Extendance - Customer Success Stories
How We Have Successfully Served our Clients
Some Customer Success Stories (all customer contacts are available upon request):
- Product Marketing : Write 30+ customer success stories for fast-growing FTTx technology company
- Product Marketing : Create white papers to back product launch
- Marketing Communications : European high-tech company supported in marketing communications
- Market Research : Prepare for a successful exit for a short-range wireless technology startup
- Revenue Generation : $5million sale of intelligent video surveillance software
- Revenue Generation : Win largest key account customer in wireless infrastructure market
REFERENCE Story 1: Product Marketing
Write 30+ customer success stories for European startup
Situation:
A broadband company specializing in FTTx needed help in creating additional marketing collateral, in this case a series of one-page success stories covering almost all their customers.
What we did:
Extendance first created a document template for the series and a questionnaire that we could ask the sales force to fill in for each customer. Once the questionnaires were returned we interviewed, by telephone, each member of the sales team about their customers to make sure that we had all the relevant details. Then we took these details and created the one page document using the template we had created earlier. Each document consisted of:
- Sidebar on technical details, customer type etc.
- Bullet points and brief paragraph on the benefits perceived
- 3-5 paragraphs on network size and details as well as some background about the customer
Result:
Individually each success story is simple, as it is just one page long. Taken together, though, the package - consisting of four sets of eight or so stories targeting different market segments - makes it clear that customers of all shapes and sizes see similar benefits. The project was a big success, creating the core of a marketing campaign worldwide. The stories provided the basis of the client's multimedia web presentation, and formed the main sales brochure used by its field sales teams. On the basis of this work, the client then commissioned a further set of extended stories based around interviews with key customers.
REFERENCE Story 2: Marketing Collateral
Create White Papers to Back Product Launch
Situation:
An OSS/BSS company was in the process of launching a new version of its network monitoring product, and needed to reposition the product to attract new customers. At the same time, of course, they needed to continue marketing and selling their existing product range, which used up resources they needed to correctly develop the new collateral.
What we did:
Extendance created a series of white papers that looked at the capabilities of the product from a new angle, making its competitive differentiators clear. White papers on each subject were presented as a package of two related papers - one with a technical slant and one more business oriented. The papers were accompanied by a PowerPoint presentation that could be used by a salesperson to position the solution.
Result:
New sales hires have reported that this collateral has been key to their penetration of new accounts. It has also led to their re-entry into existing accounts that had formed the impression that the company and its product were no longer relevant.
REFERENCE Story 3: Marketing Communications
European high-tech company needed support with marketing communications
Critical issue:
The company had previously worked with a local marketing communications partner and had also talked to a multinational PR firm for support in marketing communications. The amount of support required to really put over the company's key values and its technical and business superiority was immense. However, while the two firms were able to produce press articles, commission whitepapers and create product marketing material, neither seemed to have the deep technical understanding or the high-tech market know-how they needed to truly differentiate the client from their competition.
Reasons:
The company had excellent business development and engineering resources, but lacked the US-style marketing communications skills needed for them to attract attention in the North American and Asian markets they considered key for their business, and where they had the majority of competitors.
Vision:
The company wanted to convince existing and prospective customers alike of their technological superiority, by getting media coverage in US and Asia business and technology media. This would encourage their current European OEM customers to further expand the existing business relationship into more joint projects, and at the same time to put more resources into the current projects.
We provided:
Based on our international work experience in high-tech markets in the US and Asia, we analyzed our client's strengths in comparison with the values the competition was communicating. By focusing on key, truly competitive values, we communicated their technical, business and market advantages convincingly in press articles, whitepapers, customer reference stories, website content, product briefs etc.
Result:
Within only 4 months of our assignment, after we had provided high media coverage in US and Asian magazines, the company was able to obtain an extension of contract from one European OEM customer. Visibility in Asia (China, Taiwan and Japan) was achieved through the collaboration of local language news portals who published press releases and articles. A close collaboration between the client's CEO and VP Marketing, who were reviewing our work and giving feedback on a weekly basis, was established.
In the US and Europe the visibility of the company among media analysts and the financial community also went up dramatically, clearly shown by "out of the blue" interest from many quarters.
REFERENCE Story 4: Market Research
Prepare for a successful exit for a short-range wireless technology startup
Situation:Our client was trapped in a situation where growth in a highly competitive, ultra-thin margin business was only possible given a certain size and production volume. That is what the semiconductor business is like. If you are in a mainstream market you have to be a top player to a) be able to compete in the fierce price war and still turn a profit, and b) be able to invest this money into new technologies and standards so you will also be among the leaders in the next generation of the evolution. Being in short-range wireless means having to compete in the Bluetooth, UWB, Zigbee and proprietary wireless technology markets. The question for our client and its investors at the time was: What technology markets and applications should we focus on – and can we actually survive in these markets and keep generating sufficient profit to reinvest into new technologies.
What we did:
We set up a market research plan and communicated what we had in mind to the company’s VP Marketing and CEO to get their approval and buy-in.
