Today we met with one of our clients, a leading software infrastructure player, who we had helped reposition a key product in 2005. This repositioning was a significant shift because our work recommended moving the focus from a well established albeit entrenched market to a smaller market segment. This strategy would enable them to focus on solving a major customer pain in a clearly superior and differentiated way.
In the meeting with our client (Vice President of Products) today we learned a few things. One was that the business results from the repositioning had been very positive. Acccording to her, the product grew 70% last year as a result of this shift (yes a positioning exercise should have business impact — not just pretty words, remember?). Moreover as we had expected implementing the new positioning was far from a slam dunk. It took them some time to get the key stakeholders — mainly the sales force in their B-to-B direct model — moving in this new direction. But once they did, it worked — and moved the needle on the business, like it should.
Moreover we learned that another factor that helped implement this positioning successfully was: third party validation. In this case, Industry Analysts validated our recommendations and that endorsement was a major factor in winning over the sales team. We have found this to be a common thread with other clients as well. Another client (B to C) recently reported that their retail buyers have validated the positioning we're recommending and that's going to be a major factor in selling it internally.
Having an outside consulting firm conduct the analysis and develop the recommendations helps but what can even more powefully help break down the barriers to repositioning are your own influential stakeholders such as analysts, partners, VARs, retail buyers, etc.
Does this ring true? Tell us what you've found when you've taken on such initiatives.
Comments