Focus: Securing competitiveness by designing and implementing organic and inorganic growth strategies

Having the right strategic positioning is one of the key levers for protecting and increasing a company's value long term. Yet rail incumbents often find it hard to develop new markets. In addition, large rail companies often face the challenge of getting the strategies of their numerous international business units to work in sync.

We support our clients in developing and establishing new strategies for competing successfully in the global mobility and logistics market. And we help management to put their strategic plans on a growth track with viable solutions.

Our portfolio of expertise covers many areas, from conceptualization, business wargaming, and market research to implementation support in passenger and freight rail transport. Rising customer demands around the quality of integrated services in passenger and freight rail transport are setting new standards with respect to the connectivity and individuality of service offerings. Working together with management, we develop well-founded programs to improve customer experience along the entire value chain by optimizing business offerings and crafting innovative product and service strategies.

Our expert teams also support rail managers who need to overcome challenges associated with diversifying their business model. By expanding the product and service portfolio beyond the core rail offering, we not only improve profits but also give companies new strategic advantages by creating unique selling points.

Further, Roland Berger supports companies interested in developing their own individual vision for market entry and internationalization. With our international network of experts, we also help to implement cross-border growth strategies.

Our consulting support for inorganic growth strategies covers not only target identification and due diligence but also carve-outs and post-merger integrations to ensure that our clients maximize the full potential of their transaction.

Focus: Improving top-line performance

Achieving profitable revenue growth in the highly competitive mobility and logistics market is a mammoth task. Even solid historical performance is no guarantee of future success. Rail companies must therefore continuously reinvent themselves in order to gain and protect market share.

At the same time, the sheer diversity of contexts that influence purchasing decisions for mobility and logistics services by rail is constantly increasing, ranging from the diversification of analog and digital sales channels to smart pricing strategies in intermodal and intramodal competition.

We combine our years of expertise with cutting-edge tools and innovation to reduce sales complexity and optimize pricing together with our clients.

With our bespoke approaches for improving clients' top-line performance, the consulting in our projects focuses on the key drivers of value to achieve the greatest possible impact in the shortest possible time.

Within passenger transport, we help companies exploit available sales and pricing potential. In order to meet the demands of today's dynamic B2C mobility market tomorrow, the top priority in optimizing the sales concept must be to create an optimal customer experience along the entire mobility chain. In collaboration with management, we take on the challenge of streamlining sales processes to consistently lower purchase barriers for consumers – from app purchases to direct sales during and after a journey. To take full advantage of the customers' willingness to pay, we combine actions to increase sales productivity with approaches such as customer prioritization and dynamic pricing.

In rail freight transport, we help companies to rethink their sales and pricing for integrated logistics solutions. Setting a goal for sales to exceed a predefined target is often like taking a leap in the dark. We support management with pragmatic optimization programs, analytical approaches and a comprehensive data basis to help them modernize their sales and pricing models and tap into substantial sales potential.

For businesses that sell integrated logistics solutions, we help them increase the efficiency of their sales and customer service organizations by combining the relevant measures with smart management of capacity utilization in production.

Given our many years of experience in market research on the rail industry, we are also in a position to support our clients in defining the optimum price corridor for different price elasticities in all segments of rail freight transport.

Focus: Transformative increase in operational and financial performance

Operators of passenger and freight trains are exposed to considerable risks stemming from the complexity of transport networks and fluctuations in demand. Profitability is further burdened by the generally high level of fixed costs. Added to that, the rail sector faces ever stricter requirements from public investors around refinancing and from private investors around the return on investment (RoI).

Companies must raise their operational and financial performance to ambitious levels to achieve sustainable profitability and a clear competitive position. To help them do this, we work with our clients to develop individual approaches for transformation and restructuring. From increasing resilience in the network based on data insights to overhauling the business model, we develop and evaluate key levers for end-to-end optimization – always in close cooperation with our subject-matter experts and supported by intelligent analytics tools.

