The Cambridge Group has helped companies develop demand-driven growth strategies for over 40 years. We help each client see their growth potential in a new light by taking a customer-centric approach: looking at the business through the eyes of the customer rather than looking at the customer through the eyes of the business. We have a proven track record of uncovering transformational opportunities to unlock customer demand and helping our clients activate with precision to accelerate growth. Our capabilities include defining the long-term strategy, creating an actionable growth roadmap and activating the growth strategy across execution levers.

Questions we answer:

• What is our long-term growth vision, and how should we define success?
• In what markets and categories should we place our bets?
• What are the most attractive opportunities to unlock customer demand?
• How will we create a differentiated value proposition and build competitive advantage?
• What execution levers do we need to focus on in order to win versus the competition?
• How should we configure our operations and organization to best execute the growth strategy?
• How should we allocate our resources to maximize return on investment?
• How do we manage the change process throughout the organization?
• How should we structure growth initiatives and track performance to ensure accountability?

In recent years, customers have fundamentally changed the ways they gather information, define their consideration set, engage with brands and make purchase decisions. We help companies design and activate their go-to-market and sales strategies across the “Demand Chain” with an unmatched degree of precision.

Across markets and industries, we have observed significant change in the customer journey. In recent years, customers have fundamentally changed the ways they gather information, define their consideration set, engage with brands and make purchase decisions. The Cambridge Group helps companies design and activate their go-to-market and sales strategies across the “Demand Chain” with an unmatched degree of precision in order to optimize the customer experience, ensuring products and services are delivered to the right customers, in the right places, with the right messaging and value proposition.

We provide a comprehensive, data-driven understanding of customer behaviors and decision drivers across the path to purchase. This helps our clients determine which distribution channels and partners to prioritize and enables them to activate with precision across execution levers, including customer experience, assortment optimization, merchandising and pricing/promotion.

Questions we answer:

• Who are our most valuable customers, and what is their likely growth trajectory?
• Which distribution models, channels and customers should we prioritize?
• What does the customer journey look like across the Shopping Landscape?
• What “Shopping Missions” should we target?
• How can we best influence customers across the full path to purchase?
• How can we drive conversion by elevating the customer experience and activating with precision across execution levers (e.g., assortment, merchandising, price/promo, etc.)?
• How can we increase customer loyalty, frequency of purchase and spend?
• How can we build stronger, more collaborative relationships with key distribution partners?
• How can we increase the effectiveness of our sales process?

In order to win in the marketplace, companies must develop an unmatched understanding of customer demand prior to developing the supply to meet it. Alignment of supply with demand results in accelerated growth, enhanced customer loyalty and significant pricing power.

In order to win in the marketplace, companies must first develop an unmatched understanding of customer demand prior to developing the supply to meet it. Alignment of supply with demand results in accelerated growth, enhanced customer loyalty and significant pricing power. We have a proven track record of helping our clients create disruptive innovation across industries. We achieve this by consistently uncovering breakthrough insights into significant unmet customer needs and “Jobs-to-be-Done” across markets and industries, providing the foundation for transformational innovation.

We use a range of qualitative and quantitative methods to identify, quantify and dimensionalize latent and emerging customer demand. We provide specific recommendations regarding which innovation platforms to prioritize, as well as which new product concepts and design features to lead with, and how to price them. Additionally, we help clients identify innovation process capability gaps and implement best practices in order to ensure sustained high performance.

Questions we answer:

• What are the biggest areas of emerging and latent customer demand within the marketplace?
• What are our customers’ biggest unmet needs and pain points that we can help them solve for?
• What are the customer “Jobs-to-be-Done” we should focus on addressing via innovation, and what are the detailed “Job Specifications” that should guide the R&D process?
• What are the biggest gaps between current supply and ideal customer demand in the marketplace, and what are the implications for our innovation strategy?
• Which concepts, benefits, features and attributes should we prioritize in our innovation pipeline in order to best deliver against unmet customer demand?
• How can we develop a robust pipeline that balances closer-in innovation to sustain the business with further-out breakthrough innovation that will drive step-change growth?
• How does our innovation process compare to best-in-class companies, and what best practices should we incorporate to elevate performance over the long term?

The digital revolution is reshaping the customer journey. To win in this evolving landscape, it is critical to understand how to capitalize on shifting digital behaviors and deliver the compelling, seamlessly integrated experience customers are seeking across touch points.

The digital revolution is reshaping the customer journey, changing how customers gather information, engage with brands, define their consideration set and purchase goods and services. To win in this evolving landscape, it is critical to understand how to capitalize on shifting digital behaviors and deliver the compelling, seamlessly integrated experience customers are seeking across touch points.

The Cambridge Group helps clients get out in front of shifting customer demand and behaviors, optimizing go-to-market strategies in the new omnichannel environment and designing compelling digital experiences that drive brand preference, engagement and loyalty.

Questions we answer:

• What will the future omnichannel shopping landscape look like, and how will it impact priority markets and product categories?
• How is digital impacting the decision-making process across the customer journey, and how can we best influence customer decisions?
• What is the optimal digital business model and go-to-market strategy for our business?
• How can we optimize the digital experience for our customers to best drive preference, engagement, and loyalty?
• How can we design digital platforms and customer offerings in a way that maximizes resonance with priority customers?
• How can we use digital platforms and personalization to drive marketing and sales effectiveness?

