A day on the job with...

Cleveland, Ohio – Tuesday, July 19th

After spending two and a half weeks criss-crossing the east cost of the United States with the team and meeting with the various market players, we returned to Cleveland to present our preliminary conclusions to our client, a world leader in flooring. This is a high-stakes project. We are reviewing the US subsidiary's entire pricing strategy with the aim of generating significant margin gains in a deteriorated market environment. After the success of the project completed in 7 European countries (Sweden, Poland, England, Spain, Germany, Benelux and France) in just three months, the client is counting on us for the US market.

8:36 a.m. - I meet Alexandra and Fabrice, the team's two consultants, in the hotel lobby. Over a typically American breakfast, we look over the analyses to put the final touches on our presentation. We then leave for the US subsidiary's head office.

1:01 p.m. - We are met by the CEO North America, who leads us into the conference room. The Management Committee is already there. Patrick, the Advancy partner in charge of the project, takes part in the meeting, along with the CEO World on conference call from Paris. I am in charge of the presentation. The tension is palpable; the results we are presenting underscore the poor performance of the sales forces and pricing strategy.
After two hours of talks, having been considerably challenged by the Sales Director, we succeed in convincing the Management Board of the relevance of our arguments and outline the next steps of the project. We now have to expand the scope of the review to the entire country, detail the new target pricing strategy and put it into practice. After the east coast, we have to spend some time on the west coast and the Chicago area, which are the most problematic markets for our client.

2:56 p.m. - We head to the airport for a direct flight to L.A. I take the time during the flight to prepare for our meetings with the largest California distributors and to organize the timetable for the next few days.

6:41 p.m. - We arrive in L.A., rent a US sedan and head to the hotel along the infamous 8-lane L.A. highways.

8:30 p.m. - We go to dinner in one of the city's famous steakhouses to celebrate the successful conclusion of the first part of our assignment.