In today’s world of relentless volatility, geopolitical tension and economic uncertainty, many companies have spent the last few years focused on survival—restructuring operations, building resilience and navigating crisis after crisis. But now, a new challenge is emerging: undervaluation. 

Across global markets, undervaluation is a striking trend. In the U.S., small-value stocks are trading nearly 25% below their fair value, signalling untapped potential. In Europe, countries like the Netherlands and Denmark show discounts of 10–14%, while even large-cap firms in Germany, France and the UK remain undervalued—particularly in sectors like industrial tech, digital trust, and cybersecurity. Meanwhile, in Asia, many companies—especially in technology, logistics, and industrials—are trading at 40–50% below estimated fair value, despite strong fundamentals and growth prospects.

Why? Because the market doesn’t always see what you see. And that’s not just a financial issue—it’s a strategic one. 

Three Gaps That are Holding you Back 

At the heart of this undervaluation lie three critical gaps: 

The Valuation Gap 

Short-term decisions, reactive strategies, or misunderstood pivots can obscure long-term potential. When the market doesn’t grasp your trajectory, your valuation suffers. 

The Differentiation Gap 

Your value proposition may no longer be clear or compelling. Assets are in place, but the dots aren’t connected. Your competitive edge isn’t obvious—internally or externally. 

The Narrative Gap 

Somewhere along the way, the story of what makes your company exciting, unique, and future-ready has faded. Teams lose clarity. Investors lose confidence. Momentum stalls. 

If any of this sounds familiar, it’s time to take a step back—not to rebrand, but to rethink your Story of Value. 
 

What is a Story of Value? 

This isn’t about marketing claims or slick campaigns. A Story of Value is a strategic narrative that articulates the true, enduring value your company creates—today and tomorrow. It’s a unifying force that aligns leadership, energizes teams and restores market confidence. 

A well-crafted Story of Value: 

• Clarifies what your company is capable of 
• Defines where you can play and how you can win 
• Inspires belief across stakeholders—from boardrooms to frontlines 
• Becomes a catalyst for growth, innovation and cultural transformation 

Why it Matters Now 

Without a sharp, distinctive, and inspiring Story of Value, growth becomes harder. Teams hesitate. Investors question. Opportunities slip away. 

But with it? You unlock a new wave of momentum. You simplify complexity into a compelling, credible, and actionable narrative. You speak a common language that wins in the market. 

What you Gain 

Rewriting your Story of Value often leads to: 

• New growth opportunities you haven’t seen before
• Cultural shifts that align with your future ambitions 
• Brand strategy alignment that supports your next chapter 

How it Works 

The process is both rigorous and inspiring. It includes: 

1. Asset Inventory: A deep dive into your tangible and intangible assets—client-facing capabilities, operational strengths, cultural mindsets and more.
2. Strategic & Messaging Frameworks: A structured methodology to crystallize your Story of Value, grounded in data, co-created with stakeholders, and validated through market testing. 

Depending on your organization’s size and complexity, this journey takes four–12 weeks. We combine classical analysis, stakeholder interviews, co-creation workshops, and proprietary AI tools to ensure a 360° view—inside-out and outside-in. 

The Outcome 

You walk away with more than a story or strategic framework. Working with us will provide you with: 

• A practical, execution-ready strategy 
• A unifying, high-touch leadership experience 
• A renewed sense of purpose and direction 

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A Timely Exercise

In 2025, business leaders are grappling with continued uncertainty driven by macro forces such as technological advancements, geopolitical tensions and economic volatility. Forces such as AI disruption, global policy shifts and market fluctuations make it hard to predict which will most severely impact their industry—positively, negatively or not at all. Yet, scenario planning offers a lifeline, enabling leaders to envision multiple futures and prepare for them. In an age of unpredictability, it turns uncertainty into opportunity. 

Best Guessing for Business

Scenario planning is a strategic method to explore possible futures by identifying key uncertainties and developing plausible scenarios. It’s not about predicting one outcome but preparing for many, ensuring businesses can adapt to changes in competitive advantage or demand outlook.

