Vertical Market Success
Client: Fortune 500 Software firm with an industry-leading business intelligence solution
Situation:
- Fierce market share battle with IBM and Oracle
- Strong entries by point competitors for portals and reporting capabilities
- Good penetration into the insurance industry
- Poor penetration into most other industries
Objective:
- Determine feasibility of a vertically-oriented market approach to grow revenues and share
- Create the foundation for entering one vertical market as a pilot
Methodology:
- Selected Insurance and Financial Services as the target industries:
- Interviewed 70+ clients and prospects in the two industries
- Interviewed 20+ salespeople and executives within the client firm
- Four BusinessLaunch consultants—a business intelligence specialist, a vertical markets analyst, two industry specialists
Determine why successful in Insurance
Determine success factors for Financial Services
Outcome:
- A fully executable go-to-market plan for:
- Included:
Capitalizing on success in Insurance
Developing the Financial Services market
Market sizing and segmentation for both industries
Identification of key industry trends, drivers, and pain points
Positioning and messaging
Competitive analysis against the top 4 competitors
Strategies for winning against the top 4 competitors
Strategies for penetrating the business unit
Application guide for the client’s solution in key business processes
Silver bullets for use by the sales force
Solution selling course material
Recommended vertical sales territories based on geo and revenue potential
Result:
“BusinessLaunch is a major contributor to our vertical market initiative for the CleverPath brand. They delivered comprehensive, high-impact research on the Financial Services industry—on time, within budget, and beyond our expectations. Using the research, they created top-quality positioning and messaging for CleverPath, all the way down to silver bullets that could be used by our sales force. We got an education in solution selling that really helps us capitalize on our product strengths. The BusinessLaunch team introduced us to a number of executives in the industry and prepared our sales people to generate immediate sales with key companies, which is a unique benefit. The sales force loved it. I think BusinessLaunch shows great strength in its understanding of our brand, the potential market and how to sell the CleverPath solution. This team is truly impressive, having domain expertise in the exact areas we need.”
— Director, Worldwide Media Corporate Marketing
