All client work Case study

Creating a clearer proposition for the next stage of growth

Professional services — Proposition & narrative

A global professional services firm had successfully expanded its range of managed services for the financial industry. As the business grew, it became harder to explain what connected those services, what the firm stood for as a whole and why clients should see them as part of a broader proposition rather than a collection of individual offers.

The challenge.

The client had successfully built a broad range of managed-service solutions for the finance industry. As the offer expanded, the group was struggling to define a common identity and proposition across its practices, while keeping employees focused around a coherent story for growth.

The immediate questions were simple: what should all parts of the business be able to say in common, how should individual practices connect back to that overarching story, and how should the new narrative be introduced internally and externally?

What we did.

Grndworx interviewed 15 senior partners to understand how they described the business today, what they believed made it distinctive, the values they wanted to preserve and where they wanted the firm to go next.

The findings were turned into a communications brief built around what different audiences should think, feel and do. That brief was tested with employee sounding groups to ensure the emerging proposition resonated beyond the leadership team before creative development began.

Grndworx then developed four integrated routes covering the overarching proposition and narrative, copy platform, visual identity and approach to internal communications. Each route showed how the group-level story could work across different practices while still giving them room to express their individual strengths.

What changed.

The work gave the firm a clearer proposition for the business as a whole and a stronger way to connect its individual services into one coherent offer.

It created a common framework for how the firm talked about itself across practices, audiences and markets, helping employees understand how their part of the business contributed to the wider story and giving clients a clearer view of the breadth and value of the overall proposition.

That created a stronger platform for future growth, including the ability to introduce clients to capabilities beyond the individual service or practice through which they first knew the firm.

Working through something similar?

Tell us what is happening in the business. We’ll tell you how we think about it.