We advise corporate and private equity clients on creating value through acquisitions, joint ventures, strategic investments and alliances. We go beyond market data and trends to provide deep, proprietary insights regarding alignment of potential acquisition targets to highly profitable pockets of unmet demand.

The Cambridge Group advises corporate and private equity clients on creating value through acquisitions, joint ventures, strategic investments and alliances. We go beyond market data and trends to provide deep, proprietary insights regarding the alignment of potential acquisition targets to highly profitable pockets of unmet demand.

We support our clients across the deal lifecycle through our demand-led, data-driven process. We synthesize the fact base, analyses and insights required to assess the market, define rigorous target selection criteria, identify the most attractive targets and quantify the most profitable value creation opportunities.

Questions we answer:

• What role should acquisitions, ventures and alliances play in helping us achieve our long-term growth strategy?
• What is the likely future business trajectory of key industries, markets and potential target companies?
• Which markets, categories, and capabilities should we prioritize within our M&A strategy?
• Which criteria should we use to identify, assess and select potential candidates for acquisition, ventures, strategic investments and alliances?
• How is each potential acquisition target differentiated from the perspective of their customers?
• Which companies best fit our target screening criteria?
• How can we best create value post-acquisition?
• What is the investment thesis for potential deals, and how profitable are they likely to be?

We help companies optimize marketing strategies by providing an unmatched understanding of current, emerging and latent customer demand. We blend deep customer insight, big data analytics and economic modeling to help our clients capitalize on profitable opportunities.

The Cambridge Group helps companies optimize their marketing strategies by providing an unmatched understanding of current, emerging and latent customer demand. We blend deep customer insight, big data analytics and economic modeling to help our clients capitalize on profitable opportunities across execution levers, including targeting, positioning, innovation, media and go-to-market strategy. Our proprietary, proven methodologies are customized to each client situation and industry, enabling us to uncover the demand white spaces and performance improvement initiatives that significantly accelerate client growth. We work closely with management to embed demand-driven frameworks, approaches and processes within the organization, creating the foundation for long-term competitive advantage.

Questions we answer:

• Who are the most economically attractive customers to strategically target?
• What is the current, latent and emerging demand of these customers?
• What are the biggest unmet customer needs that we should focus on addressing?
• How can we build our brands and elevate the customer experience?
• How should we position our brands and increase the impact of our communications?
• How can we optimize our product portfolio to maximize incrementality and profitability?
• How can we elevate media ROI by targeting priority segments with a higher degree of precision?
• What should our strategic growth roadmap be?

Pricing and promotion optimization can be one of the most powerful levers for driving profitable growth. Even within seemingly commoditized categories, we have consistently identified numerous opportunities to increase pricing power. Too many companies leave money on the table by failing to fully align their pricing and promotion strategies to underlying customer demand.

Across industries, Pricing & Promotion optimization can be one of the most powerful levers for driving profitable growth. Even within seemingly commoditized categories, we have consistently identified numerous opportunities to increase pricing power. Too many companies leave money on the table by failing to fully align their Pricing & Promotion strategies to underlying customer demand.

The Cambridge Group helps clients drive profitable growth by ensuring that their business models, pricing approaches and promotion strategies are aligned to customer demand with unmatched precision. This enables clients to capitalize on significant variation in customer demand and willingness to pay across markets, channels, seasons, product segments and attributes.

Questions we answer:

• What are the market, customer and competitive dynamics that should shape pricing decisions?
• How much would a change in price affect sales volume?
• How should we tailor our pricing strategy by distribution channel to maximize profitability?
• How can we modify our portfolio mix and pricing architecture to reduce cannibalization and expand margins?
• How much are customers willing to pay for specific product features or claims?
• How can we expand margin by de emphasizing product features that are overly costly relative to customer willingness to pay?
• How can we expand margin by placing greater emphasis on features for which customer willingness to pay exceeds cost to deliver?
• How can we adjust our promotion strategies and tactics to enhance margin without jeopardizing revenue/volume targets?

Having a well-designed growth strategy is just one piece of the puzzle. It is critical to implement the right organizational structure, practices and capabilities required to detect and capitalize on the attractive opportunities quickly. We also help align client organizations to a shared vision with unique employee value propositions and engagement strategies to attract and retain the best talent.

To succeed in today’s business environment, having a well-designed growth strategy is just one piece of the puzzle. It is also critical to implement the right organizational structure, practices and capabilities required to quickly detect meaningful shifts in the evolving marketplace and capitalize on attractive market growth opportunities.

The Cambridge Group has extensive experience helping clients ensure that their structure, processes and capabilities are aligned to the overall growth roadmap and designed to enable agile response to rapid change in customer demand and the broader business environment. We align client organizations to a shared vision and design unique employee value propositions and engagement strategies to attract and retain the best talent. We help develop the organizational capabilities that fuel sustained competitive advantage and drive customer-centric organizational transformation.

Questions we answer:

• How should we define our organizational mission, vision and values in order to give our employees a shared sense of purpose and provide clear operating guidelines?
• What are our key human capital needs, and how can we go about attracting the best talent?
• How can we craft a tailored employee value proposition to best meet the differentiated needs of our various employee segments?
• What are the most impactful initiatives we can take to bolster employee loyalty and morale?
• Which capabilities do we need to invest in to build competitive advantage and capitalize on profitable growth opportunities?
• What processes and tools do we need in order to ensure we are a best-in-class, customer-centric organization?