Inside Strategy
A space where we analyze key strategic decisions made by major brands and companies.
We will explore and break down the most relevant factors that should have been considered when making decisions, the debates the team likely had before adopting them, and we will use methodologies and strategic models to analyze them.
Octopus Energy: A pink octopus to conquer the energy market
We tend to believe that mature markets, well-established and with significant barriers to entry, are not worth entering to compete in. And this makes perfect sense. But some companies change the rules. Like Octopus Energy, which has shaken up the energy market in the United Kingdom. A company that, in just 9 years since its launch, has managed to overtake all the major energy companies and proclaim itself the market leader with a 24% market share. The upward trend in the graph over the past few years is impressive. (Source: Bloomberg) And it’s no coincidence. Octopus has pushed many of the right buttons to achieve this meteoric rise. The four key pillars of Octopus’s strategy that have...
London: The city that turned its design into a brand
Today I’m not going to talk about commercial brands. I’m here to talk about another kind of brand: city brands. Few cities in the world have managed to build such a powerful identity from everyday objects as London has. Its red telephone boxes, double-decker buses, underground signage, and black cabs go beyond their practical function to become global brand assets. They are symbols that, together, form a coherent and recognizable system anywhere in the world. This summer I went with my family to spend a week in England, starting in London. Walking through its streets, I reflected on what a strong city brand London is, and the key brand assets it possesses that have helped it become the...
NIKE – The growth strategies that turned a sneaker brand into a global business
Shoe Dog has been the business and strategy book I’ve read the fastest in recent months. It tells the story of Nike’s business, narrated by its founder, Phil Knight. In Spanish, the title is translated as “Never Stop.” It not only tells how they created and grew the company from selling running shoes to becoming an iconic brand and a global giant, but also covers the cunning, the struggle, the perseverance, the hard work, the trips to Asia, the key decisions, the complex negotiations, and the many sleepless nights (with FBI investigations, espionage, and near-bankruptcies along the way) that were required to build this global giant. It almost reads like a thriller. Highly recommended for...
Room Mate Hotels- How to evolve the naming to accompany the growth of the business
In 2005, Enrique ‘Kike’ Sarasola, a former Olympic athlete, founded Room Mate Hotels in Madrid. With no experience as a hotel entrepreneur but with a lot of experience as a customer, he launched an innovative chain aimed at people who travel to big cities to get to know and explore them. Kike started from two premises that this target shared: ‘People are going to explore the city and therefore don't spend so much time in the hotel’. ‘The best way to visit a city is to go and see a friend who lives there’. Based on these premises and with the customer always at the centre, the Room Mate Hotels value proposition and customer experience was built around 6 key elements: Central hotels: because...
Colvin – the online florist that revolutionized an industry, but wanted to grow too fast
This month we analyze Colvin, a company that I have followed since its foundation. First as a consumer, attracted by its value proposition, and then from a professional point of view, due to its disruptive business model. We will focus mainly on its growth strategies. Colvin has recently been going through a rough patch: it has failed to meet growth expectations, which has made it difficult to raise capital (after years of highly successful rounds) and this has led to internal restructuring, such as layoffs and the replacement of the founders as CEOs. One learns from difficulties, and I admire Colvin's courage in trying to change the rules of a sector as traditional as flowers. That's why...
