The Challenge
Food Corp is a division of the leading media company, News Corp Australia, and most of its revenue comes from advertising and content integration for FMCG and supermarket brands. However, many of its existing clients are now creating their own food-related content, which increases the risk of Food Corp losing its role as an intermediary. To avoid this risk, Food Corp urgently needed to diversify its business model by innovating new products and accessing new markets. To achieve this, The Strategy Group was engaged to explore and validate new opportunities that would generate profitable growth for Food Corp and reduce its existing business risk. The aim was to find market adjacencies that could help Food Corp achieve its diversification goals.
The Approach
The Strategy Group undertook an insights-led, stage gate process to explore and validate new products and services.
Our approach consisted of seven key gates that would generate significant long-term profitable growth for Food Corp and simultaneously de-risk its existing business. Each gate involved:
- DEFINE the problem space through extensive market research and facilitating a kick-off workshop with key internal stakeholders
- DISCOVER insights from stakeholders & influencers to determine areas for ideation by conducting 1:1 empathic interviews
- IDEATE new concepts based on insights gathered by running an ideation workshop to generate possible new ventures
- TEST desirability with current and potential clients to prioritise concepts by using direct mail, social media and content hubs.
- VALIDATE to determine the viability and feasibility of concepts through the development of Business Model canvases for each concept and analysis of potential financial returns
- STRATEGISE an overarching roadmap for the opportunities and business plan framework
- DELIVER recommendations for Food Corp to act on that would generate profitable growth for their business.
Outcomes
Five strategic opportunities were endorsed that diversifies Food Corp’s existing portfolio and have the potential to generate profitable growth.
The engagement resulted in the identification of 13 opportunity areas, with four becoming the focus for the ideation workshop. Over 200 ideas were produced during the ideation workshop, that were narrowed down to ten prioritised opportunities for validation.
As a result of the desirability, feasibility and viability testing and analysis, five strategic opportunities were endorsed by the SteerCo along with a set of recommendations for Food Corp to effectively execute on the key opportunities.
The engagement was documented in a final report comprising of the approach undertaken, insights, opportunities and actionable recommendations, with an accompanying appendix with all the market research, trends and detailed analysis conducted throughout the engagement.
