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Consulting: Case Studies

New Market Entry: For the COO of a multi-billion dollar company, Ishan developed a comprehensive multi-year strategy to enter multiple new markets. (The project drew upon an earlier effort where we developed a proprietary model to analyze market attractiveness.) We recommended major changes to the client's marketing, business development, partnership and supply network strategies, including the abandoning of a key manufacturing strategy that Amit had developed a decade ago and which driven growth since then. The company has grown rapidly over the last two years, while a major competitor, favored by the stock markets, has imploded because of a badly executed expansion effort.

Creating a Networked Organization: For the CEO of a multi-billion company, Amit co-led the efforts to create a more effective retail network of franchised stores. For over 7 months, Amit and his team worked with the client's senior executives and the leaders of the existing franchisees. They analyzed issues of importance to both sides and helped find common ground where little had existed. Amit personally developed Business English drafts of key provisions for the new franchise agreement. Developed in 1997 (when Amit was a partner at Arthur D. Little), much of the agreement, which enabled the deployment of new products, new processes, modern information technologies, more robust quality standards and new pricing plans, is still in use. It accelerated market expansion and improved profitability for both the franchisor and the franchisees. The company became an Ishan client immediately after our founding in 2004.

Vision and Strategy for a Complex New Product: During a 2 1/2 year period that extended into the establishment of Ishan, Amit guided a team overseeing the creation of a software suite at one of the world's largest software vendors. An Executive Officer commissioned the project when marketing, development, sales and consulting functions clashed over the development goals. Amit helped the team develop a coherent vision for the suite, set priorities for development and helped position the suite in a complex market. To facilitate discussions, at one point his team conducted a large survey of senior business executives. A series of successful launches enhanced the company's market position and the executive who led the project on a day-to-day basis was quickly promoted to a very senior position.

Assessment of the Ability to Sense-and-Respond: The new business unit head of a major company, unsure about his manufacturing function's ability to react rapidly to changes in a volatile market (while simultaneously reducing costs), engaged Ishan to assess the effectiveness of the function's leaders. After an on-site review of the management team and the factories, we recommended product line changes that could immediately cut costs. More importantly, we identified changes needed in both data collection and overall business metrics in order to make rapid reaction possible. Finally, we suggested modification of performance metrics and functional processes to facilitate the sharing of best practices across the plants.