A global education major. Seven strategic engagements across three years covering strategy, commercial research, customer truth, deal origination and financial evaluation. Nothing handed off. Nobody re-briefed. One single organization that retained everything.
Most corporates stitch this journey across four vendors and lose the thread at every seam. Here, five disciplines shared one desk with one partner at the helm. Pick a discipline to trace its thread. Pick an engagement to open it.
| Engagement | Strategy | Commercial | Research | Inv. Banking | Financial |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
The connecting line is the point: each engagement ran across disciplines without a handover, and none of them was re-briefed to a new firm.
We have split each of the seven engagements across three logical acts. Each one answered a little more of what the last one brought to light. Pick a card to jump in, then follow the thread from inside.
A ground-up read of the category the client wanted to enter. How the market is structured, how fragmented the competition really is, where the regulator sits, what people actually pay, and which local institutions could carry the client's product. Leadership went into its entry debate holding facts rather than enthusiasm.
A three-week sprint on the adjacent segment leadership kept circling back to. Structure, growth trajectory, incumbent economics, and the practices that genuinely kept institutional partners happy. Two entry theatres, one analytical yardstick. Any other comparison would have been theatre of its own.
Two global peers had already walked into this market. A decade apart in outcome. We rebuilt both journeys decision by decision: entry vehicles, capability splits, who they put in charge, and what each of those calls produced. Toggle between the two playbooks below.
We took a category winner apart. Product thesis, every positioning shift, the marketing engine underneath it, and the full acquisition mathematics from first install through to a paid subscriber. What came out was a live financial yardstick. The client's own ambitions got measured against it, and so did every target that came later.
A primary research programme run across two countries. Interviews with end customers, sessions where we sat and watched them use the product, teardowns of what they were already paying for, and a decoded map of how a household decides this category is worth the money. Desk research proves a market exists. This told the client why people pay, and the moment they stop.
Two acts of understanding turned into an acquisition thesis. Objectives and imperatives written alongside management, then the funnel run end to end: relevant population, base list, long-list, short-list. Every cut answered to criteria a board could interrogate line by line. Each name earned its place in writing.
A full acquisition strategy for a majority-stake transaction. Several rounds of filtration, first-level profiles across the qualified list, second-level depth on the finalists, synergies mapped against the client's own offerings, and investment scenarios management could actually vote on.
Client and all third parties anonymised under our confidentiality commitments. Figures are as documented in engagement deliverables at the time of the work.
That is our account of the three years. Why does it matter?Read the client scoresPull the handle left for the way a corporate M&A process usually runs, right for the way this desk runs it. Then step through the five stages.
The universe arrives from databases and banker decks. Every name on it already sits on every rival's desk. The strongest assets in this market never reach that list, because their owners were never publicly for sale.
You bid where everyone else is bidding.
Relationships with operators, institutions and ecosystems surface owners who would entertain the right partner long before they would entertain a process. The conversation starts before any auction exists.
You talk where nobody else was invited.
A few years back, we asked every client from the previous year to rate us on record. Hover a dial for what sits behind the number, or switch to the micro-metrics.
Counting anything at or below 7 stars as a miss, satisfaction landed under the Consulting benchmark. We still published the number and went to work on it.
Counting anything at or below 7 stars as a miss, satisfaction landed under the Consulting benchmark. We still published the number and went to work on it.
Source: Prequate Grail study, 2022. Scores are firm-wide; figures for this client stay confidential.
Is the same bench still in place where we would need it?See where the desk sits todayFive taps tell us who should join the call and what to prepare beforehand. It ends in a drafted email to our CEO, already filled in. Edit anything you like before you send it.