Typical Engagements and Achievements
Type of Engagements
Interim management engagements typically involve a 3-9 month assignment with a set number of days onsite. These assignments carry responsibility for managing a department, a product marketing function, or a mission-critical initiative such as directing a product launch.
Consulting projects are generally 1-3 months in duration, conducted remotely from the clients office, and are focused on one or two key deliverables.
Market & Product Strategy
Problem: A small ISV (independent software vendor) was re-focusing its development efforts on one aspect of its technology that it believed had commercial potential. The company didnt know for certain if the technology should be commercialized, or what category the technology should be positioned in.
Solution: After analyzing trends within six different software categories such as Web Analytics and Business Process Management I showed the client where their technology best fit and why they should avoid being positioned in an emerging category. I recommended that they classify their technology as user activity intelligence within the Business Intelligence and Web Analytics categories. The resulting positioning attracted several major companies to enter into Beta agreement discussions with the client.
Market Requirements
Problem: A global ISVs flagship brand was in the late stages of its product cycle. Competition was acute and margins were shrinking. New markets for the product were needed, but major investments in development or marketing were not warranted.
Solution: As the Group Manager of Product Marketing for the brand I had noticed the growth of server-based computing as provided by Citrix and a few other companies. My software brand was not compatible with PCs in a Citrix network and I sensed that this could be an opportunity to sell more licenses. I spent time at the Citrix Worldwide User Group meeting learning as much as possible about the acceptance of the platform, technical issues, etc. Following the event I spoke with our engineering manager and realized very little development or testing work would be required to produce a new version. I wrote a recommendation and market requirements brief. The recommendation was immediately accepted by the companys CEO, and we proceeded to boost sales volume for the brand by 10%.
Market Segmentation & Sizing
Problem: A client was eager to expand its business beyond insurance and homeland security markets. It believed eight industries might represent some level of potential for their innovative anti-fraud software platform, but they lacked a detailed and objective analysis to validate and rank the new markets.
Solution: I conducted extensive secondary research into eight industries to evaluate trends, growth, current solutions, budget, and level of pain associated with fraud and security. Based on the findings I recommended three industries for strategic focus. The company acted on the recommendation and was awarded major pilot projects (six- and seven-figure deals) within two of the three industries within 12 months.
Positioning, Branding & Messaging
Problem: A division of a $3.7B provider of business process outsourcing services for financial and healthcare companies expanded its portfolio of services for healthcare payers by acquiring an EFT/ERA product (electronic funds transfer / electronic remittance advice). At least four competitors were already serving the emerging market and the client knew that positioning and messaging would be critical to early success.
Solution: I first analyzed the positioning and messaging in play within the competitive landscape. What were the competitors saying about themselves, and what were third parties saying? This analysis covered news articles, analyst reports, Web sites, etc. and provided a view on the strengths and weaknesses of the competitive positioning. Next, I worked with the client team to build a value pyramid that delineated the products features, benefits, and value to the customer. Using the competitive analysis and value pyramid as cornerstones, I then created a strategic positioning platform and key messaging for the new product.
The process uncovered two key findings that drove the positioning. First, the competitors were spending most of their communications effort on selling the concept of EFT/ERA rather than differentiating their solution. My research showed that the market already understood the concept and its benefits so we wasted little effort on selling the concept. Second, there was little differentiation between the competitive products, but I saw an opportunity to leverage in a meaningful way the unique strengths and attributes of the clients expertise in finance and healthcare.
Competitive Analysis & Strategy
Problem: The client, a semiconductor manufacturer, was in danger of being eclipsed in the market due in part to a perceived weakness in consumer electronics.
Solution: Conducted competitive analysis, managed primary research, analyzed the research findings, and recommended new strategic positioning platform for business unit of a top-four semiconductor manufacturer.
This effort revealed the markets new purchase criteria and expectations for semiconductor manufacturers, leading to recommendations for a fundamental shift in how the company needed to service its customers and customers customer.
Revenue Generation Plans
Problem: The client, an $18 million manufacturer of PC workstations for creating and editing digital content had experienced flat sales for two years, and didnt have a good estimate of their total available market.
Solution: I re-tooled the sales and marketing process and developed an interim communications action plan that lead to a record year of revenue. The first step was to evaluate the clients entire sales and marketing processes, marketing materials, and Website, and redefine the stages of their opportunity pipeline. I then wrote a marketing communications plan and managed its implementation. Additionally, I developed a model using quantitative and qualitative data to provide the client with their first realistic estimate of the total available market for their high performance computer workstations.
Opportunity Pipeline Engineering
Problem: A manufacturer of PC blades began to notice that its ability to forecast sales with an acceptable degree of accuracy was declining despite rapid sales growth and use of sales force automation tools.
Solution: A pipeline engineering work shop was held to collaboratively define the sales cycle stages according to observable behaviors of the buyer, not in terms of conditions set by the sales department. After subsequent refinement, eight stages were identified and a set of corresponding behaviors for each stage. Then I worked with the client to facilitate the integration of the new pipeline definition into Salesforce.com, including the preparation of a FAQ and online Help documents.