Our principal partnered with a professional services firm that aimed to establish a new practice area to attract a new customer segment, increase revenue, and become an industry leader. To assess the optimal path, she conducted a thorough market opportunity evaluation, analyzing competitive landscapes, unmet customer needs, and emerging market trends. Her strategic recommendation was to integrate certain key principles—focused on a more client-centric approach—across all of the firm's consulting engagements rather than creating a separate, specialized practice.
The firm embraced this integrated approach, and our founder played a pivotal role in developing the comprehensive business strategy, securing crucial leadership buy-in from the board of directors, and obtaining the necessary capital investment to embed these principles as a core part of their client service model. This strategic direction would position the firm to significantly expand its market reach and pursue substantial revenue growth by offering enhanced value to both existing and new customer segments.
Beyond Silos: Integrating for Growth
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Following a significant acquisition to expand its geographical reach, a large national bank faced a critical challenge: 54 underperforming regional branches that remained unprofitable despite investment. When initial data analysis provided no clear explanation, our principal partnered with the bank, taking a ground-level approach to investigate.
Through in-person visits to the branches, she quickly identified a seemingly simple yet critical barrier: a lack of clearly visible signage made the locations difficult for customers to find – a frustration frequently voiced by customers and branch staff. Despite an existing "workaround" acknowledged by the bank's real estate office, her direct observation and communication with staff revealed its ineffectiveness and the resulting loss of revenue. By clearly articulating the financial impact of this overlooked issue, she enabled the bank to implement effective signage improvements, directly preventing the closure of these 54 branches and safeguarding significant potential market share.
Uncovering Unseen Barriers to Market Growth
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Future Mapping partnered with a professional association to help a library system deeply committed to offering diverse perspectives to its patrons but facing a significant challenge: a book collection that lacked that very breadth of representation. To address this, we began by asking two critical questions: Why was the collection lacking diversity, and what existing resources could the library leverage to rectify this? Our assessment, which included process mapping and stakeholder interviews, revealed key bottlenecks in the book acquisition process that inadvertently limited the inclusion of works by marginalized authors.
The identified bottlenecks centered on the library's sourcing methods and the absence of a proactive system for discovering new publications from non-mainstream authors. To overcome these obstacles, we facilitated the creation of a collaborative collective of industry professionals, including diverse writers, editors, publishers, and booksellers, to develop a new book selection process. This innovative approach was designed to ensure that a wider range of perspectives would directly inform the library's future book acquisitions process, with the aim of expanding their collection and more fully aligning with their core commitment to diverse voices and equitable access to information. Our engagement concluded with the establishment of this new process, setting the stage for adoption by the library system as a pilot program. Successful testing of this model would pave the way for potential national replication across other library systems.
The Blueprint for Broader Voices: A Library System's Pilot for National Change
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A vital public-private partnership, needed to enhance the effectiveness of their economic development initiatives across the city. They faced two key challenges: the sometimes disconnected efforts of numerous nonprofits and civic institutions working in local neighborhoods, and the need to ensure that supported projects fostered truly inclusive economic growth.
To address these challenges, our principal identified and engaged a more diverse range of civic organizations through the creation of a collaborative network and facilitated regular cross-organizational dialogues. She also developed and implemented a comprehensive inclusivity assessment system, which evaluated projects based on their potential to benefit residents across all socioeconomic levels and neighborhoods. This strategic approach demonstrated the organization's deepened commitment to equitable economic development. As a result, the organization experienced a significant increase in engagement from a wider array of civic groups, leading to opportunities for more robust and impactful partnership opportunities citywide.
The Inclusive Growth Equation
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Future Mapping partnered with a visionary artist and a group of investors who recognized the potential to amplify the powerful message of a successful pop-up art exhibit to a wider audience. The transition to a full-scale business demanded a strategic overhaul, requiring us to stabilize key operations (including venue logistics and project management), develop a robust business strategy encompassing market analysis and a sustainable revenue model, and create a scalable project framework for potential global replication. A critical aspect of our work involved navigating the partners' evolving visions for the future.
By applying a human-centered approach that valued both the artist's philanthropic aspirations and the investors' growth objectives, we fostered increased trust and facilitated ongoing collaboration. Our team developed integrated business and operational strategies that propelled the project forward, establishing a roadmap for future expansion and ensuring a balanced approach to both impact and profitability within the arts & entertainment landscape.
The Art of Scaling Up
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Our Work
Our expertise in business strategy, operations strategy, and product & service innovation isn't confined to theory. We've applied these core services successfully across a diverse range of industries, including the arts & entertainment, commercial real estate, financial services, government, and professional services. While these represent our areas of deep historical focus, our adaptable skills and proven methodologies also enable us to deliver impactful results for organizations in other industries seeking strategic guidance and innovative solutions.
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Want to learn more?
Get in touch.