Strategy consulting
Ares & Co is a Strategy consulting firm for Financial Services General Management: Strategic planning, New business models, Asset portfolio redefinition, Marketing Segmentation
Context of Strategy consulting
The banking and insurance sector has been profoundly disrupted since the last financial crisis:
- new technologies,
- new players,
- new regulations,
- low interest rate environment,
- declining margins, etc.
The speed with which dominant positions are reassigned is increasing; maintaining or improving a competitive position is more difficult than ever. Yet institutions must continue to create value in these changing markets while finding a trade-off between exploring new opportunities and existing options. In a turbulent and unpredictable world, solving this equation has become crucial.
Establishments in the Financial Services sector must create value
Challenges of Strategy consulting
To develop their new strategies, organisations must adapt their focus to changes in their environment, but also to their own managerial and operational capacities.
Banks and Insurance Companies are guided by two main approaches:
- Integration of changes in the environment: strengthened regulatory framework (Basel III and Solvency II), access to liquidity, digital acceleration (big data and digital banking), consumer behaviour, increased competition between players, interest rates on loans, etc.
- The choice of strategic options in terms of redefining the portfolio of activities and leveraging competitive advantage: universal model, specialisation, internationalisation, mastery of key competitiveness factors (customer relations and risk management), etc.
Strategy consulting firm
Our expertise Strategy for Financial Services
Our Teams' intellectual capital and extensive experience in strategic issues enable us to support managers in their approach, by crafting tailor-made, innovative responses with a strong impact on their core concerns.

Ares & Co, consulting firm in Strategy for Financial Services
Business model
Adapting the business model and dealing with changes in the market
Asset portfolio
Redefining asset portfolio segmentation to increase value creation
Liquidity resources
Generating liquidity resources to comply with regulatory requirements
Innovation
Reinforcing innovation to accelerate growth
External growthe
Controlling external growth
Upgrade skills
Increasing the skills of the teams and transforming the organisation
Our Strategy consulting expertise
Strategic planning
New business models
Asset portfolio redefinition
Marketing Segmentation
Our Strategy Clients
Banks
Insurance
Investment Funds
Corporate Functions
Our Strategy consulting assignments
Ares & Co supports many General Management of Financial Services in Strategy
- Redefinition of the pricing strategy of the Retail segment
- Review of the market and the different fund distribution strategies in Europe
- Definition of the digital strategy in Eastern Europe
- Growth strategy in SME markets
- Analysis of the performance of the network and choice of site changes
- Definition of the strategy for entering the Private Banking market in London
- Strategic audit in France for a world leader in insurance brokerage
- Improvement of sales performance in the Large Professionals/Corporate market
- Review of an insurer’s strategy for entering a European market
- Strategic analysis of the issues surrounding Transaction Banking
- Identification of growth drivers for CIB NBI with institutional customers

Focus Fintechs
Fintechs are a new but promising field of investigation
The financial services sector attracts start-ups, which find many development opportunities there. Fintechs, for example, are among the leading categories of start-ups in the world by amount of investment. All banking activities are concerned: Online banking, crowdfunding, mobile payment, savings management, financial and decision-making consulting.
The Fintech wave is based on the convergence of several types of disruptive innovations (data transmission, storage and exploitation and artificial intelligence). Fintechs constitute both a threat and an opportunity for traditional players in financial services and offer a new but promising area of investigation.
Ares & Co supports various institutions for which knowledge of this multiform world is strategic:
- Partnership strategy with consumer credit Fintechs as part of a product launch
- Market study for a fund in a niche investment sector
- Study of investment opportunities in Fintechs in Eastern Europe for an international institution
- Study of the financial sector in Africa (mobile payments and money transfers) including Fintechs
- Platform strategy, including Fintechs, for a French banking group

Contact Ares & Co
Strategy consulting
Would you like to know more about our expertise and our Strategy consulting solutions dedicated to General Management?