Re-architecting the business, brand and customer experience for the next phase of growth

Re-architecting the business, brand and customer experience for the next phase of growth

Orange Electric, a market leader with up to 95% share in its home market, was expanding from electrical and lighting into a broader multi-category energy, infrastructure and technology solutions business, spanning power generation, energy storage, transmission, distribution, data communications and hydroelectric energy.

As the business expanded across categories and into South Asia, Southeast Asia and the Middle East and other international markets, the challenge was to create a clear, scalable and globally relevant business platform that could accommodate this growing portfolio while retaining trust built over decades.

Re-appointed as Chief Change Advisor, we led the transformation end-to-end from strategic brand and portfolio audit, category architecture, classification and naming, to brand strategy, purpose, vision, mission, values and positioning, while also defining how Orange Electric's heritage, acquisitions, evolution and future ambition could be brought to life. We then translated the strategy into a refined brand identity, sub-brands, global website, social media direction, brand and solutions communications, storytelling and copy, building on the earlier global packaging transformation. Working closely with category, sales and other internal stakeholders, we translated complex technical capabilities into a coherent customer narrative, creating a brand and business platform that honours Orange Electric's origins while providing the clarity and permission to compete where it is headed.

Challenge

How could Orange Electric turn the strength of a dominant local brand into a globally scalable platform, preserving its heritage and trust while creating the architecture, naming, strategy, experience, content, digital ecosystem and governance required to compete credibly in new categories and markets?

Orange Electric had successfully built a market-leading brand. The challenge was making that brand strong enough and flexible enough to lead the business into its next chapter.

 

The transformation therefore needed to address six interconnected challenges:

  • Define Orange Electric’s positioning in the context of the growing portfolio and competition.Strategic , innovative and coherent consideration through clearer business classification, category architecture, naming and sub-brand strategy.

  • Stretch the brand into new categories while protecting the equity, trust and heritage that created its market leadership.

  • Translate strategy into experience, ensuring the vision, mission, values and refreshed philosophy were demonstrated through categories, business people, customers and communications.

  • Create a global system for scale, enabling consistent yet locally relevant execution across markets, languages, channels and partners.

  • Replace fragmentation with a system: give internal teams, joint ventures, distributors and third-party partners the tools, templates and guidelines to create and adapt communications consistently across digital, print, collateral, wayfinding, packaging and other touchpoints.

  • Bring the brand into the digital age: establish a global website and online product presence while creating a framework for distributors and partners building their own digital and e-commerce experiences.

Solution

We acted as the strategic change architect, connecting business strategy, portfolio architecture, brand, experience and implementation into one transformation.

(1) Diagnose & Align

Understand the change before designing the solution.

We began with a comprehensive Change Audit, led by the Chief Change Catalyst.

  • Conducted in-depth stakeholder interviews, observation, research and analysis

  • Engaged global, regional and local stakeholders across the home market, South Asia, Southeast Asia and the Middle East

  • Identified gaps across portfolio structure, brand expression, customer experience, digital, governance and ways of working

  • Worked directly with the owners, in-house design team, category and sales leaders and cross-functional stakeholders

  • Managed stakeholder alignment throughout the transformation, developing solutions around both business and organisational realities

(2) Re-architect & Define

Create the strategic architecture for the business Orange Electric was becoming.

We started with the business portfolio and worked through to the brand.

  • Classified and structured the expanding business, category and solutions portfolio

  • Developed the category strategy and architecture

  • Created a scalable naming framework

  • Developed Power, Data and Water sub-brand strategies in response to trademark constraints

  • Built sub-brands from the ground up and defined their relationship with the masterbrand

  • Strategically integrated the innovation and capabilities of newly acquired companies as they were being integrated into the business

  • Worked with the owners and key stakeholders to define the vision, mission, positioning and messaging architecture

  • Reconnected Orange Electric's heritage and history with its future ambition

  • Embedded “Energising Lives” into the strategic DNA of the brand

 

(3) Activate & Experience

Turn the strategy into a brand people could understand, experience and believe in.

We translated the new strategic platform into the complete brand and customer ecosystem.

