Client Success Spotlight
Refusing to Settle For a Cash Cow We assisted a successful analytics solution provider in entering new markets and identifying new solution offerings by assessing key market mega trends and determining which were closest in reach given the company’s unique capability set and customer base.
Our Client Was Looking to Get Ahead of the Next “Big” Thing Having achieved steady success and strong profitability in the academic and corporate markets over the past 40+ years, a statistical analytics provider smartly realized that new growth would be the best measure against inevitable disruption. Entering into a new phase of the business, they decided to capitalize on the strong yearly revenue from their flagship solution and expand upon their industry leading analytics capabilities to drive additional topline growth. Realizing it would be essential to have an outside-in perspective, this company reached out to Market Strategy Group (MSG) for support. We collaborated with the client’s executive and product team to build a customized opportunity portfolio and articulate a plan to pursue the highest-growth opportunities within a vast area of key market mega trends. How We Helped – Developing a Portfolio Framework Conducted discovery sessions with client subject matter experts to understand current offerings and undertook in depth secondary research to identify market trends, white space and competitive intelligence Highlighted available growth opportunities that leveraged existing client capabilities to capitalize on trends
Evaluating Opportunity Potential Our team worked hand-in-hand with our client to develop criteria for evaluating attractiveness of the shortlisted opportunities. Attractiveness was evaluated on market attractiveness and client’s ability to win Research was conducted to create a heat map to illustrate the relative potential and size of opportunities Figure 1. Opportunity Assessment and Prioritization Matrix
© Market Strategy Group, 2017
MSG Insights – March 2017 www. mkt-strat.com
Figure 2. High-Growth Potential Opportunity Prioritization High-Priority Opportunities
Market Attractiveness
Prioritizing “Hottest” Opportunities Conducted a series of one-day workshops with our client to prioritize the full portfolio of opportunities Analyzed the complete set of opportunities to understand, given the current capabilities, the time horizon to revenue, as well as trends and market situation. Additionally, we developed initial investment assessments so our client was able to see the full picture Brainstormed with our client to rate and rank opportunities and pick high-priority opportunity set based on investment level and impact the business Crafted a strategic roadmap for executing on prioritized opportunities, and provided nuanced recommendations based on our deep understanding of the client organization
Client Ability to Win Visioning the Best Path Forward Based on research efforts, workshops with client and insights gathered, MSG put forth comprehensive recommendations of the best possible opportunities from the full portfolio and a plan on attacking the opportunities to help the client achieve its targeted growth. Five high-growth opportunities were shortlisted for the client to pursue based on the potential impact of each of the opportunities on business and its growth trajectory A roadmap on how the client could proceed with the opportunities was also provided, to ensure internal investments were optimized
Creating growth opportunities in analytics
Making Smart Investments as Part of a Strategic Journey With MSG’s guidance and the collaborative ideation sessions to prioritize opportunities, the client built upon their already strong analytics capabilities and acquired a predictive analytics provider. The purchase and postacquisition integration bolstered their existing analytics capabilities and brought to bear new predictive and unstructured data analytics capabilities. The move cut across multiple of the final opportunities MSG recommended and brought tremendous additional value to our client’s customer base.
Although in some regards it is too early to determine the financial impact and ultimate success of the acquisition, it is clear that our client is better positioned in the high growth predictive analysis and big data space, and can strategically evolve beyond their core “cash cow” in classical statistical solutions. Their new predictive analysis solution is highly regarded and making waves in Financial Services, which also expands our client’s industry reach. About Market Strategy Group Market Strategy Group sees business differently. To us, winning isn't about going from Point A to Point B. It's about aligning three distinct dimensions — business direction, people & process, and markets & customers — to drive growth. Getting this right is critical to your bottom line. And it’s more than a technical challenge, it is often a leadership and alignment issue. Our approach ranges from the very strategic to the highly operational – from Growth Strategy & Aspiration Workshops for top leadership, to Strategic Plan Development and Execution (vision to annual operating plan) across multifunctional teams. We should chat if this is an issue. Giles Jacknain (giles.jacknain@mktstrat.com) and Alex Kruzel (alex.kruzel@mkt-strat.com).
http://mkt-strat.com/