Strategy
Growth is harder to find, resources are tighter and expectations are higher. Every choice a business makes now has to earn its place.
Most businesses have a strategy, but far fewer are performing against it. At Mangrove, we close the gap between strategy and performance: helping leaders diagnose what's holding growth back, make focused choices and build the commitments to deliver them.
We help businesses and brands perform today and grow for the long term
Strategy isn't the problem. Most businesses have one, but the problem is the gap between the strategy and the results it was meant to deliver.
70%
of strategies fail to achieve their intended objectives
McKinsey Transformation
35%
of executives believe their current strategy will succeed
PwC's Strategy
In our experience, the gap almost always comes down to one of three missing ingredients:
1
No clear direction
Too many priorities and no agreed view of where growth will come from.
2
No focused choices
Everything gets a little, nothing gets enough.
3
No real commitment
Leadership signs off the plan but doesn't back it.
The businesses that close the gap don't have better plans. They have fewer priorities, clearer decisions and a leadership team that is genuinely committed to delivering them.
Too many priorities
Growth plans spread thinly across too many initiatives, with no clear view of what matters most.
A growth story that doesn't add up
Targets set top-down, with no clear view of where the numbers will come from.
A strategy that lives in a deck
Launched, then shelved, with teams unable to say how it shapes their work.
Leadership aligned on paper, not in practice
Agreement in the room, different agendas in the corridor.
Brands that have stopped performing
Strong heritage and awareness, but people know the brand and don't choose it.
Ambition that outstrips resource
Stretching targets with the same budget, the same people and the same ways of working.
We help with performance-driven strategy in two ways: getting the business focused on where growth will come from, and getting under-performing brands growing again.
Stretching Growth
Closing the strategy-performance gap
Too many priorities or a strategy that isn't translating into results?
Using our Stretch Blueprint and STRETCH model, we define where growth will come from, make the focused choices to get there and align leadership behind a plan the business will deliver.
Explore Portfolio & Growth StrategyBrand Reignition
Turning around under-performing brands
Own a brand with real equity that's stopped performing?
We diagnose why the brand has stalled, reposition it for where consumers and the market are going, find the single spark that begins the turnaround and build the business case to reinvest.
Explore Brand ReignitionMangrove's thinking is always rooted in commercial reality. For more than 25 years, we've worked with senior FMCG teams across both B2B and B2C, on their toughest innovation, brand and growth challenges.
We believe strategy only counts if it translates into business results. That is why we build in a performance mindset from day one: ambition that is genuinely stretching, commitment that is real, and execution that is set up to win. We support our clients with making bold strategic choices under pressure.
"The team helped us get to complete clarity in answering our strategic question, cement prioritisation within the broader business remit, and generate insights and knowledge to impact and share with our Marketing colleagues."
We're a diverse team of commercially minded strategists and innovators united by a set of shared principles:
Small, senior and experienced team
We're always seeking the edge in ourselves and our clients, working closely with senior leaders.
Outside-in, always
We start with consumers, customers and the market, not internal assumptions.
Choices, not long lists
We help leaders decide what to do, and just as importantly, what to stop.
Collaborative & pragmatic
We make things happen with you, tactically picking the right bits to get the engine running faster.
Candour over comfort
Bravely saying what is needed for the best outcomes.
Built to perform
Fast, time-bound engagements that end in decisions, plans and measures, not a deck for the shelf.
Recent clients we've worked with on strategic growth challenges
Most strategies don't fail because they're wrong. They fail because they're not connected to performance. There are usually three causes: no clear direction on where growth will come from, no focused choices about where to play and where not to, and no real leadership commitment to delivering it. Fix those three and strategy starts to perform.
The strategy-performance gap is the distance between what a strategy promises and what the business actually delivers. Up to 40% of a strategy's expected value is lost by the time it reaches implementation - Harvard Business Review. Closing the gap means aligning a genuinely stretching ambition with the commitment to deliver it. At Mangrove, we call that the Stretch Zone.
Alignment has to be real, not just agreed in the room. We bring leaders together early around the evidence, agree a single stretching ambition, and make explicit choices - including a stop list - so everyone knows what moves forward and who owns it. Commitment comes from making the decisions together, not signing off a finished plan.
Start with the business case, not the creative. We look at how reinvestment stacks up against your wider portfolio and what the economics of revival really look like. Only then do we define the audience, the positioning and the single spark that will begin the turnaround.
The Good Growth Circle is a community for those tackling the twin challenges of sustainability and commercial reality. Join Justin and Nick as they share experiences from working with some of the world’s biggest businesses and brands.
Amazon hit their 2030 renewable energy target seven years early. Impressive – or was the target simply too low? And does any of it matter if consumers can’t follow the story? When it comes to sustainability, actions will always speak louder than words and numbers.
As leading car manufacturers drop entry-level models to hit EV targets, it raises a bigger question for every business: what does good growth actually look like? Profit, margin, unit sales and sustainability goals cannot always all be satisfied at once.
Three times this week someone has thrust their solar panel app in my face. Annoying? Yes. But it’s also a perfect real-world example of social proof in action – and a timely reminder of the irrational tools marketeers should be using to accelerate behaviour change.
This week marks the 10th anniversary of Fashion Revolution. After a decade of campaigning for greater transparency, barely half of the 250 largest fashion brands disclose their primary suppliers. The clock is ticking, consumers are watching, and the industry cannot afford another 10 years of inaction.
The world of sustainability is blurry, connected and complex – but most companies tackling it are not. Nick Pye examines why rigid silo structures are the enemy of effective sustainability strategy, and why connecting the dots between E and S is where the real opportunity lies.
If your business has too many priorities, a strategy that isn't translating into results or brands that have stopped growing, we'd be happy to chat further.