Holistic optimization models help us to increase the efficiency of day-to-day business processes. At the same time, we drive down complexity while keeping core operational and administrative processes fully functioning. Through the optimization of auxiliary processes in maintenance and other operational areas, we show where other significant cost reductions can start to be achieved. We also support companies in accessing additional profit potential through targeted portfolio management.

Besides optimizing their day-to-day business, we tailor our clients' operating and governance model to their strategic needs. In addition to defining the target dimensions of the overhead organization, we examine all aspects of corporate management, from control mechanisms and KPIs to reporting lines and service delivery to roles and responsibilities.

Systematic implementation is the linchpin of any successful transformation. Working closely with our clients, we help them to realize the identified performance potential. We link the impact of individual transformation levers to the operational planning and reporting processes within the line organization via intelligent financial modeling. We set up a restructuring office to ensure transparency throughout the entire process and make successes visible in real time. Our teams also help companies to ensure the sustainable delivery of objectives through consistent change management.

Focus: Better performance through scalable digital solutions, and more innovation expertise through cooperation with RB N3XT

Business process connectivity and digital product integration into the business model and customer interfaces are the basis for business success today, in any industry. Digitalization is particularly important for rail as the backbone of the economy. Numerous nationally driven initiatives such as ETCS rollout and growing pressure from private investors serve to underline this development.

Working in collaboration with our digital unit RB N3XT, our team supports rail companies in transforming their digital core.

Successfully delivering a digital strategy requires a modern IT landscape and IT organization. But many rail companies still work with traditional IT structures: decentralized and heterogeneous system landscapes with many proprietary developments that have been outdated for years. Added to that, there is a large proportion of self-built systems and fixed organizational structures based on a plan-build-run model. We therefore help rail companies to modernize their IT on the basis of IT strategies, target architectures, target organizational models, sourcing strategies, and holistic transformation programs. This drives operating costs down, strengthens data security, and streamlines data structures.

Digital use cases at the customer interface, in production, and in admin functions help us to realize significant efficiency and sales potential in these projects. With our support, companies can identify the right use cases, develop them with the right tools or in the relevant systems, and implement them – for instance by developing smart apps for traveler information or by using sensors for predictive maintenance.

Artificial intelligence is also opening up new opportunities for the future of rail. In collaboration with RB N3XT, our team advises on specific AI use cases as well as on overarching AI strategy with a major impact on all areas of the company. We identify both top-line potential such as improved customer acquisition and loyalty as well as bottom-line improvements through reduced costs and increased productivity.

The comprehensive digitalization of rail across Europe with the European Train Control System and digital control centers creates further potential savings in operating and maintenance costs for rolling stock. Our consulting services help companies in the rail industry turn the digital transformation to their advantage.

Focus: Value creation through sustainable transformation using existing resources and by activating public funding potential

Rail transport has long since established itself as a sustainable logistics and mobility solution. Nevertheless, companies must invest in their own transformation to continue to operate a profitable business. As experts in corporate transformation, we analyze the most important sustainability trends for our clients and evaluate their impact on business operations.

To remain competitive long term, companies must achieve completely zero-emission passenger and freight transport, especially given the rising emission taxes. Sustainability is a key factor in people's choice of how they travel and is therefore a key aspect in potential passengers' decisions to purchase a ticket to travel by rail. But sustainable supply chains are also an essential part of the strategy of modern logistics companies.

Because rail transport is already largely electrified, sustainable transformation gives players a chance to stand out from their industry peers through further decarbonization measures and thus secure a direct competitive edge. However, the industry will need to act fast, as other transport sectors, particularly road, have already made progress towards climate neutrality.

Roland Berger supports rail company management in positioning themselves as the backbone of a sustainable transport revolution. We create new competitive advantages and make companies more attractive to investors with improved profitability and a clear roadmap to climate neutrality.