Our cases

2500 educators use Stories that Move, a multi-lingual online learning tool made by the Anne Frank House with partners from seven countries. The tool encourages students to think about inclusiveness, diversity, and discrimination and to reflect on their own views and choices in relation to these themes. The team realised they could use help in setting clear priorities in how to continuously improve the tool. The aim: a growing number of users and sessions, leading to a greater social impact.

Shell is taking the next step to become a consumer-centric and data-driven organization. For the Retail Marketing team this translates to an ambition to shift from top-down marketing to more bottom-up, consumer-insights driven marketing. To get there, Shell needed a dot on the horizon for the management to define what good looks like, and a push for the operational teams to start building key digital and data capabilities.

HEINEKEN is the world’s most international brewer, with revenues of over €27bn, brands present in over 180 countries and operations in more than 75 markets. Heineken is a proud and independent global industry leader, with a strong brand portfolio and an extensive sales & distribution network across the globe. Understanding that digitisation is driving a seismic shift in how people connect, consume media and consume products, HEINEKEN launched a broad set of digital initiatives across functions and markets throughout the world, with a view to ‘staying in the game’ and learning along the way.

Acknowledging this promising start, SparkOptimus urged HEINEKEN to fundamentally elevate and accelerate its digital transformation. Committed to accelerating growth in a rapidly changing competitive playing field and driven by the ambition to become the clear winner in beer & cider in a digital age, HEINEKEN asked for SparkOptimus’ support in co-developing a shared vision, strategy, and execution plan with HEINEKEN’s key decision makers: the Executive Team and MDs of HEINEKEN’s largest global Operating Companies.

Together with the Executive Team and key local leadership teams, we co-created a shared vision, strategy and 3-horizon plan for accelerating growth in a digitised world. We also defined what was required to realise this ambition across the globe. After formulating the 3-horizon strategy and plan, HEINEKEN asked SparkOptimus for support with achieving the core components of the plan. As part of that support, HEINEKEN and SparkOptimus jointly embarked on an ambitious, multi-year programme to drive the most exciting, most rewarding but also the most complex ‘pillar’ of the three-horizon plan: digitising HEINEKEN’s B2B Route-to-Market to outlets across the globe (scope of this case study). This represented a significant challenge given HEINEKEN’s decentralised governance model and the large variety of routes-to-market and digital maturities present across different markets.

Henkel Beauty Care is active in the branded consumer goods and professional hair salon business with their products being available in 150 countries worldwide. Driven by their recent acquisition of a D2C scale-up active in hair coloration, HBC asked SparkOptimus to accelerate this venture towards sustainable growth and identify further growth opportunities to reach their D2C ambition.

THOMY is a Swiss condiment brand belonging to Nestlé. THOMY wants to remain the front runner in its category and fully 'run' like a digital business. To realize this, THOMY asked SparkOptimus to support in offering increasingly better consumer experiences through digitally enabled, seamless journeys, and a high learning velocity.

PortXchange reduces inefficiencies in the port-calling process, by making key planning data available and transparent to all players in the value chain with their digital solution. To scale and drive adoption, PortXchange asked SparkOptimus to define its first revenue and pricing model to suit all port-calling customers.

Achmea is the largest insurance company in the Netherlands. It provides health, casualty, and income insurance to over 10M individuals through its brands such as Centraal Beheer and Interpolis. Achmea’s Casualty Insurance division has set its ambition to become a digital and data-driven insurer and installed a team to lead this transformation; the Data & Digital Team. This team explores and tests new business models, redesigns customer journeys, and digitizes and automates internal processes. Over the course of 2019, 2020 and 2021, Achmea has collaborated with SparkOptimus in multiple focused stints to set up the Data & Digital Team, build up its capabilities and realize impact in its customer journeys.

ABN AMRO Verzekeringen (AAV) is a joint venture of ABN AMRO Bank (AAB) and Nationale Nederlanden (NN). AAV is dedicated to serving the insurance needs of AAB customers (businesses and consumers) and has a unique position in the market as both an insurer and a broker. Foreseeing rapid changes in the market, AAV asked SparkOptimus to help redefine its strategic position to achieve sustainable customer growth in the future.

