How a Learning Expedition to London helped a leading engineering consulting firm challenge and refine its internationalization approach.
The challenge
To support its global expansion, a leading French engineering consulting firm set out to align its teams, refine its international approach, and learn from peers already operating across borders. The Executive Committee aimed to mobilize internal teams around a shared vision, identify strategic talent needs, and better understand how other players succeed in new markets.
They also wanted to exchange directly with executives from related sectors to gather insights and benchmark best practices.
Our approach
We designed a Learning Expedition in London, organized around six visits with direct competitors — selected upstream in collaboration with our client. The program was built to foster strategic dialogue around key questions:
- How do successful firms organize themselves to scale internationally?
- What talent and recruitment strategies support targeted market expansion?
- How does company size and structure influence visibility and impact abroad?
The outcome
Through these six high-level visits, the Executive Committee gained a clearer view of the British consulting landscape and its diverse models for international growth.
The expedition didn’t stop there. Back in France, the company launched a series of internal working groups to shape its 2030 strategy, building on several key insights gathered during the Learning Expedition. Among the priority areas identified, HR emerged as a critical lever for success, particularly the need to structure and accelerate the group’s internal mobility strategy to better support global expansion.
What we learned
Observing competitors abroad is a unique opportunity to challenge your assumptions and sharpen your own levers for performance.
