Supporting growth and diversification for a state-owned engineering organisation in sub-Saharan Africa

4

     strategic initiatives identified across short and long-term priorities

3

international markets identified for expansion

€60M

of incremental revenue identified across high-potential national clients

Helping a state-owned engineering business reduce its reliance on state contracts and build a clear path into new markets.

The client is a state-owned engineering and development organisation in sub-Saharan Africa. It was moving through a management transition and needed a partner to help shape its next phase of growth.

Almost all of its income, 95%, came from state contracts. The leadership understood the risk that came with it. A shift in government priorities or a single delayed programme could put the whole business under pressure. The brief was to reduce that dependence by opening new income streams and improving profitability, securing financial stability now while preparing the organisation to expand into new markets.

Our approach

We worked closely with the client to understand the organisation, its services, and its financial performance.

We carried out a full review of the existing strategy to find where it was strong, where it was exposed, and where the real opportunities for growth sat. We benchmarked the business against leading industry peers and studied global shifts in sustainability, digitalisation, and market demand. From that, we identified the markets with the most potential.

We then ran a series of workshops with the leadership to turn that analysis into decisions. Together, we prioritised the clients and partnerships worth pursuing and agreed on four strategic initiatives, giving the organisation a clear, ordered path to growth rather than a long list of options.

The result

The client came away with a roadmap for growth across local and international markets, and a clear view of which clients and partnerships to put first. We also strengthened the organisational structure and capabilities needed to carry the transformation through, so the plan would not stall once the work moved from strategy into delivery.

The organisation is now moving into Phase 2: standing up a Project Management Office to oversee the transformation and embed the strategic initiatives into its central operations.