Culture eats strategy for breakfast

Peter Drucker’s famous quote has a double meaning.

On the one hand, the famous strategist emphasizes the importance of the internal culture of every company and the fact that most strategic moves will succeed or fail depending on the spirit of the people in charge of implementing them. While strategy defines the overall direction in which a company moves, generally speaking, the internal culture can determine its potential success, or the success of its implementation.

At Globalpraxis we believe that there is another dimension to it: The reality of the market in which we evolve. Sounds obvious and simple, but it is far more complex to comprehend in all its peculiarities than it seems.

After more than 300 projects worldwide on route-to-market and revenue growth management, we can confirm positively that success or failure has depended on a clear understanding of local realities, captured thanks to our "outside-in" methodologies. This is the most critical aspect of our work, which calls for deep and detailed analyses, a qualitative and numerical approach, in addition to the knowledge of the "field reality" with its multiple complexities and implications.

There is no Global RTM model, nor even a national one, due to the multiple variables that come into play.

• Retailers behave very differently in countries and regions.
• Sales force efficiency and effectiveness varies due to market realities, legal constraints, the ability to reach and influence the outlets, etc.
• Shoppers react very differently to branding, pricing, and merchandising.
• Experiential marketing can have a wide range of impacts depending on cultural identity.
• Today, environmental constraints differ from place to place, affecting dramatically our capacity to present a consistent offer in terms of packaging, ingredients, etc.
• Distributor networks vary in reach and efficacy, the propensity to share data and information, i.e., to collaborate, etc.
• Segmentation always goes to the knower of local realities.
• Logistics constraints differ by territory, regions, areas, etc.
• And many more…

All of which make our task even more challenging and critical for our customers.

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