Apply an outside-in perspective and help clients achieve growth—this is fundamental to our approach at Axis Associates.
For a business to survive, growth is an imperative, not an option. But only one in ten companies succeeds in achieving sustained growth. We help companies grow by driving their core business to full potential and pursuing adjacencies that strengthen the core.
With our team of professionals, Axis brings depth of experience in the following areas:
Strategy — fundamentals of growth: We help companies focus on growth in terms of revenue, which is needed for sustainable, profitable performance. We understand that to grow successfully, a company must first properly define and focus on its “profitable core.” Axis works with companies to answer such questions as “What are your most differentiated and strategic capabilities?” and “What are your most critical product and service offerings?” Once we’ve mapped out a core business’s true capabilities, we help clients rank new opportunities based on market strength and revenue potential.
Marketing & Sales: Marketing and sales functions are on the “front line,” playing a critical role in driving revenues, retaining customers, and achieving overall company objectives. To help our clients gain competitive advantage, we use rigorous analysis and a deep understanding of organizational processes to unlock the full potential of any company’s marketing and sales resources. When companies “go to market,” they bring together all the commercial functions—sales, marketing, brand management, pricing, and consumer insight—to drive the bottom line. Our experts use an integrated approach to help clients improve their commercial activities and achieve competitive advantage. See revenue.engine (r.e).
- Customer insights and segmentation: We help clients understand customer needs and behaviors using our years of experience and develop actionable segmentation from the resulting insights. We help clients define the target customer or “sweet spot”—the area of distinct advantage over competitors— to inform business decisions and investment allocation.
- Product and category management: We help firms break down barriers to innovation and improve ongoing customer-led product development so their value proposition is differentiated and meets customer needs.
- Pricing: We help resolve the pricing paradox—pricing is almost always the #1 profit lever, yet it remains under-developed in most companies—by building long-term pricing capabilities and capitalizing on in-year-revenue opportunities.
- Sales and channel effectiveness: We help companies identify quick, targeted, customized solutions as well as strategic and operational improvements to boost underperforming sales organizations.
Mergers & Acquisitions: Axis helps smaller companies improve their odds of successful M&A through an integrated, battle-tested approach that links acquisition strategy, diligence and merger integration.
- Acquisition — invest with a thesis: “How will buying this asset make my existing business more valuable, and how will I bring value to the asset I am buying?” The answers are rooted in strategy—…, so we use “The 4-Questions” to drive our work, and help clients develop a valid investment thesis; then identify candidates for merger or acquisition, and assess the benefits (or risks) of individual transactions.
- Diligence — ask and answer the big questions: You need to know what you are buying and how you will make the business more valuable. We’ll helps you understand how you can create value through an acquisition.
- Integration — integrate where it matters: To make a deal pay off, you have to nail a short list of critical actions. But merging two companies also requires rigorous follow-through on a long list of integration tasks, large and small. Doing both is hard. Part of the answer lies in a few, powerful guiding principles: tailor the integration thesis to the deal thesis; integrate where it matters; and act with deliberate speed.
Transformation, Turnaround & Restructuring — transformation isn’t an option—it’s a business imperative: Today’s business volatility is unprecedented. And whether the causes are new technologies and digitization, globalization, blurred industry boundaries, regulation, energy dynamics, or other factors, the message is clear: transformation isn’t an option, it’s a business imperative. Forward-thinking companies are launching transformations even when they dominate a market, retooling themselves so that they stay ahead. The goal is a transformation that’s focused, sustainable, and able to deliver measurable results.
We help companies at every stage of growth, developing custom solutions and collaborating with all levels of the organization — we drive top-line growth.