- Core Product Services - Product Marketing
- Core Product Services - Due Diligence
- Tech Partner Synergy
- Pricing Strategies
- Sales Cycle Management - Sales Tools
- Sales Cycle Management - Price Point
- Sales Cycle Management - Channel Partners
Core Product Services - Product Marketing
The Situation:
A technology company providing access control software for enterprise networks in a growing market dominated by large equipment vendors learned that an equipment vendor acquired a competitor in the market. This acquisition opened the door to a realignment of the market. IS&T was brought in to help the technology company capitalize on the changes in the market
IS&T Recommendations:
After reviewing the product and its position in the market, IS&T:
- Determined that the product could be considered a mission critical application
- Created an application note that it be positioned product for building high up-time redundant configurations (That is, an application that offered continuous 7/24 mission critical operation, while also allowing one server or one copy to fail.)
- Taught the enterprise sales team to sell the new configuration
- Nine months after implementing IS&T recommendations, nearly all product sales were for the redundant configuration
- Sales for the enterprise market (both SMB and large enterprise) effectively doubled
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Core Product Services - Due Diligence
The Situation:
A market leader in home dial-up Internet access products brought IS&T in to evaluate a new technology for the consumer market and explore growing its product portfolio.
IS&T Recommendations:
After reviewing the newly acquired product and its market positioning IS&T:
- Evaluated the opportunity for cost reduction and high volume production
- Launched a new product category for home networking with cable companies.
As a result of IS&T recommendations the client:
- Reduced the cost of the new technology
- Created an opportunity for long term growth by adding a new product class for high speed Internet access.
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Tech Partner Synergy
The Situation:
A software publisher had developed a security product that controlled user rights to connect to the network. At the same time, a new security approach was emerging that required taking more information into account for allowing a device to connection to the network. IS&T was asked to determine how the company should participate in the new market, given that the new market was a potential threat to its security product. It was clear that new market entrants would use the underlying security product protocol, but not, necessarily, the product itself.
IS&T Recommendations:
IS&T recommended that the company:
- Publish a product API and promote industry products to be layered in parallel to the technology layering
- Create a technology independent API for adoption by a standards committee
- Establish the perception of an open standard. (Though, this was a ‘de-facto’ open standard as the client was initially, and for a few years afterward, the only implementer of the API)
Results:
- The company developed an adoption advantage for the product over the next five years (Larger competitors did not implement the API as they did not want to open their larger installed base to other vendors.)
- The technology became recognized as the dominant market preference and was adopted world wide
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Pricing Strategies
The Situation:
A software developer asked IS&T to evaluate a major new feature of an existing application for value and pricing recommendations
IS&T Recommendations:
After evaluating the new feature IS&T determined that it provided new, major functions and recommended that the company:
- Package the new software as an application module, not as a new feature
- Create application notes to show an ROI model for the application module.
- Set pricing for a fast payback period of less than three months. (The fast payback period allowed the new module pricing to be set at 5x to 10x the original software’s value.)
Results:
- The short ROI model and fast payback period helped customers accept the high price.
- The revenue from sales of the new application module far exceeded what would have been possible as an optional, extra price feature of the original product.
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Sales Cycle Management - Sales Tools
The Situation:
To refresh its offerings, a international network management solutions integrator for ISPs, telecoms and mobile operators asked IS&T to review its portfolio.
IS&T Recommendations:
After reviewing the company’s product portfolio, IS&T recommended that the company:
- Expand its product line
- Communicate the logic of the expanded line to its target markets
- Create a marketing program on the expanded capabilities to increase its visibility and stature
Results:
Results are in progress. The company is:
- Creating competitive communications/positioning strategies and tools to communicate the logic of the expanded solution set
- Negotiating for additions to its product line
- Creating a marketing program to increase its visibility and stature as a thought leader for these solutions.
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Sales Cycle Management - Price Points
The Situation:
A software developer for the ISP market asked IS&T to reposition a network management software application for more value.
IS&T Recommendations:
After reviewing the pricing strategy for the product IS&T determined that it was priced close to the low end in the market. Yet, customers were using it in large complex solutions. IS&T recommended that the company:
- Reposition product for large solutions
- Re-price product by 5x to match the solution complexity
- Price product above dominant competitor
- Develop new messaging to support the new positioning
Results:
- Sales increased
- Sales cycle timing decreased
- Product became recognized as a leader in the ISP subscriber-access-management space
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Sales Cycle Management - Channel Partners
The Situation:
A company creating security software for wireless LAN (Wi-Fi) networks needed a strategy to penetrate the market dominated by Microsoft, Intel and Cisco. It asked IS&T to help it create a voice for its product and develop visibility for it in the emerging WI-Fi market.
IS&T Recommendations:
IS&T recommended that the company:
- Publish its product’s specs for transparency
- Position the specs for adoption by other vendors
- Create an aggressive messaging campaign to position the product as an alternative to vendor lock-in of big companies
- Promote adoption of product by other vendors vulnerable to the big vendors
Results:
- Product was adopted for its transparency and freedom from vendor lock-in by the security market
- Technology was adopted by emerging standards projects and recommended by most vendors
- Company became established as a technology leader in wireless LAN space