Take, for example, evolving U.S. trade policies and tariffs. These disproportionally affect sectors and companies depending on their global exposure. Businesses with international supply chains or customer bases face heightened vulnerability, while those with a more domestic footprint may see new competitive advantages emerge. Scenario planning allows for visibility into these dynamics, potentially enabling leaders to uncover a new competitive advantage and value capture outlook. 

How to Approach Uncertainty 

Start by pinpointing uncertainties, like tech trends or policy changes. Then develop a set of scenarios that reflect varying degrees of impact. For example: 

• Scenario A: Rapid AI integration accelerates innovation and efficiency. 
• Scenario B: Economic slowdown leads to tightened capital and reduced consumer demand. 

For each scenario, outline strategic implications and prepare corresponding responses, whether that means investing in R&D, restructuring operations or reallocating resources. Regularly revisit these scenarios as new data becomes available. Evaluate both the certainty and severity of each trend to prioritize where your leadership team should focus its attention and scenario planning efforts.

Real-World Success Stories 

At Prophet, we’ve helped clients use scenario planning to navigate complexity and emerge stronger. Here are a few examples:

• A global healthcare company needed a long-term view of the home health market. We developed scenarios examining addressable market size, regulatory changes and competitive dynamics for a 7-10 year future outlook. This work served as a key input to developing a long-term roadmap and strategy to become a successful market marker in the home health ecosystem. 
• A major sweet treat company anticipated disruption from changing food regulations and the growing adoption of GLP-1 receptor agonists. Scenario planning enabled the company to identify strategic pivots that would keep it competitive, compliant and innovative in a rapidly evolving market. 
• For a leading educational services provider, we assessed future demand and market opportunities for AI-powered solutions. This shaped the company’s product development priorities and investment roadmap across its business segments. 

These examples show that scenario planning doesn’t just prepare companies for what’s next—it helps them lead into what’s next. 

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In today’s economic climate, businesses are facing a dual challenge: managing financial pressure while still being expected to deliver growth. Market volatility, shifting customer expectations and rapid technological change have made it harder than ever to find clear, actionable paths forward. Many organizations are being asked to do more with less—yet the demand for innovation and transformation has never been higher. 

At Prophet, we’ve seen this tension firsthand. Over the years, we’ve worked closely with C-suite leaders—more and more with CEOs—who are not just looking for incremental improvements, but for bold market-moving strategies. These leaders value our ability to think creatively, act decisively and move quickly. They’ve come to us not just for brand and marketing expertise, but for help answering the big questions:

Where should we play? How do we win? And how do we do it faster than the competition? 

That’s why we’ve formalized our Business Strategy offering. 

While we’ve been doing this work for years, we’re now bringing it to the forefront because the need has never been greater. Our clients are asking for more than traditional consulting. They want a partner who can help them uncover new opportunities, test bold ideas and bring them to market with speed and confidence. 

Growth-Oriented Business Strategy: Where Rigor Meets Imagination 

At Prophet, we craft business strategies that ignite demand swiftly. Whether it’s building new categories, redefining revenue streams or launching innovative ventures or services, we bring a relentless focus on the customer. 

Our approach focuses on identifying high-potential opportunities and developing bold, actionable ideas. We break free from traditional methods, embrace human-centered creativity and harness AI. We seamlessly transition from ‘where to play’ to ‘how to win,’ accelerating speed-to-market and enabling rapid testing and experimentation. 

Prophet is the ideal partner for businesses eager to develop their strategy with a go-to-market mindset. By combining strategic precision with a creative mind and skill set, we quickly uncover actionable pathways to drive sustainable success and competitive advantage. 

Our Business Strategy Offerings 

We help organizations unlock uncommon growth through a suite of interconnected strategy services: 

Story of Value 

Define and articulate the unique value your business delivers—and why it matters now & in the future. 

Future Casting & Scenario Planning 

Explore multiple futures to anticipate change, reduce risk and build resilient strategies.

Growth Landscaping & Opportunity Identification

Map the market, identify white space and prioritize the most promising growth opportunities.

Offer Portfolio Optimization 

Align your products, services and experiences to customer needs and business goals. 

