PP&A led the business-model phase of the program for both the consumer and fleet markets across France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom. Two research streams ran in parallel. Ten in-depth interviews with senior executives from car repair chains, online repair booking platforms and motor insurance drew on their experience building and scaling after-sales networks. An online survey then tested two service concepts with 320 vehicle owners and 80 fleet managers: micro locations, compact service points where people already go, and mobile service, a technician who comes to the vehicle at home or at work.

The team mapped the customer journey for each segment from discovery to booking, service and return visit, identified the needs, pain points and success factors at each step, and distilled a service offering around the propositions that resonated most: measurable fuel or range gains from a properly serviced AC, a service completed within an hour while the customer works or shops, transparent specialist pricing and a booking that takes minutes.

On the supply side, the team analyzed the refrigerant value chain to confirm that the growth opportunity sat in servicing, mapped the business process into four business-model options ranging from fully in-house to service-only, sized the market, profiled the main servicing chains and screened potential partners. A final phase turned this into a financial model and an implementation roadmap, worked through with the client's team and delivered as a board-ready business plan.

The client received a tested value proposition, a defined service concept and a recommended path to market. The survey showed strong interest in both concepts in every country, with Germany the standout, and showed that fleets already had high levels of AC coverage. That pointed the recommendation toward consumers first, with Germany and the UK as pilot countries, and toward local service stations, shopping centers and car washes as the preferred micro-location sites.

Market sizing indicated more than 50 million AC services a year across the five countries, and respondents judged the proposed price points reasonable. The financial model translated the client's year-three revenue ambition into the network of service locations and mobile units it would require, modeled the economics of a single pilot site in a shopping center, and set out a one-year launch phase followed by a two-year growth phase, with the risks and success factors to track. The roadmap named the partner types to approach first, the leadership team to hire, and the decision points from board approval through pilot launch to the growth decision a year later.

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