Today, businesses in all industries are competing in an ever-changing environment. The wave of digitization has caused disruptions in the business landscape. Alike other industries, companies in the consulting industry—with a prime focus on process change, strategy development, and client relationship management—are committed to staying at the forefront of this shift. The intensified effect of globalization on the policies pursued by the company has further fueled this shift. 

The omniscience of consulting firms has become paramount—which led Romain GERARDIN-FRESSE to establish GFK CONSEILS. Founded in 2017, our firm validly and sustainably guides entrepreneurs on a partial aspect, as well as on the whole of complementary paradigms—from the right to budget management, through human resources or the adaptability of an economic model to local culture for multinationals that were internationalizing. 

We specialize in the crisis management and analytical expertise domain and have won numerous awards such as the European Business Magazine’s Luxury Crisis Management Firm of the Year 2019 award and many other prestigious accolades for our industry-leading services.  

“A Man of Advice”

Romain has been involved in problem-solving throughout his career. He has always placed himself as an adjuvant, to the effect of appreciating the situation as a whole, and to identify a problem and solve it. In the course of his past duties, Romain noticed that entrepreneurs were obliged to work with consulting firms that were proficient in limited areas of service and did not offer any useful related or complementary services. 

Bridging this gap, Romain founded our firm. We provide a ready-to-go, comprehensive solution on the issues identified by the manager or by us. We integrate legal as well as fiscal, financial, social, and relational aspects in our solutions. As the Director of our firm, Romain ensures the ongoing connection with our important clients. “There is a real notion of intuitu personae for our clientele,” he adds. 

It is therefore imperative for Romain to be available whenever the clients request him. Moreover, he prominently emphasizes overseeing each file, drawing its strategic lines, and analyzing the issues together with the team—regardless of how talented they may be. He believes that understanding and analyzing sensitive files in order to bring the best, the most concise, the most pragmatic, as well as the most personal of the answers—is one of the factors that induce our customers to solicit us and remain faithful. 

Breaking the Norm

At the time of establishment, our prime concern was that it would be complex to successfully build a consulting firm with an innovative, less traditional, and more ‘business oriented’ vision. We stepped into a market that was structurally owned by very corporate-regulated professions and wanted to break the norm by opening this profession of counseling to transversality. Even though we knew there was a real expectation, we were very pleasantly surprised by the rapid uptake of our firm.

The primary challenge for us today is a ransom for highly appreciable success—to succeed in bringing the same level of requirement and excellence in our services, to keep our proximity with the customers, despite the constant increase in market share. 

Optimizing the Profitability of Each Entity

We strive to take particular care in supporting the resolution of issues encountered by business leaders. Our firm offers various solutions dedicated to optimizing the profitability of each entity. The prominent services provided by us include,

• • Audit: We carry out complete audits, of a legal, financial, managerial, and fiscal nature. We isolate the issues to be addressed and highlight the key points to be improved, aimed at optimizing operational profitability. 

• Expertise: Our firm specializes in cases requiring a thorough technical approach. We bring our expertise to situations that require in-depth analysis, allowing the most appropriate strategies to be adopted.

• Strategies: We develop strategies to be implemented to resolve the problem on the basis of the specific paradigms of an entity, and after defining the scope of our intervention. 

Proactive vs. Reactive Approach

The world is constantly changing. Today, social and environmental paradigms are radically different and are evolving nimbly. We must constantly be on alert, to the effect of not remaining reactive, and to be able to deploy a proactive approach. The proactive strategy results from the use of analysis to determine the best option to prevent a problem. During the implementation of these strategies, continuous monitoring of progress is carried out and the provisions are adjusted accordingly to improve what does not achieve the expected result. 

The reactive approach, on the other side, amounts to dealing with problems in real-time—without prior analysis or planning and with results determined downstream of the proposal. The paradox arises from the fact that if a crisis occurs and we have to deal with the problems that result from it, it is because we did not anticipate or executed the strategies poorly. We must therefore be reactive at the beginning of crisis management, before being proactive. 

Unrivaled Crisis Management Services

The COVID-19 pandemic had a strong impact on our firm, which resulted in a severe increase in the client segment that we support in crisis management. The share of our business focused on crisis management—in its broadest spectrum—jumped by a whopping 178%. 

Destocking of the information, legal security of its assets, the circumscription of the scandal, and the pooling of all the actors (experts, lawyers, communicators, etc.) provides the clients a feeling of being protected, accompanied, and defended, without a single component being left behind. To be reassured in these unprecedented times is vital for us, so that the economic, social, and personal impact is minimized. 

A Fundamentally Anticipatory Approach

With this crisis, we learned to react in record time, not with standing all the major legal and normative changes that were accumulating, even contradicted day after day. The fluctuating and constantly evolving guidelines have led us to continually adapt the strategies we develop. Moreover, the resilience and need for normative planning have resulted in a fundamentally anticipatory approach in all, even the most incongruous cases. 

Pearls of Wisdom for the Aspiring Entrepreneurs

“Have a global view of things; accompany your customers by guiding them towards a path of reflection that can encompass each of the elements that can influence their economic activity.”

“Do not confine yourself to looking at problems through a keyhole. Sometimes it is necessary to understand the situation as a whole before deciding on a cause of a consequence.”

“Drawing hasty conclusions from a single vector always leads to overuse of the strategic response.”