Conducted a Competitive Assessment of Mobility Solutions

Crimson conducted an assessment of enterprise mobility customer’s requirements and preferences for features and capabilities offered by competitive mobility solutions providers in the push-email space.

We interviewed and assessed qualified US and EMEA IT decision-makers regarding email mobility solution features and requirements. We evaluated how the strengths and weaknesses of competitor’s features and requirements for functionality influenced purchasing decision priorities. We created a comprehensive competitive feature matrix comparing our client's offering with those of top competitors, assessed and prioritized feature requirements, and documented findings including gaps and unmet needs, push-email space best practices, and recommendations.

The resulting findings enabled our client's product planning groups to support the features included on the product roadmap.

Conducted Audience Segmentation and Competitive Analysis

Crimson leveraged in-depth knowledge of online community in sports and family content arenas. We conducted audience segmentation of target audiences (family, kids, action/sports seekers) and a high level competitive analysis of our client's four existing sports and family content portals to gain greater insight into the key users. Driven by these insights, Crimson expanded the features and functionalities within the Sports and Family sections and updated kids/family and action seekers/sports personas. As a result, we provided our client with content and partner recommendations, and identified revenue-generating opportunities for these sections.

Conducted European Government Market Assessments

Crimson identified and prioritized top government agency market opportunities within key European geographies. We developed a market-driven analysis of the solutions currently driving IT uptake/migration within European governmental agencies and recommended regional partner identification/selection criteria in order to accelerate our client's market penetration among Europe's governmental agencies. In addition, we constructed profiles of the top five government agencies within each of the following countries: UK, Germany, France, Italy, and the Netherlands.

Conducted Internet Security Market Analysis

Crimson provided our client with forecasts of the adoption of technical standards, the market demand for specific security solutions, and the evolution of export restrictions. We also provided insight into market trends for areas such as WANs, Dial-up users, VPNs, ISPs, and ISDN. This work enabled our client to determine their technology investment portfolio.

Conducted Mid-Market Opportunity Assessment and Channel Analysis

Crimson provided a concise definition and overview of the global mid-market to clearly outline the opportunity for this client. We conducted customer interviews and reviewed existing research to quantify the specific opportunities available within various vertical markets and technologies. In addition, Crimson analyzed and provided feedback on the channel partners best positioned to work with our client to address this opportunity. As a result of this analysis, a comprehensive global effort was launched to penetrate this new market.

Deployed a Mobility Technology Assessment Lab

Crimson’s team of mobile technology subject matter experts helped our client set up a technology lab for assessing the features and performance of various mobile platforms and services. Crimson acted as overall project manager and participated in the testing and documentation of results used to support product development, field enablement and the development of market-facing materials.

CHALLENGES

Our client wanted to assess the features and performance of various mobile platforms and devices. The company needed a solution that provided users with around the clock access as well as a means for assessing and validating comparative performance and feature sets.

SOLUTIONS

Crimson provided the expertise to set up the technology lab which is hosted, maintained and continuously available for access by the client via remote login. Specific deliverables created by Crimson included:

• A feature comparison and competitive assessment of various mobile platforms including a detailed competitive feature matrix
• Field enablement materials comparing the features and user experience of several mobile platform offerings
• The deployment and testing of the client’s solutions to conduct end-to-end performance assessment, environment and validation tests and competitive feature and performance comparisons against other solutions

RESULTS

The technology lab is in place and is being used for performing various mobile platform and device assessments. In addition to the materials already delivered to the client, the results of the project will continue to support the development of effective product strategy and the creation of future market- and field-facing materials.

Developed Industry Market Opportunity Assessment on Operating Systems

Crimson supported a launch for a client who wanted to address vertical markets in their plans. Our analysis focused on a set of industry analyst data, market trends, current client sales, and current deployment rates. Crimson’s work provided a clear opportunity map of all targeted industries, and highlighted those industries that were well poised to deploy a new operating system based on historical uptake, 3-year compound annual growth rate (CAGR), and other key metrics. As a result of our study, the client was able to create a staggered launch plan for vertical marketing materials prioritized by opportunity size and likeliness of the industry to adopt the new operating system.

Developed Mid-Market Segmentation Approach

Crimson defined the total addressable market for spend management solutions among companies in the mid-market. We developed a unique segmentation approach to the mid-market based on horizontal demographics as well as psychographic attributes. We then recommended a blended approach to segment the addressable market. Crimson identified the most attractive segments to pursue and developed value propositions and packaging (“point-of-entry”) for each of the mid-market segments. In addition, Crimson developed a high-level order of magnitude business case associated with successfully penetrating this market. As a result, the client was able to determine go/no-go on subsequent mid-market development investments, identify the appropriate sub-segments in which to potentially pilot spend management solutions, and target subsequent sales and marketing activities to customers most willing to buy within the mid-market.

Provided Broadband Portal Redesign

Working with an agency partner, Crimson provided the strategic analysis to enable a major redesign of our client’s Web portal. The Web strategy was a comprehensive plan that covered audience segmentation and business and functional requirements to information architecture and user experience. The redesign was very successful and was well received by customers resulting in increased lead generation and a reduction in call volume to the support center. The work prompted an initiative to redesign the partner portal and initiated a much more customer-focused approach that was reflected the client’s other marketing efforts.

Provided Next Generation Non-phone PDA Research

This client wanted to understand how global enterprise customers view its current position in the non-phone PDA market. Our study was aimed at determining customer's PDA feature preferences as well as identifying potential new market and business opportunities within various vertical and horizontal market segments.

CHALLENGES

The project identified several opportunities for the client to consider in order to best position themselves in the highly competitive non-phone PDA market.

SOLUTIONS

Key deliverables included:

• Interviews with the client's enterprise sales representatives who sell PDAs to global enterprise customers. Analysis of the results to:
  • Determine the vertical and horizontal market segments within which the client PDAs are currently being used
  • Identify which market segments appear to hold the most potential
• Interviews with existing global enterprise PDA customers. Analysis of the results to:
  • Understand how the client non-phone PDAs are being used and identify future needs
• Market exploration, market opportunity assessment and market segmentation analyses to:
  • Evaluate the size of the market for non-phone PDAs in the global enterprise segment
  • Determine high potential vertical and horizontal segments where PDAs have, or will have, significant benefits to enterprise users
  • Profile high-level findings by customer, and detailed customer findings by feature / function
  • Determine “ripeness” of new potential business and market opportunities
  • Identify and evaluate potential horizontal and vertical market opportunities

RESULTS

Crimson’s work resulted in the identification of several opportunities for the client to explore in order to address customer retention, customer needs and purchase intent, specific product needs and vertical versus horizontal market requirements.

Provided Support for Mid-Tier SI Category Development

Crimson defined the category and developed a business case for pursuing these partners based on the potential incremental revenue from this new channel. Then, based on competitive and primary research, we developed a framework for determining the appropriate ways to address this new category. Additionally, we created a catalog of mid-tier systems integrators in all geographic regions, prioritized those with respect to their likely fit and recommended specific programs to attract them on a global basis.