In a Fireside Chat at Vendavo’s Growth + Profitability Summit 2023 in Chicago, Matthew Kenneally, Vice President of Global Alliance at Vendavo, spoke with Dave Clement, Partner and Head of the New York Office at Simon-Kucher & Partners, about why having the right strategy, process, people, and technology is crucial for business success.
Matthew Kenneally: Hello, I’m Matthew Kenneally, the Vice President of Global Alliances here at Vendavo. And with me, I’ve got Dave Clement, one of the main Partners of Simon-Kucher. Thank you so much for being here today. We are at the Growth + Profitability Summit here in Chicago. Beautiful day, beautiful city. Thank you so much for being here with us and taking part, and you’re going to be giving a keynote a little bit later on today.
Dave Clement: Yeah, first and foremost, thank you, Matthew, for having me. The setup is amazing. I’m really excited to participate today. I’m super excited this afternoon to kind of talk about the holy triumvirate of growth strategy, right? How we align technology, strategy, and people to really make things stick. So, I think it’s a great set up for me to be able to kind of hopefully add value to the folks here.
Kenneally: That’s fantastic. Talk a little bit about your role and also about Simon-Kucher. What is it that you do and how is it that you add value to your clients?
Clement: Sure. So, we’re a midsize growth strategy consulting firm. We’ve been around for about 40 years, started as a pure pricing shop and now kind of expanded to really focus on all top-line commercial excellence. So, sales, marketing, and pricing. We’ve got about 2,000 associates in 30 countries or so, kind of a nice, mid-market firm. I’m a partner out of our New York office, and I have the honor of actually leading our New York office, and most of my focus, industry-wise, is in the industrial business services sector. You’re really, again, helping companies unlock better growth through better pricing, sales, marketing strategy. So, super well-aligned with how you guys hope to work with your clients and some of the partnerships that we’ve had historically as well.
Kenneally: So, talk a little bit about the partnership with Vendavo. Obviously, there’s a lot of value that we bring to our clients. How does that tie into what Simon-Kucher’s doing and kind of the value of the partnership?
Clement: Yeah, absolutely. I think strategy and tech and process and people all go really well together. You can’t have one without the other. I think that’s critical. I think in this environment, with so much uncertainty and things evolving so quickly because of market dynamics, because of digital acceleration, et cetera, you need to have both sides of that equation, right? So, I think when we work together, our clients get the most benefit because you can’t just have a technology without a good strategy and vice versa. You can’t have a good strategy without the means to implement that through tools like Vendavo has.
Kenneally: Oh, that’s fantastic. And again, I want to thank you so much for taking part in the growth and profitability summit, and your keynote a little bit later on this afternoon. Thank you so much. Can’t wait.
Clement: Super excited to be here. Thanks, Matthew.