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Background

A large Swedish multinational company with operations worldwide was faced with dual challenges:

developing a new 5-year strategy and implementing a new business continuity plan. The company realized that geopolitical changes would have a major impact on their future strategy and constitute an important aspect in their continuity work.

The company contacted Consilio for a geopolitical analysis on how geopolitical changes can affect the company’s most important markets, production countries, key raw materials, logistical flows etc.

The complexity is extensive in a future analysis e.g., what happens if Trumpists come to power in the United States, if Xi Jinping is not re-elected at China’s party congress and if Russia wins the war in Ukraine? What will characterize the international game plan then? Consilio contributes by assessing what appearance different outcomes in geopolitically critical arenas may take and how they influence other arenas as well as the client.

The amount of geopolitical parameters that can affect the company quickly becomes considerable, hence it was decided that Consilio, by analyzing the company's operations combined with the outcome of geopolitical events, would formulate several geopolitical scenarios. These scenarios were then used by the company as a playbook to test the outcome of a strategy and form the input values ​​of a continuity plan.

Approach

 By analyzing the company's markets, suppliers, raw materials, strategy and customers, a framework on how the company could be affected directly and indirectly by geopolitical changes was created.

Based on the initial analysis, the company’s most crucial geopolitical arenas were identified, including the potential effects of geopolitical changes on the different arenas. By evaluating the outcome of various geopolitical events, four main scenarios were developed with associated analysis of their impact on the company's operations.

Since the project aimed to produce the basis for both the future strategy work and for the company's continuity work, employees from management team, the strategy team and the risk team jointly approached the task which created a cross-sectional way of working, stimulating a positive knowledge sharing within the organization.

 The result

Consilio's contribution resulted in the following positive outcomes for the client:

• An extensive geopolitical analysis as input for the company's strategy, providing a solid base to both handle global shifts and find competitive advantages over competitors.
  
  
• By working simultaneously with both the strategy team and the risk team, the company could gain economical synergy effects by applying the same geopolitical scenarios in different departments.
  
  
• By combining both Strategy and Risk in the same project, the understanding and alignment of geopolitical issues are easier to handle and the possibility for “silo work” is minimized.
  
  
• Owing to its new geopolitical insights and tools, the company is well-equipped to handle a wide range of political, economic and social issues on the international arena, enabling it to have a more proactive approach when handling global issues and shifts.
  
  
• The company received several country specific tailor-made indexes with unique key indicators demonstrating geopolitical changes, which enables it able to proactively adapt their production.