CLIENT
Walki is an international manufacturer of advanced packaging and technical materials, with deep expertise in fibre-based and multi-layer solutions.
Its business is built on sophisticated technologies, materials and processes. As the company looked towards its next stage of development, it needed a clearer way to connect those capabilities with the value it could create for customers and the position it wanted to occupy in the market.
Co-founders was invited to work with Walki’s management team to define that direction.
CHALLENGE
Technical expertise had made Walki successful. But expertise alone did not answer a more fundamental strategic question: why should customers choose Walki over its competitors?
The complexity of the business made this particularly demanding. Different technologies, products, markets and customer needs could all provide legitimate starting points for defining the company. Walki needed to look beyond what it produced and determine what was genuinely distinctive about the value it could create.
The central question became:
What should Walki compete on beyond its technical capabilities?
PROCESS
We began by working with Walki’s management team to examine the business from both inside and outside the company.
We analysed the market and competitive landscape, explored emerging opportunities and challenged different assumptions about what should define Walki’s position. Rather than moving directly towards a single answer, we developed alternative strategic positions and used them to make different possible directions visible and discussable.
This helped the management team make a clearer choice about where Walki could credibly differentiate itself and why customers should choose the company over alternative providers.
Once that direction had been established, we translated it into a strategic position that could guide decisions and behaviour across the organisation.
WHAT CHANGED
Walki gained a clearer articulation of what differentiated the company and the value it wanted to create for its customers.
The resulting strategic position became a common reference point across the organisation, influencing sales, recruitment, communications and the development of company culture.
What had begun as a challenge of communicating a complex business therefore resulted in something broader: a shared understanding of what Walki wanted to stand for and compete on.
