6 years
partnering across two strategic planning cycles
4 mandates
from digital vision to executive foresight
We've worked with Vandeputte Safety — a leading European personal protective equipment specialist — across two strategic cycles since 2018. From shaping a digital vision at executive level, to designing customer journeys, to sizing a B2B e-commerce opportunity, to framing the questions behind their next strategic plan. Four mandates, four capabilities, one lasting relationship.
Four mandates, at a glance:
Vandeputte Safety is a solid industrial business with a long history in protective equipment. Like many established companies, the hard part wasn't wanting to go digital — it was turning that ambition into something the leadership could commit to, and then into something teams could actually deliver. That calls for a partner who can hold both ends: the strategic conversation in the boardroom and the operational work on the ground. That's where we came in, and stayed.
The starting point was a digital vision built to be approved at the highest level. We framed digital as an opportunity rather than a threat, structured the narrative, and built the case for a clear direction and first concrete steps. The work was designed for one outcome: aligning decision-makers and securing the green light to move. The vision and its plan were validated at both executive committee and board level.
With the direction set, we turned vision into experience — and we did it hand in hand with Vandeputte Safety's own people. Rather than working in a silo and presenting a finished plan, we built it alongside an internal working team. That's deliberate, and it's how we work — co-building delivers three things at once:
Together we mapped the existing customer journeys, gathered qualitative insight from customers and prospects across multiple regions, and designed the target journeys for both new and existing customers — touchpoint by touchpoint. The output was a prioritised roadmap the teams could own, because they helped build it.
When the question became whether B2B e-commerce was worth pursuing, we answered it with evidence. We ran a market study across Belgium, the Netherlands and France, covering:
It all fed into a clear diagnostic and a recommended action plan, giving leadership a grounded basis to decide where, and how hard, to invest.
Years later, Vandeputte Safety brought us back — this time into the boardroom. Ahead of their next multi-year strategic plan, we ran a tailored foresight session for the executive committee. We didn't write their plan; we sharpened the questions behind it, bringing an outside perspective on the forces shaping their industry:
The goal was simple — better questions lead to better strategy.
What makes this relationship rare isn't any single project. It's the range. Few partners can move from executive foresight to customer journey design to a market business case without losing credibility at either end. We did — because we don't sell a method, we adapt to the question in front of us. And we deliver with your teams, not around them — close enough to drive real change, without monopolising everyone's time. From strategy to operations, and back again.
Over six years and two strategic planning cycles, we've stayed Vandeputte Safety's partner of choice for digital and strategy — through the evolution of the business and of the people leading it. That kind of continuity isn't won with a pitch. It's earned, mandate after mandate.
"Humble curiosity, cross-industry experience and no-nonsense communication enabled Belly & Brain to gather a profound understanding of our needs in a short lapse of time." — Philippe Halsberghe, then Director Sales & Marketing, now CEO · Vandeputte Safety
Ready when you are
30 minutes. No pitch deck. Just an honest conversation about where you are and where you want to go.
