Gilbertson & Page: From tradition to traction. A 2-day sprint to a digital vision and roadmap

A clear “North Star” for digital across consumer/customer connections, data maturity and profit.
A practical Now-Next-Future roadmap everyone can act on.
Immediate priorities agreed (KPIs, insight tooling, data audit, research) to kick-start progress.

Summary of Project and Highlights

We ran a two-day onsite workshop with Gilbertson & Page (G&P) to crystallise a digital vision and produce a prioritised roadmap. The engagement blended pre-reading of strategy and background materials, facilitated sessions, and post-workshop synthesis into an actionable playbook.

Outputs included: a concise digital vision, a simplified roadmap that sequences work into Now, Next and Future, an initial KPI set, and a set of near-term recommendations with effort estimates.

North Star

Digital will 1) build consumer and customer connections, 2) drive data maturity, and 3) increase profitability through digital channels.

Roadmap

From defining success measures and ROI rules to a target platform, online ordering/customer management, and ongoing optimisation.

Quick wins

KPI framework, analytics and insight tooling review, GA4/data audit, competitor and brand research, and persona/journey work.

Background

G&P is a respected UK manufacturer with well-known working-dog brands (e.g. Gilpa, Arkwright, Dr John) and a channel mix heavily weighted to wholesale and retail, with e-commerce currently a small share of sales. Their growth ambition includes a significant, sustainable uplift in D2C.

From a marketing perspective, G&P recognised the need to modernise digital touchpoints (aged website, fragmented and limited social) and shift from follower to leader on category storytelling, performance media and content.

We also reviewed competitor positioning to inform differentiation and messaging opportunities within the working-dog and value segments.

Business Drivers

Grow attributable revenue by increasing digital’s direct contribution and influencing mix towards their range of products/channels.
Get closer to customers and consumers with content, services and personalised relationships that add value whilst maintaining and building existing trade partnerships.
Make data an asset, establishing clear success metrics, closing analytics gaps, and enabling experimentation and innovation.
Enable D2C and strengthen omnichannel execution, aligned to the business plan and brand strategy.

Solution

We delivered a structured programme: pre-workshop preparation, two onsite workshops, post-workshop synthesis, and a playback of the outputs.

Approach.

Inputs reviewed: business strategy, channels, brand/product context, IT/ops, and competitor insights.

Facilitated exercises: “pictures of success”, a pre-mortem, and systems mapping to surface opportunities/risks and align around measurable outcomes.

Digital vision distilled to three pillars (Connections, Data, Growth) with explicit implications for marketing, tooling and ROI.

Roadmap created across Now / Next / Future, sequencing initiatives from KPI/ROI foundations and tactical improvements to target architecture, platform build, and campaign acceleration.

G&P-mapping-roadmap-Mando-Group

Outcome

What we delivered

Digital Vision: a concise “why/what” statement everyone can use to guide decisions.

Roadmap: clear milestones and dependencies — from success measures and brand definition to digital marketing strategy, target platform, online ordering/customer management, and continuous optimisation.

Potential KPIs across the three pillars (e.g. engagement with key content, organic search growth, AOV uplift from personalisation, campaign conversion rates, and premium-mix contribution).
Immediate recommendations with effort estimates, including: KPI framework, evaluate insight tooling, GA4/data audit & analytics gap analysis, competitor analysis, brand exploration survey, customer research/interviews, persona & journey creation, high-level requirements, and customer data strategy.

G&P-Digital-Roadmap-Mando-Group

The Outcomes this delivered

Clarity & alignment: the business now has an agreed North Star and a sequenced plan, reducing subjectivity in digital decisions and tying work to top-level goals.

Confidence to act: with KPIs and first moves defined, G&P can progress near-term work while preparing for a scalable target architecture and D2C growth.