylinders. We can help you develop an operating model that brings your strategy to life.

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Functional strategy

The main purpose of a functional strategy is to enable the company’s strategy — not to achieve functional excellence. We can help your functional leaders and units take on a more strategic role by enabling the company’s differentiating capabilities while still fulfilling their day-to-day transactional and expertise tasks.

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Capability identification

The engine of value creation is a system of capabilities that together allow a company to compete in a differentiated way. We can help you identify your unique areas of strengths, and build and manage the capabilities that are required to win with your strategy.

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Contact us

Dr. Philipp Wackerbeck

Dr. Philipp Wackerbeck

Partner, Strategy& Germany

Stefan Eikelmann

Stefan Eikelmann

Partner, Strategy& Germany

Albert Zimmermann

Albert Zimmermann

Partner, Strategy& Germany

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