Uncommon Growth Moves 

Identify and execute bold, differentiated strategies that challenge industry norms and unlock new value. 

Business Model Design 

Reimagine how your business creates, delivers and captures value in a rapidly evolving landscape. 

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The CEO of a large financial-services organization recognized that their customers were defecting to fintech disruptors, ranging from SoFi to Acorns to Robinhood. The customer base was shrinking and revenue growth was stagnant. But while everyone constantly talked about customer-centricity, the executive team didn’t realize how unfocused they had become. This became clear when they couldn’t explain why some customers were leaving and which customers should be their future source of growth.

“How can we find our way back to growth when we don’t even know who our customer is,” the CEO asked.

The company realized it needed to undergo a transformation.

Most Companies Aren’t as Consumer-Centric as They Think

The pressure for reinvention feels more urgent than ever as organizations look to find their way past the turbulence of the pandemic. Customer behavior has shifted radically and with it, so have customer expectations. Markets are resizing. Supply chains are disrupted. Digital commerce is growing rapidly. Customer experiences are the new product.

Despite these changes, companies, theoretically, are 100% committed to customer-centricity. Unfortunately, all that noise has caused many to relax their true commitment to customers — even if they can’t quite see it. (Of course, some have never been customer-centric, despite years of lip service.)

In our transformation work, we’ve come to understand the root of this lack of focus. Companies missing customer-centricity often struggle with at least some of these internal barriers:

Failing To Connect the Dots

Customer-centricity requires a deep and connected view of the customer, supporting real-time, integrated customer insights. This constantly refreshed stream of data is a tool that all functions should use, and should be buttressed by meaningful, qualitative research including deep listening and active interrogation. The data helps spot the critical shifts in customer behaviors. Tools like ethnography are critical to getting at the why behind the trends in the data. Both ingredients are critical to customer-centric growth.

“Customer-centricity requires a deep and connected view of the customer, supporting real-time, integrated customer insights.”

Too often, companies invest in one-off research studies without thinking through how the insights can be operationalized, distributed, and refreshed over time. Or, they over-rely on data collection as the sole source of customer truth without delving into the why behind the behaviors they are seeing. Without the combination of data and insights, companies can easily lose their way.

Finally, different business units typically “own” these insights, which means they aren’t shared or connected across the organization. The result is that sales, marketing, product and service teams each see a different side of the customer, and no one is connecting the dots or able to see the bigger picture.

True customer-centricity flows from an ongoing and distributed source of new insights — this includes a combination of survey and perceptual data along with database and behavioral insights. Staying on top of what consumers want today and in the future will be crucial to identify the right products, services and experiences that lend themselves towards new opportunities for growth.

Unwillingness To Put Yourself Out of Business

Companies that pay lip service to customer-centricity build products and experiences to fit existing capabilities or business models and then optimize margins based on testing. They think about what they want and what’s good for their margins. They look at existing resources and say, “What can we build with what we have?”

Customer-centric organizations approach innovation and experience design differently. They are unencumbered by how things are done now. Instead, think about how to best meet customer needs today and in the future.

This is inherently risky. Nike’s 2017 decision to sell directly with consumers meant ditching large wholesale customers. To some, that seemed reckless.  Within a year of adopting a direct-to-consumer model, their revenue grew by nearly 6%, and Nike continues to be one of the world’s most fast-moving, beloved brands.

Fear of Going All-in

Companies that aren’t all-in on customer-centricity might think that engagement is a metric only the marketing team needs to focus on, or that managing Net Promoter Scores is a role for the servicing department. They may be willing to overhaul some areas or happy to tweak the existing business model. But complete reinvention? That’s often off the table.

However, there is no such thing as a partial transformation. Genuinely customer-centric organizations know that to accelerate growth, it takes alignment through the entire company. Whether in sales or HR, supply chain or R&D, these organizations set shared transformation goals around the relationships they seek to create with their customers, and they hold everyone to account. Hiring, compensation and operating models are linked to these customer relationship goals in ways that reinforce the right behaviors and business decisions.

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