Step 1 was that we needed to obtain a highly accurate picture of the client’s internal strengths and weaknesses in all areas such as technology, production, marketing and sales. For that purpose we held, over the course of two days, a set of one-hour meetings picking the brains of each of the key people in the company: CEO, COO, CTO, VP Sales, Key Account Sales, VP Marketing, Marketing Communications and all product managers.
From just these two days of intensive interviews and discussion sessions were gathered some outstanding insights, which we summarized in a presentation we gave to the management. Of course, they did not share all of these insights but, since we kept things anonymous, we were able to get first-hand opinions from people who might have not dared to voice their thoughts before. This first round of insights we now tried to verify with more market research work.
Next, we interviewed all the client’s sales agents and distributors worldwide. This involved 30 interviews. These confirmed all of our findings from the first internal interviews, and created – again anonymously – a further list of interesting points.
Then came a similar round with all competitors’ key management, analysts and top industry experts and influencers and, last but not least, all the key account customers at the time.
Lastly, we set up a Delphi Analysis round inviting the key external people who had given us the best information and been the most cooperative. These stringent discussions among the world’s top technology and market experts in this field tested – and proved true – many of the earlier findings. They also helped us to fine-tune some of the others.
The results were written in a report presented to the client’s management, creating a striking impact and leading within the next 9 months to a successful trade sale to a bigger market player in the US.
Bottom line results:
The whole customized market research project took three months from start to final report and presentation. We had three of Extendance's people involved: The subsequent trade sale generated great return on the investors’ money, and spared them the possibility of continued investment with too little profitability to become a new long-term market player, or even to prepare for an IPO.
REFERENCE Story 5: Revenue Generation
$5million sale of intelligent video surveillance software
Challenge: To sell the intelligent video surveillance software of a leading R&D facility
The R&D facility of a major European telecommunications manufacturer had developed an intelligent video surveillance software, but after two years the company was still having no success in selling its product.
Solution: Active sales supported by targeted marketing
After detailed analysis of the problems and past experiences, Extendance decided to redefine the target market and prospects in Europe. In addition we designed and implemented key marketing instruments, including customer partner programs and a whole set of marketing communications activities. We performed all sales activities in close collaboration with the client until deal closure.
Bottom line impact: US$ 5 million in revenue generated in just seven months
Within seven months we had closed the company's largest ever OEM contract, worth US$ 5 million. This included a software licensing deal, as well as a long-term continued engineering support contract. This was achieved with the equivalent of just one full-time expert from Extendance and support from our marketing communications team. For the particular department involved, client this win also had a strong strategic impact: They were able to prove that the technology they had invested into was valuable, and met market requirements well - it had merely been poorly positioned and had lacked focused, competent marketing communications support.
REFERENCE Story 6: Revenue Generation
Key account sales success in wireless infrastructure testing market
Situation:
After nearly 15 years in the market, a test & measurement company for the wireless infrastructure industry had succeeded in winning some of the market's largest key account customers (both vendors and wireless operators).
For one reason or another, though, three of the top 7 vendors (including the largest, Ericsson) were still not on their customer list. While they had made many contacts over the previous few years, for example at industry trade shows, the company had still to achieve a sales win.
A key reason seemed to be that these vendors were using their own testing tool sets, judging these to be more than adequate. This assessment was actually based more on what was politically acceptable inside the company, not on real comparisons.
What we did:
Extendance was commissioned to approach those key accounts to enable the client to present their product solution advantages to key decision makers.
Firstly, we defined a priority set - based on past experience - and a likelihood of success. Next, we identified and approached the key people in the key R&D departments and sent them an e-mail containing a new - and quite different - PowerPoint presentation. That approach was taken strategically with every R&D department thought to have a need for these products, and it achieved our first aim, getting prospects to request more detailed information.
At the subsequent meetings with prospects, Extendance, together with the CTO of the client, presented these slides, answered technical questions and, for prospects that were clearly interested, suggested a demo event in their own labs, with the test products connected to the prospect's network elements. The results and another intro presentation were then shown to more people from the prospect's side.
In one case we also organized a trip to the prospect's China operations, where a large amount of test equipment would soon be needed. There we were allowed to see the test lab equipment in all its detail, and were able to work out a business case comparing the prospect's current equipment capabilities - including both Capex and Opex costs - with those offered by our client.
As a result of doing these presentations and demos we were able not only to trigger interest, but also to learn about internal projects and upcoming opportunities to provide proposals.
Bottom line results:
One of those opportunities led, after 5 months, to a first-time sale of 300k EUR to Ericsson in Sweden. The customer has also been able to use this as a ref. project for many other groups worldwide. The expected yearly revenue is in the 2-4 million EUR range. After 9 months we were able to increase the total amount sold to 1.2 million EUR. And within less than 15 months we managed to achieve the ultimate goal: Our client become a worldwide preferred supplier for testing equipement. As the Ericsson sourcing manager told us, this preferred list was cut down to half in the last 2 years to focus on fewer companies - demonstrating even more strongly the value of getting in as a new supplier.
This achievement resulted from a yearly investment of just one full-time Extendance Senior Expert. The engagement continues, with the focus now on leveraging the initial sales success, plus of course working with the other two key account prospects. For one of them we also have also now succeeded in winning a first substantial deal, and will expand from there.