← Case studiesFood & drink / DTC

    National Ready Meals Producer

    Sales & Marketing Discovery

    An impartial external audit that reset the foundations for the next growth curve.

    Actionable plan

    To recruit an MD/COO.

    Re-organisation

    Of the dominant compliance team.

    Raised awareness

    Of the silos between sales and marketing.

    Risk highlighted

    Lack of project management in new product launches causing delays and brand damage.

    The company

    A high-quality meal delivery business offering choice, convenience and a UK-based customer care team, which grew from processing orders in a basement to delivering over five million meals during the pandemic.

    The problem

    The speed of growth and the demands of the City meant an external audit of sales and marketing practice was needed to understand risks and opportunities against aggressive growth projections. The inexperienced management team worked in silos with no well-defined responsibilities.

    The requirement

    What the client needed.

    Understand the current 'as is', get under the surface of the problems across two city-centre locations, and produce a report recommending actionable measures and interventions.

    01

    Uncover

    Discover the current 'as is' and its pros and cons.

    02

    Impartial

    With no allegiance to any person or function, we gave a frank assessment.

    03

    Educate

    Signpost different operating methods to a young, inexperienced company.

    The challenge

    Getting the board and leaders to hear the findings without ego and understand the part they had played — and would play — through their own actions and behaviours.

    The solution

    What we actually did.

    The report detailed the main failings and evidenced how the business had been focused on growth at all costs, driving behaviours contradictory to the brand values sold to the media and markets.
    We recommended appointing an MD that sales and marketing would report into, and restructuring the over-engineered compliance team that was driving the wrong behaviours.

    "Hard to hear that we have got it so wrong. The lack of one leader that we can report to is a contributing factor, and whilst we are trying to do the best we can, we are complicit in creating this outcome by not communicating back to the CEO."

    Board member — National Ready Meals Producer

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