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Consulting Category: Go-to-market strategy

Identifying and evaluating viable NFV partnerships

Case study overview

Our partnering strategy approach and methodology helps clients to evaluate potential partners and narrow down the list in a systematic way. STL Partners brings innovative ‘out of the box’ thinking and objectivity in identifying and evaluating potential partners. This methodology can and has been adapted in different ways for different clients looking into partnerships across various specific domains.

STL Partners works closely with clients to undergo an iterative and staged evaluation process to identify and assess different types of evaluation criteria (e.g. deal-breakers to exclude, high, medium, low) with which potential partners are assessed on.

See how STL Partners supported a virtualisation software provider in:

  • Building a long list of potential partners;
  • Prioritising based on exclusion and evaluation criteria;
  • Profiling shortlisted candidates and evaluating potential partnership models.

Consulting services overview

Get in touch to find out how we can help you:

  • Develop and test customer propositions
  • Detail viable go-to-market strategies
  • Scout, engage, and facilitate partnerships
  • Develop tools to empower the salesforce
Get in touch

STL provided customised, detailed analysis that addressed our specific needs …. not fixed generic templates we get from others.

Director, Field and Partner Development
Global virtualisation software provider

Building a long list of potential partners

Our key objective for this engagement was to identify “big bets” partnership opportunities that our client could make to help scale and accelerate traction in telco cloud, to help drive stronger engagement with CSPs. As a result, we supported our client in building out a long list of approximately 110 potential partners across a range of different categories, ranging from:

  • managed service providers;
  • technology consultants;
  • general and telecoms industry-specific systems integrators;
  • incumbent and challenger network equipment providers;
  • …and beyond.
Example deliverables
Example deliverables

Prioritising based on exclusion and evaluation criteria

Through a series of workshops, we worked closely with our client to identify different “deal breaker” criteria to take into consideration their key objectives for the partnerships. This included:

  • identifying the criteria and defining the key questions that needed to be considered within each criterion
  • defining how the factor would be measured and on what scale
  • determining the timeframe considered for the factors

For example, one key criterion was focused on the potential partner’s commercial abilities, whether it has strong commercial relationships with and is trusted by CSPs, which needed to be considered on an immediate short-term basis.

Profiling shortlisted candidates and evaluating potential partnership models

Once we completed and refined the prioritisation exercise, we reached a shortlist of 6 potential partners for our client, which we took forwards to the next stage. This next stage involved building in-depth profiles and analyses to provide the following:

  • An overview of the company, including product and service portfolio, markets covered
  • An assessment of each shortlisted company’s capabilities and overall partnership value chain capabilities to understand the combined capabilities
  • Suggested scope of the partnership, including the potential partnership model and approach, role of each partner, joint value proposition etc.
  • Key decision makers and influencers within the company to engage with
Example deliverables

Addressing the private cellular opportunity

Case study overview

We not only work closely with our clients to identify key opportunities within various domains, we also help them develop compelling propositions and go-to-market plans. We also help to equip their customer engagement teams with tools to empower them when engaging with prospective customers.

See how STL Partners supported a leading software and engineering group in:

  • Understanding the private cellular landscape;
  • Identifying, evaluating and prioritising opportunities in the industrial sectors;
  • Producing detailed briefing packs and pitch packs for each opportunity.

Consulting services overview

Find out how we can help you:

  • Develop and test customer propositions
  • Detail viable go-to-market strategies
  • Scout, engage, and facilitate partnerships
  • Develop tools to empower the salesforce
Get in touch

Understanding the private cellular landscape

In order to identify key customer opportunities for our client in supporting 3GPP private cellular deployments, we undertook in-depth research to build an overview of the private LTE/5G opportunity in Europe with a particular focus on the industrial sectors, the potential need and business opportunity for private cellular networks and key use cases. This included clear definitions, taxonomies of private cellular delivery models and case studies to bring this to life.

Through a series of interactive workshops, we worked with key client stakeholders to assess, validate and augment our client’s exiting approach. This included a detailed exercise to evaluate our client’s right to play, their existing capabilities and potential commercial models.

