Our cases

ZEEMAN is a Dutch textile retailer focused on low-priced products with good quality and surprising variety. It has expanded over the years to become one of the largest textile retailers with over 1,300 stores in 7 countries. ZEEMAN has set first steps towards ecommerce but now wanted to professionalize this by setting an omnichannel vision and ambition as well as forming a plan on how to reach this.

PostNL wanted to better understand digital development and - as a result - the changing needs of their customers in order to assess opportunities to serve its customers in new ways.

In the fall of 2017, NS (Dutch Railways) identified an emerging trend of consumers moving towards flexible, sustainable mobility solutions. NS asked SparkOptimus to come up with a strategic response to this trend. As a result, SparkOptimus designed and set-up a new venture offering mobility-as-a-service for consumers, called Hely, by finding the right product-market fit, building the organization, building a scalable technology platform, and installing a way of working that allows for rapid scale-up.

Sligro is a food wholesaler, providing both food service and food retail with a total revenue of nearly €3bln in 2017. Sligro asked SparkOptimus to help them identify digital growth opportunities for the group. The opportunities were both transformational and disruptive and included Sligro’s B2B and B2C activities.

HEMA is a value for money retailer known as one of the strongest brand in the Netherlands. Over the years, it expanded to over 700 stores in 7 countries. HEMA has a clear ambition to continue to grow both online and offline. To achieve this growth in omnichannel sales HEMA asked SparkOptimus to help develop a comprehensive 3-year plan, which met the ambitions set for the future. Subsequently, they asked SparkOptimus to implement this plan.

Brunel is a multinational leader in flexible workforce solutions in specialist markets, and is a unique professional community to all its stakeholders. Brunel requested support from SparkOptimus to help formulate a coherent global strategy that could serve as a guideline for regions to develop locally relevant strategies and plans in line with the global strategic themes.

Evi is an online wealth management, savings, and investment proposition backed by Van Lanschot (more than €1 billion in assets under management). Following our digital growth scan, we were asked to assist in the implementation of the organisational and process changes that were identified as the primary growth drivers moving forward.

ANWB Media faced significant challenges due to the impact of the digital revolution in the media industry and therefore needed to understand how to transition current activities, position themselves within the organization, and adjust their cost base to the new playing field.

Keesing Media Group (KMG) is the number one publisher of puzzle magazines in Europe. In 2017, KMG was acquired by Ergon Capital from its mother company (Telegraaf Media Group) to pursue a European buy & build strategy. As KMG management was in full control of the vision & strategy going forward, it asked SparkOptimus to capture the ambition in a solid plan and kick-start the first actions of the strategy.

a.s.r. has been in the insurance business since 1720. It is one of the top three insurance companies in the Netherlands. Through its labels (a.s.r., De Amersfoortse, Ditzo, Ardanta, and Europeesche Verzekeringen), a.s.r. offers insurance, pension, and banking services to consumers & SMEs. a.s.r. is also active as a fiduciary asset manager, particularly in the public sector. Confronted with a rapidly changing market, a.s.r. decided to accelerate innovation. To help guide this acceleration, identify relevant first steps, and create traction throughout the organization, a.s.r. reached out to SparkOptimus.

Brunel Netherlands is part of Brunel, a worldwide service provider in employment and is leading in specific (technical) segments of the local & international labour market. For the Netherlands management had set the strategic direction. But it needed to translate it to concrete change and to drive and track progress & results of the new growth strategy. Hence, it looked for (light & pragmatic) support.

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Ecommerce is a rapidly emerging channel within the coffee industry. JDE sought to analyze this trend and accelerate his existing DTC platform to work in harmony with its other retail and commercial channels.

Funda is the leading platform for private real estate in The Netherlands and the most visited home mover website in the Dutch market with over 3.4M visitors per month. To maintain this position and grow into new opportunities, Funda asked SparkOptimus to develop a new Digital Strategy.

Wehkamp is a Dutch e-commerce player offering assortment in categories fashion, living, baby and beauty and more for families in the Netherlands. To offer a great customer experience & continuously improve, Wehkamp wanted to complete its transformation towards a truly digital organization with a focused effort in their Buying & Sales (B&S) discipline. As the Buying & Sales discipline forms Wehkamp’s heartbeat the transformation included a step change in multidisciplinary cooperation across the organization, next to upgrading digital category management practices with data-drive insights & actions.

Bol.com, part of AholdDelhaize, is the largest online retailer in the Netherlands and Belgium. To maintain their leading position and prepare for changes in the market, bol.com transformed their organization to reflect the focus on platform propositions and increase the speed of innovation.

Villebois Wineries is a French winery in the Sancerre region, focusing on mid- and upper-segment Sauvignon Blancs. As digital has started to transform the wine industry and this has been accelerated by COVID-19, Villebois requested SparkOptimus to define a digital channel strategy to leap ahead in the market and grow its brands and sales.

AkzoNobel UK Deco is the leading player in the UK decorative paint market, and forms part of the global paint, coatings, and chemical producer AkzoNobel. As digital developments are accelerating, AkzoNobel UK Deco asked SparkOptimus to support in defining an integrated digital commerce strategy.

De Bijenkorf wanted to offer consumers premium services such as personalization via its new service program Privilege Membership. To be able to offer this program new solutions, technology, processes and data capture methods needed to be identified and implemented in the organization.

Nederlandse Loterij (NLO) is the largest provider of games of chance in the Netherlands, active in lottery and prospective in online gaming. Given the changing commercial and legislative environment, NLO asked for hands-on support to update the 5-year corporate strategy to strengthen their commercial position and grow their added value to Dutch society.

Van Oord is a global leading marine contractor with 150 years of worldwide experience in marine ingenuity. Even though heavy asset industries are yet to be extensively disrupted, Van Oord set the bold ambition to make digital a central value driver for the business, created an internal digital transformation team to do so, and asked us to support this goal.