Thinking
Building conviction in portfolio management
You’re Head of Brand in a publicly listed group that has several operating units and a long tail of branded products and solutions. You’ve been invited into an executive committee meeting to discuss your proposal to review the brand portfolio. Then it comes. The COO smiles and asks: “Why do we have to look at this now?”.
“Why now?” is a tough question. Asking “Why now?” acknowledges the importance of brand, while kicking any decision about an actual investment far enough down the road to leave budgets available for other, more pressing operational projects. A fairly familiar scene.
Long story short, the key to making the business case for a brand portfolio review “Now” is that reasserting relevance and innovation will position the business for growth and, therefore, keep investors happy.
Because when it comes to investors, we all know the pressure is very real. A CEO we worked with previously noted to us that generally speaking, new CEOs get six quarters’ grace in which they have to show clear delivery to their investors. Talk about ‘on the clock’…
The best place to find new areas for growth? The brand portfolio.
We’ve seen a recent surge in requests for help in situations like this. The specific triggers, or what we call inflection points, to review the portfolio vary widely – as do the questions they raise.
It often structures like this: Inflection point >>> the question that the brand needs to answer.
Here are a few examples:
A big acquisition or spin-off – so what’s the logic for the brand portfolio going forward?
A failed transaction – so what’s our raison d’être now?
A new CEO – so how do we make the legacy brand support the new business strategy?
Changes in the marketplace – so how competitive is our positioning now?
Plans for fundraising – so how can we articulate the value and growth story externally?
Misalignment across divisions – so how do we create a more unified and cost-efficient approach?
Confusion among customers – so how do we present our offers so we can cross-sell?
A rebrand that didn’t fully deliver – so how do we refresh the work?
Incomplete guidelines – so how do we make practical brand decisions going forward?
In most of these cases, consideration of brand is reactive to a trigger: “So how do we…?”. It’s all quite practical actually. It needs to be strategic and responsive but it can be tactical as well as transformational in approach.
The deliverables for each type of brief may differ, but there is a common thread that begins to answer the COO’s challenge. The common thread isn't to say that we should have thought about brand earlier, true though that may be. It’s also not to suggest spending months exploring the merits of a branded house versus a house of brands, however appealing that thought may be to brand enthusiasts. The COO and their colleagues need something much more practical that will resonate with the mindset in the room. Challenges like “the time isn’t right”, “we need more data”, or “let’s pilot it first” all sound reasonable and prudent, but they’re signals that leadership is not ready to commit. Or even, of panic.
Conviction to act
The Head of Brand’s job when hearing of these challenges is not to rebut them directly. That creates defensiveness. It’s to build conviction. That means reframing the risk: showing that delay has a price, that ambiguity compounds the current situation, that failing to act is not a neutral choice. Standing still is also a choice – just not a good one.
Building the conviction to act means giving the COO and executive leaders a glimpse of a future logic for the portfolio that appeals equally to the head, the heart and the wallet. Speaking their language by making it feel real, fast.
‘Give me a month.’ Diagnose the problem or trigger and define the role of brand in solving it
‘Here’s how this could work.’ Develop a working hypothesis of how it could work for all – customers, staff and investors and the executive team
‘Let’s go.’ Move it forward at pace, with the right expertise on board.
Building conviction in portfolio management isn’t working out what to shuffle around and what will bring new revenue. It’s building an inherent sense of conviction that the brand can move the business forwards.
Charles Wright, Global Principal
