Case study overview
STL Partners worked with a client in the data centre ecosystem to build a research-led marketing programme that quantified how construction delays affect project returns and turned this into compelling thought leadership and campaign content.
The work combined industry interviews with internal rate of return (IRR) modelling to show the financial impact of schedule slippage on large data centre projects. The centrepiece output was a whitepaper, “Preventing multimillion dollar data centre losses through reporting”, which set out how better project reporting can help avoid costly delays.
Together, the evidence base and whitepaper content provided a clear narrative that our client could use to engage senior stakeholders across the data centre value chain and position itself as a partner that understands both operational and financial realities.
What was the approach?
STL Partners designed a programme that blended qualitative insight from practitioners with quantitative modelling:
- Industry insight from 15 interviews
We conducted 15 in-depth interviews with industry practitioners drawn from across the ecosystem, hyperscalers, data centre operators and lead contractors, to understand how they experience delay risk and what information they need to manage it. - IRR-based financial modelling
Using the interview input, STL modelled the impact of delays on projected cost overruns, and the downstream impact on project IRR that translated schedule slippage into headline financial terms. - Turning insight into marketing assets
We then used the research and modelling to inform a suite of compelling research-led marketing assets:- A thought-leading whitepaper on preventing multimillion-dollar data centre losses
- The delay IRR impact model, creating a strong quantitative hook
- Visuals for social output, drawing on the key numbers and diagrams
- Key messaging to use across campaigns and sales engagement
Detailed interview write-ups and a quantitative hook for promotion (based on the IRR model) underpinned these assets, ensuring the content could be re-used across multiple channels and touchpoints.
Key results from the project
- Completed 15 interviews with industry practitioners across hyperscalers, data centre operators and lead contractors
- Developed a delay IRR impact model showing the impact of a delay on an indicative data centre project
- Produced a thought-leading whitepaper “Preventing multimillion dollar data centre losses through reporting” as the flagship asset
- Created quantitative hooks for promotion, giving the client clear, memorable numbers to use in campaigns
- Delivered interview write-ups, visuals for social channels and key messaging to support ongoing marketing and sales activity