Example deliverables
Example deliverables

Identifying private networking opportunities in the industrial sectors

Using our research on the private cellular landscape to refine our search, we identified a long list of enterprise opportunities, which consisted of industrial enterprises in Europe that have a high potential in leveraging private cellular networks. This list included some firms that have publicly shared intentions in private cellular networks and others who don’t but may have pain points and/or use cases that can be addressed. We produced high-level profiles for each of these enterprise opportunities which included:

  • an overview of the company, including financial performance, operations, key products and services;
  • basis of interest in private cellular networks, including the business opportunity/pain point, supported applications and use cases, as well as potential sites and coverage requirements;
  • presumed level of existing maturity in planning for private cellular networks.

We then defined key criteria, objectives and scoring methodology with the client, and used this to evaluate the long list of opportunities, narrowing down to a final list of 6 opportunities.

Producing tools to equip our client’s customer engagement teams

To help empower the client’s customer sales and engagement teams, we produced an opportunity briefing pack and proposition pitch pack for each of the 6 shortlisted opportunities.

Each opportunity briefing pack included a deep dive into the prospect profiles, including evidence of the company’s maturity, basis of interest in private cellular etc., to outline the hypothesis implementation model and the client’s services

Example deliverables

Developing the proposition for on-premise edge

Case study overview

We undertake primary research programmes that deliver the insight needed to build tailored customer propositions, highlighting where and how our clients can create value for their customers. We develop channel strategies with our clients covering both online and offline direct channels, as well as partnering.

See how STL Partners supported a Tier 1 European operator:

  • Develop compelling stakeholder propositions for an on-premise edge product
  • Map the value chain to identify partners, competitors, and the client’s role
  • Detail the viable go-to-market strategies and next steps for launch

Consulting services overview

Find out how we can help you:

  • Develop and test customer propositions
  • Detail viable go-to-market strategies
  • Scout, engage, and facilitate partnerships
  • Develop tools to empower the salesforce
Get in touch

STL Partners worked closely with us to accelerate the process of building a commercial strategy for edge cloud, working closely across all parts of the team to develop our plans. We selected STL for their Edge expertise and collaborative approach, which proved to be the right decision. STL’s approach was refreshing and differed from most other consultants in the way we have been able to engage cross functional teams and create a comprehensive value proposition.

Director of Enterprise Strategy
Tier 1 European operator

Develop compelling stakeholder propositions

STL Partners undertook a 4-month strategy project with the client to help identify and prioritise key opportunities within on-premise edge computing, and subsequently develop the client’s got-to-market strategy and proposition to key stakeholders.

In order to complete this project, STL Partners leveraged an interview programme with potential customers, partners, and solutions providers for the identified opportunity areas to validate the use cases for edge, as well as their relevance to the client. From these insights, we generated a detailed value proposition and gaddi pitches for the use case to highlight key drivers for edge and the challenges with existing solutions. STL Partners further developed propositions for the client across different stakeholder groups (e.g. the end user, IT teams, partners) to identify and highlight key pain points, benefits, and client messaging.

Example deliverables
Example deliverables

Map the value chain to identify partners, competitors, and the client’s role

Through the interview programme and extensive desk research, STL Partners mapped out the ecosystem for identified opportunity areas and use cases. We developed the value chain segments and identified key players in each segment that were relevant for the client (either as competitors or potential partners).

Then, through a series of workshops with a wide stakeholder group within the client, STL Partners conducted an analysis of the client’s existing capabilities. We were then able to map competitor and partner capabilities against those of our client to identify opportunities and threats, as well as potential partner profiles.

Finally, we developed an activity map across the value chain to highlight how the use case would be delivered and the necessary activities for launch. From the analysis of the client’s capabilities, STL Partners highlighted where the service could be delivered solely by the client, and where the client should partner to deliver the service. This fed into development of the viable business and partnership models for our client to pursue and identified the client’s role in the ecosystem.

Detail the viable go-to-market strategies and next steps for launch

The final stage of the project was to detail the viable go-to-market strategies for the client and present a clear recommendation of immediate next steps for launch.

STL Partners identified the different channel strategies the client could use to sell into the customer and highlighted the process, benefits, and challenges with the approach.

Alongside the channel strategy development, STL Partners supported the client define a product development roadmap. We highlighted the product structure and requirements from the industry for the use case, and subsequently mapped a co-development timeline which would work in tandem with the go-to-market strategy. This would enable the client to build technical and commercial PoCs, iterate the product in an agile way, and build an initial customer base to later scale. This highlighted the clear next steps for the client in terms of product launch.

Example deliverables