The Kraft Heinz Company is one of the largest food and beverage companies in the world. Names like Heinz and Jell-o belong to its large portfolio of internationally popular food brands.

To serve its consumers and customers better digitally, Kraft Heinz asked SparkOptimus for help in achieving three main objectives: Design initiatives to boost digital sales across different routes to market; Identify eCommerce organizational and technology enablers at international level and in 3 representative markets (United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Brazil); define a roadmap to drive execution of the changes.

Wella is a global Germany-based hair care company and the market leader in the DACH markets. To capture opportunities of the digitizing consumer and hairdresser, Wella asked SparkOptimus to help develop the digital strategy to double down on digital sales and futureproof its B2B and B2C routes-to-market.

Wella is a Germany-based hair care company and market leader in DACH markets, generating over $200M revenues. After jointly shaping the Digital Ecosystem vision, strategy, and 3-year plan (as described in our other case), Wella asked us to assist in kickstarting the implementation of its digital transformation.

JET is the leading global food delivery platform, connecting consumers and restaurants across the globe. To ensure continued growth, the company established the Commercial Growth (CG) function, responsible for ideating, incubating, and accelerating existing and new revenue models that drive value for restaurants. JET asked SparkOptimus for support to set the ambition, define the path to get to this ambition, and kickstart & accelerate the most promising business initiatives.

Vital Food Group is the owner of Bart’s Retail (Bakker Bart) – a bakery chain with franchises in the high streets across the Netherlands. As more and more consumers prefer to order their food at Bakker Bart for delivery or pick-up, the company asked SparkOptimus to help create a new digital growth strategy to strengthen its omnichannel proposition. The goal of the strategy was to optimize the current digital proposition and to test & scale new digital initiatives, while making sure that each franchise partner contributes to and benefits from the changes.

PVH – globally known for its iconic brands Calvin Klein & Tommy Hilfiger – is one of the world’s largest and most admired fashion companies, operating in over 40 countries worldwide.

PVH Europe’s ambition is to transform from a transaction-led fashion wholesaler into a consumer-led, multichannel fashion player with a tripled ecommerce business by 2025. To turn this vision into reality, PVH wants to connect with its consumers “in the moment”, which implies serving consumers in real-time based on their needs. For example, providing real-time transparency on delivery and payment status, offering personalized recommendations, or promptly providing adequate customer support in case of an incident.

PVH asked SparkOptimus to help shape the path to achieve this ambition, and kickstart execution to gain early momentum.

Henkel Adhesive Technologies is the global leading solution provider for adhesives, sealants, and functional coatings worldwide, with annual revenues of €10 billion. Recognizing that digital developments could enable them to better serve their customers along the entire customer journey, Henkel asked SparkOptimus to accelerate the digital transformation of their global sales and marketing functions.

Sandvik Mining & Rock Solutions (SMR) is a leading global supplier of capital equipment, tools, services, and technical solutions for the mining & construction industries. Recognizing the vast strategic potential presented by the growing aftermarket sales, the company engaged SparkOptimus to support the development of their venture concept. This evolved into velroq.com, the first online retailer of drilling machine parts, ranging from hydraulic pumps to maintenance kits.

Schneider Electric (SE) is a leading global specialist in energy management and automation, with €34bn in revenue. To better serve its customers, SE launched a B2B online portal, aimed to offer a digital E2E self-service environment where customers of all types can easily search, configure & order products and have direct access to training & customer support. To ensure SE would set the right strategic priorities going forward, they engaged SparkOptimus to independently benchmark their B2B portal against industry competitors and best-practices.

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PGGM Investment Management with €230B assets under management is the pension investor for the healthcare sector. Based on the new investment beliefs of their client they formulated together with this client the strategy to fundamentally shift from 2D investment management (optimizing risk & return) to 3D investment management (risk, return, and impact). PGGM IM realizes that the existing operating model does not support this ambition, especially in a rapidly changing landscape with high volatility and ever-evolving industry standards. Therefore, PGGM IM engaged SparkOptimus to design and ignite a transformation of its operating model, aiming to become a highly adaptable organization with ESG fully ingrained in its investment processes and portfolio.