Aligning on your company's strategic direction
SYSTEMS7
Orkla Home and Personal Care – making sustainable living irresistible
From the autumn of 2023 to spring 2024, S7 was delighted to work with the amazing leadership team at Orkla Home and Personal Care, a leading Nordic consumer goods company with a strong track record in industry-beating sustainability practices.
“S7 truly helped us 'bring the outside in', supporting my new leadership team in building a shared view of what the future could hold for us as a company, and in creating a powerful strategic vision to inspire our people to win in this future.”
Marcus Larsson, CEO of Orkla Home and Personal Care
The need
A new leadership team had been put in place that needed to spend time together to gel.
While a solid near-term strategy was in place, the team needed space to explore what the mid-to-long-term future (that is, over 3-7 years) might bring for their company.
The team also wanted to align on and articulate a longer-term strategic direction both for the company overall and for the home and personal care business units.
It was also key that the above work genuinely brought in the views of the board as well as the next level of leaders in the company.
The approach
S7 ran a series of 'externalisation sessions' with a range of thought leaders drawn from S7's advisor network, with a view to building a shared answer to this question: what do we believe about the future that would be relevant to the business?
These insights were then captured in a set of 'strategic beliefs' summarising the leadership’s views on the likely evolution of a range of macro- and industry-level trends – from greater geopolitical unrest and societal polarisation to ESG regulation, the circular economy and the role of technology in health and homes.
Rooting ourselves in this view of the future, we then asked these questions: in light of this future, what is the company's vision for itself? What contribution will it make to this world? And what will it look like to win for each of the business units?
Through interaction both with its board of directors and with a group of leaders in the company, the leadership team articulated an exciting, inspiring new vision as well as 'winning aspirations' for the business areas, setting itself up to take bold new bets in existing and new markets.