  • Redefined the overall brand presentation and expression

  • Developed the refined brand identity and new sub-brands

  • Translated vision, mission and values into tangible behaviours and experiences

  • Defined how the brand should come to life for employees, residents and customers

  • Developed category and solution narratives, strategic messaging and copy

  • Translated complex technical capabilities into compelling customer-facing stories

  • Strategically designed and developed the global website

  • Established the global social media direction

  • Developed brand and solutions communications, including brand and solutions videos

  • Built on the earlier global packaging transformation for greater ecosystem consistency

 

(4) Embed & Scale

Build the system that enables the transformation to live beyond the project.

We established the tools, governance and operating principles required for global scale.

  • Developed engaging and practical global brand guidelines and standards

  • Established requirements across ATL, BTL, social media, print, collateral, digital, wayfinding and livery

  • Created multilingual adaptation principles for four or more languages

  • Defined requirements for internal stakeholders, joint ventures and third-party partners

  • Established roles and responsibilities, best practices and standard operating procedures

  • Defined principles for global creation versus local adaptation, improving efficiency and consistency

  • Created templates and tools to enable teams to execute rather than reinvent

  • Used the Co-creation Satellite brand system to connect specialist global capabilities with internal teams

  • Provided the framework for distributors and partners to represent the brand consistently across their own digital and commercial platforms

Difference we made

  • We helped Orange Electric move from managing the equity of a market-leading brand to building the architecture for a global solutions business, connecting its heritage, portfolio, strategy, experience and innovation into one platform for growth.

  • The Strategic Shift: We helped Orange Electric move from managing the equity of a market-leading local brand to actively using that equity as a platform for global growth, connecting its heritage, portfolio, innovation, solutions, customer experience, digital presence and people into one scalable brand system.

  • A credible story for a more complex business.
    Orange Electric now has a strong, credible brand story integrated across its expanded portfolio, making the evolution of the business easier to understand. The story openly connects the strengths and capabilities brought through integration and acquisitions, turning a more complex portfolio into a coherent narrative.

  • A clearer and more navigable portfolio.
    The new architecture, classification and naming system provides a structured way to organise businesses, categories, solutions and sub-brands as the portfolio continues to evolve.

  • A masterbrand with greater permission to stretch.
    The transformation enabled Orange Electric to extend beyond its traditional electrical and lighting stronghold into new categories and solutions while retaining the heritage, trust and equity that built its leadership.

  • A solutions-led proposition.
    Complex technical capabilities across energy, infrastructure and technology have been translated into clearer customer-facing propositions, creating a stronger platform for growth in emerging categories.

  • A digital gateway to global growth.
    Orange Electric's first global website created a new digital home for the brand and its expanding portfolio, incorporating an e-commerce shop and enabling the business to showcase and sell into new categories and international markets.

  • A shift from brand awareness to brand experience.
    Despite its market leadership, the organisation needed a mindset shift, from relying on established brand strength to recognising the importance of customer experience and brand experience. The transformation helped build greater organisational appreciation for how the brand needs to be lived, not simply communicated.

  • Think Global. Act Local.
    One of the central challenges was balancing global consistency with local relevance. The resulting architecture, guidelines and adaptation principles enabled Orange Electric to operate with a global mindset while allowing markets to respond to local customers, languages, channels and commercial realities.

  • A system designed to scale.
    Global governance, guidelines, templates, roles, responsibilities and SOPs established a more sustainable way of managing the brand, reducing fragmentation and enabling teams and partners to create and adapt with greater consistency and efficiency.

  • A transformation owned by the organisation.
    Through the Co-creation Satellite model and close engagement with the owners, leadership, internal teams and regional stakeholders, the transformation was embedded through participation rather than simply handed over as a finished solution.

  • A long-term strategic steward.
    Throughout the journey, we remained committed as a go-to steward of the Orange Electric brand, providing continuity between strategy, implementation and the brand's ongoing evolution.

 

Testimonial

“Working with AGA and Mei Wai was really exciting. We were able to go through our transformation process, taking a local company global. We had a lot of shortcomings. We didn’t have the global expertise when we started going internationally.

Mei Wai was really helping us through our change process, especially in terms of getting new leadership into our new regional offices, from leadership identification to running through the interviews and helping us bring great talent into our operations. After bringing in the leadership, we also looked at how do we make a local brand global? The look and feel of Orange has changed since we’ve been working with Mei Wai. It's really great working with Mei Wai and her team and she has access to great resources. Today, we have great brand visibility. She helped us with our website and developing our branding in terms of merchandising, catalogues and our flagship store.”

Kushan Kodituwakku
President
Orel Group

 

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