PASSION

We build great businesses together with our clients as quickly as possible. It might be a top strategy decision process, it might be rolled-up-sleeves short-term problem solving. We act as trusted members of the client’s top management team and contribute to taking their companies to the next level.

Trust

Technologial developments fundamentally change the way any industry works. Internal processes, products and organisation require adaptations, however, not always radical changes. The competitive radar screen is changing with new giants entering the market and old competitors turning into potential partners.

Sometimes clients are bombarded with multiple changes and disruptive threats at once. Then it is difficult to fully execute market opportunities. This is where we perform best. We have successfully dealt with fundamental disruptions for so long, we thrive on them. 

We help our clients to…

The principle is usually very simple:

Case Study

Problem:

Threat of losing market leadership position in a video subscription business with several million customers, because legacy platform technology struggles to (I) keep up with changing customer demands and (II) increasing innovation speeds in the market.

Methodology:

1. Understand the customer:
   What do our customers really want? What do they say (studies, interviews, on-site visits) and what do they actually do (big data analysis)?
2. Understand the competition:
   What do our competitors do so well that makes them such a threat? And: how do they do it from a technology, user experience, marketing and organisational perspective?
3. Understand potential suppliers:
   Who could potentially help us? What is their global track record? Which parts of the value chain can they cover? How do they interact with their clients (waterfall or agile development)? Why does it take the established video industry 18 months for a software release, when social media giants deploy several software updates per day to over 1 billion users?
4. Understand the own organisation:
   What are we really good at? Can we be successful in the future, if we keep working the way we have worked in the past? How do we want to interact with our suppliers? Do we dare to involve our customers in the product development process?
5. Understand the economic drivers:
   R&D costs internally & externally

Solution:

• Customer insights yielded need to continue serving existing video services with zero tolerance topped up with innovative add-ons.
• The competition was good at focussing on new features and innovative add-ons, but lacked the ability to blend these innovations seemlessly into existing video experience of the customers, which accounts for over 90% of daily usage. This was the key: Keep delivering the bread and butter business with an evolution of usability and integrate the innovations.
• Supplier selection ended-up with resetting the relationship with an existing platform vendor, even though the business relationship had suffered in previous years. Extensive lessons learned analysis yielded the following adjustments to the working relationship: (I) crack the vicious circle of overdemanding, overpromising and underdelivering, (II) commit to a single vendor strategy and give-up own engineering „best-of-breed“ efforts, (III) establish a system of full transparency among client & vendor to track product development process and (IV) build joint team among vendor and client under one roof and (V) establish agile working methods
• Recruit a cross-functional team internally that is completely focussed on the new video platform and taken out of their existing operational teams. This team was lead by an internal „Project-CEO“ and „Project-CTO“ and worked as a start-up within the company.
• Launch Minimal Viable Product (MVP) and establish continuous software drops by redesigning software development & testing process

Role:

• building strategy based on customer insights, competetive analysis and vendor selection
• drive organisational change process internally and with the vendor’s organisation
• track the project‘s operational performance and help overcome roadblocks along the way

Result:

• Deliver first agile project in an organisation with over 100.000 employees
• Within 18 months after launch reach >500.000 subscribers