Ricardo Gerlein
CEO
Pet del Caribe
"The high-impact strategic process that we developed with Emil Loewy from i2 Strat took us all out of our comfort zone, both on a business and on a personal level. Emil takes you through a process of choices and resignations that turns out to be not as obvious as you might think at first glance. Emil helped us a lot to reverse a core limiting belief that was leading us into a vicious circle that was hurting our business.The process allowed us to understand where we are unique and relevant, strengthen our core business, and identify emerging businesses. We created very powerful value propositions for our businesses. We understood that the market is not studied, it is created and that we were avoiding the new world by continuing to look at the old. In difficult moments instead of shooting everywhere, we have to do less, focus even more and reinvent the core. A company without strategy fights battles that it knows it may lose, we only go to war in battles that we can win.The process with i2 Strat and Emil was a winning one that left us with a clear goal and the weapons to fight and conquer our BHAG ("Big Hairy Audacious Goals"). No one said it was going to be easy, but now we know many things that we didn't know we did so well and we are going to focus on these with a lot of discipline and perseverance. Thanks Emil and i2 Strat!"
Lizi C.
CEO
Chriwa
“We received a recommendation to work with Emil Loewy from i2 Strat from a business friend.We requested the help of i2 Strat because we were going through a rather delicate and uncertain situation in our companies. We didn't really know what was happening in our holding company and, furthermore, sales had fallen sharply.Emil from i2 Strat answered our call right away and reacted immediately offering prompt and timely assistance. That calmed us down a lot. From the first conversation, Emil understood very well what our business is and what we were doing, as well as the problems that were arising.The accessibility and availability of him to travel in a very short time to Europe for a certain time and carry out work on site impressed us very positively. In record time, Emil organized a work plan to review the current strategy of the companies and carry out a strategic process to motivate our staff, increase sales and the profitability of the companies. Among the objectives we had with i2 Strat was also to create a 10-year vision of the companies and make changes in the organization.During the organization of the work and above all when requesting financial information from the financial management of the company, a more serious and different problem than the one we had contemplated in principle began to emerge. The financial manager, who was also in charge of cost control, pressured our president and owner to give up i2 Strat's services under penalty and threat of retiring together with the other company managers. At this point we can say that the financial manager exposed himself and without Emil coming to our company, he had discovered the main problem we had.Unfortunately, it was not possible to continue at that time with the process that we had planned with i2 Strat due to the above, but it was decided to leave this work for later and, in accordance with Emil, the objectives of the initial work were changed for a private strategic training for two of the heirs of the companies: for me as manager in charge and for our son as a possible successor to his father.During this training, Emil not only taught us to think strategically, but also continued to support us with the situation that had arisen with the financial manager. Before finishing our strategic training, the first consultations were carried out with the lawyers and external tax auditors, with which many inconsistencies were discovered that led us to dismiss the financial manager without notice.We are very grateful to Emil and i2 Strat for the strategic training received, which allowed me to advance positively on the different fronts that I have had to attack in recent months. i2 Strat and Emil are very much in my mind, especially when I have to impose myself in difficult situations. I learned that I had to be very strong and without any self-consciousness or inhibition to react. In addition to being very aware of the interests of our companies.Meanwhile, sales figures have increased by more than 40% and this, together with having detected "the great leak" that we had in financial management, has allowed us to stabilize economically.The work that we initially planned with i2 Strat will be carried out in the near future.”
Iván Sarué
CEO
Unipack
"Strategy is choice and it's hard to choose! Hand in hand with Emil and i2 Strat, under a comprehensive strategic process that generated the necessary confidence, we made crucial choices that marked the future of Unipack. Emil in a very professional and why not, in an uncomfortable (in the good sense of the word!) way, led me as a CEO to think outside the traditional framework that organizations have, and in this way reach very powerful conclusions and strategies. Our company is thriving. 100% recommended!"
"After having worldwide recognized advisors during our 35 years in our organization , I believe Emil made us even better. Our leaders and managers recognize this also."
Roberto García
CEO
Rocol
"Our company had to make a decision, a rather strategic one, keeping in mind the different business units we had focused on and also taking into consideration the valuable assets that we had available in-house.At that critical point was when Emil Loewy from i2 Strat came in to provide a comprehensive view of our operations to thoroughly digest and understand where we really generated value. His understanding of our company shifted how we saw our own businesses. We had a core business unit that was the "heart" of the company and with the years we generated additional business units around the core business that allowed us to generate extra revenue for the company. However, the company's revenue plateaued and there were no clear signs on why this situation occurred.Emil started to work with the company's Executive Leadership Team to provide a detailed analysis on why we did what we did to work with us and cocreate a comprehensive strategy for the medium and long term. A "Crispy Strategy" if you will. He helped us break our paradigms and to comprehend where we truly generated value."At that moment, we decided to focus on 2 business units that generated 80% of the revenue and to expand operations in those units to become more profitable. That is exactly what happened. Today I can say that it is the best assessment I have received personally and professionally. Thanks to Emil and the i2 Strat team, it was an amazing and very successful journey!"
Christian Mejía
CEO
Mejía Zuñiga
Corporation
“When you decide to embrace a consultancy process in your company you normally expect to learn, be amazed and be taken out of your comfort zone, but what you expect the most is results. This is where we think i2 Strat adds the most value. We are thrilled with Emil’s consultancy process results as it truly surpassed our expectations. We can say that Emil is no ordinary consultant. He was able to lead us through an incredibly high impact and valuable business strategic process to redefine our company’s corporate and competitive strategies. During the process we learned even more about our company and understood what strategy really is, drastically changing the way we approach our business and industry. With a very deep and professional segmentation process, we were able to identify or create a completely new customer segment, which is currently driving the most growth for the company, and develop winning value propositions for each of the segments. We are now sure of our “why”, we know where we can compete to win and the capacities and capabilities we need to develop and maintain to reach real growth. BIG THANKS to Emil!”
Johnny Janne
COO
International
Protection
" 'Business strategy IS prosody'For me, trying to start a health-tech startup, this phrase was an insight into the nature of business strategy.The volume, tone, pronunciation and even the blank spaces between words make the magic of a song, speech or a love declaration. In such manner, the right coordination and fit between the different areas and activities of a company is what makes the magic possible and what business strategy is all about. This we understood thanks to Emil.Emil has been with us through all of our process, giving us his valuable, sometimes hard, but necessary input to help us achieve our short and long term goals.At the beginning we knew that it was time to innovate in our field, we could sense that; and we had several ideas that were 'sexy ideas' -according to him- but there was not necessarily a feasible business in them. He put our feet down to Earth, fortunately at the very early stages of the pathway, so that we could save time and money, two of the most valuable resources for a startup. With Emil's help we chose to build a business out of the simplest idea we had. The idea has now grown into a sophisticated project with huge upside.Working with Emil has been a journey of growth; I’ve found in him some values that are hard to find these days: pursue of excellence, down to the ground advice, commitment with the goal and above all a never boring session or conversation; always with a new thought, idea, or even a new question that needs to be solved.I’m sure that we will count with him in the next stages of our company, and I wish every company could have a business strategist like him."