Case Studies

A high-growth North American enterprise B2B software provider required a low-risk, accelerated market entry strategy to launch commercial operations across the United Kingdom and DACH regions (Germany, Austria, Switzerland). The client had reached domestic market saturation and sought to establish an international presence within nine months to support a planned institutional funding round.

• Zero existing brand recognition across European enterprise procurement departments.
• Stringent regional data sovereignty regulations and complex corporate compliance frameworks.
• Fierce competition from entrenched local software vendors offering established customer relationships.
• Executive uncertainty regarding whether to build direct local sales infrastructure or acquire a regional distribution firm.

Oswald Mayer conducted an exhaustive commercial feasibility study across target territories, evaluating client unit economics against regional software purchasing patterns. We recommended a hybrid market-entry model combining a centralised London commercial headquarters with regional distribution alliances in Frankfurt and Zurich.

Our team handled the direct corporate entity setup, recruited key regional sales directors, negotiated Tier-1 channel partnership agreements and customized commercial sales contracts to conform with European standards.

A London-based mid-market private equity sponsor engaged Oswald Mayer to conduct buy-side commercial due diligence and design a post-acquisition carve-out plan for a specialist manufacturing business being divested from a European industrial conglomerate.

• Severe operational entanglement with the parent entity's centralised IT, procurement, legal and logistics infrastructures.
• Unclear standalone margin visibility due to complex historical intercompany overhead allocations.
• Vulnerable customer retention across top accounts following news of the impending corporate divestiture.
• Strict transaction timeline requiring binding deal completion and independent operational stand-up within 120 days.

Oswald Mayer deployed an experienced advisory team to dissect customer retention rates, evaluate contract profitability and audit operational workflows. We modelled the true standalone operational cost base, uncovering £1.8 million in misallocated overhead that had artificially depressed historical profitability.

Concurrently, we authored a comprehensive 100-day operational carve-out plan, renegotiated core supplier agreements, established independent operational workflows and engaged key customer procurement teams to secure multi-year contract renewals prior to transaction completion.

A prominent consumer products brand with £45 million in annual turnover was experiencing margin erosion across its traditional wholesale channels. Oswald Mayer was hired to analyse channel profitability, overhaul distributor contracts and engineer a resilient commercial sales model.

• Declining gross margins resulting from punitive distributor discounts and rising shipping surcharges.
• Lack of transparency into inventory turnover, sell-through rates and regional retail shelf performance.
• Fragmented sales management team with mismatched commission structures and inconsistent territory targets.
• Stagnant sales in international territories despite rising domestic brand recognition.

We conducted a comprehensive unit-economic analysis across all distribution channels, evaluating customer acquisition costs, distributor rebates, payment terms and gross margins. Our findings demonstrated that 35% of retail accounts were unprofitable when accounting for fulfilment costs and promotional allowances.

Oswald Mayer rationalised the distributor network, terminating ten underperforming contracts while renegotiating terms with high-volume partners. We revised sales compensation plans to prioritise gross profit generation rather than top-line revenue, introduced real-time point-of-sale inventory tracking and launched a direct B2B corporate procurement portal.