Growth Plan and Product Roadmap

A $1B IT Services Company had experienced a slowdown in the Telecom Market. Their formerly strong Billing and Customer Care position was continuing to erode in the marketplace. They needed to determine how to re-ignite their business by extending their traditional strengths (both products and professional services) into Next Gen solutions.

XD3 evaluated the client’s position in the marketplace. We evaluated industry trends, analyzed the competitive landscape, and conducted extensive interviews with key executives. XD3 defined a specific set of opportunities for the Company to leverage its existing assets and capabilities into new and emerging market needs. Recommendations also included lowering costs such as a lower cost approach to product maintenance and discontinuance of non-performing product assets. For the product-based offerings, XD3 developed a product roadmap that allowed the company to provide incremental, but high-value improvements while keeping the lid on a relatively small R&D budget. A cost benefits analysis was provided for each recommendation. XD3 also developed a high level marketing plan to roll out the new offerings.

The Company was able to implement most of the recommendations by using their R&D budget more effectively (rather than increasing spending). Revenue growth returned, particularly fueled by growth in Next Gen opportunities.

Wireless OSS product acquisition evaluation/due diligence

A company operating a BSS/OSS service bureau for wireless service providers found its existing billing/OSS product suite outdated from both a functional capability and an architecture perspective. Its current solution could not address the emerging wireless data services nor 3G billing. The company needed to make a “build or buy” decision between an internal development effort and an external acquisition of a new wireless BSS/OSS product.

XD3 performed an analysis of the available high-level options. We quickly determined that a “buy” was necessary to meet time-to-market and functionality requirements for their embedded customers as well as available prospects. Once an asset acquisition target was determined, XD3 performed a complete business, functional and technical due diligence on the target product. We prepared a complete business case for the acquisition and for the migration of the Company’s existing customers to the new product.

The Company successfully completed the asset acquisition and moved forward with a project to migrate their business to better support the evolution of the wireless industry into content and 3G billing.

Market expansion strategy

A leading telecommunications Operational Support System (OSS) provider was experiencing a drop in their core business due to industry downturn and the aging of many of their core products. They wanted to evaluate ways in which they could take advantage of new opportunities in the wireless and broadband areas – either through expanding exisitng capabilities or acquiring new capabilities. XD3 performed an initial strategic assessment of markets that overlapped the OSS area to determine if any should be considered as growth opportunities. We then performed an in-depth analysis of the mediation, provisioning, and billing markets and identified trends and opportunities. Our analysis included detailed research on existing vendors/service providers and their capabilities. XD3 produced specific recommendations regarding the expansion of existing assets and the opportunities for acquisitions of additional assets. The Company (XD3’s client) was itself acquired before the recommendations could be fully evaluated or implemented. Of note, the asset recommended for acquisition by XD3 was, in fact, bought by a competitor of the Company within the next 6 months.

Broadband billing product evaluation/recommendation

A Latin American cable company was planning to expand their offering to include “triple play” services. To do so, they needed to replace their existing in-house IT support structure with new applications that could provide the flexibility necessary to support the new offerings. The Company wanted a thorough, independent evaluation of the best 3rd party products along with someone to manage the RFP evaluation process.

XD3 helped the Customer manage the Billing/OSS product evaluation process by determining the target vendors, evaluating responses to the RFP, developing a short-list of respondents based on the evaluation, and conducting finalist vendor reviews and demos of the finalists. After the detailed evaluation, XD3 made a final recommendation for both the vendor and the mode of delivery (outsourced vs. in-house) of the new Billing/OSS solution.

The Company accepted the recommendation and moved forward with a project to implement the new chosen solution.

Wireless content provider market positioning

An emerging wireless content enabler/provider with a compelling offering was having difficulty positioning themselves in a manner that clearly represented their value proposition to wireless carriers. The Company needed to better position itself with the wireless carriers as they expanded their use of premium content services.

XD3 provided an analysis of the trends in the Company’s marketplace, as well as a benchmark analysis of potential competitors’ marketing, sales and pricing approaches. Based on this analysis and an in-depth session with Company executives, a decision was reached on the best market positioning for the Company.

The Company moved forward with the recommended market positioning and has had continued success in both North America and Europe in selling to top tier wireless carriers.