Case study summaries
Some examples of areas we have supported to positive outcomes can be summarised in high level case studies:
Following rapid advancements in technology, markets and customer applications, we have been fortunate to be involved in a wide range of strategic technical and commercial business projects. These have varied from pivoting the strategy and direction of companies, driving innovative new product developments through to transformation of Go-To-Market and sales strategies. We continue to be passionate about solving customer challenges and relentlessly driving for excellence, combined with practical market deployment. The fundamentals of invest, innovate, scale and sell are proven strategies and processes that we have employed to achieve profitable growth.
Roadmap excellence for tier 1 customers
Selling hardware based microcontroller (MCUs) platforms was a core competence within this specific organisation. This technology is a dominant market within Europe with a strong competitive supply base. New emerging applications including Internet of Things (IoT), edge computing, multi-protocol embedded communication systems and artificial intelligence (AI) meant firmware and application software started to become a significant system differentiator. Analysing customer design challenges, it was recognised that customer technology decisions were becoming heavily influenced by firmware and application software design support that could be provided by a supplier. Pivoting to this new system selling approach required a change in mindset and Go-To-Market approach. It also required the development of new competencies for a traditionally hardware centric company. Creation of new dedicated firmware and software support functions within the Applications Team and new business development processes, enabled significant differentiation from competitors and higher value to be delivered to customers. This resulted in more business being awarded to the supplier and also creating additional revenue streams for paid firmware and software development.
Pivoting from hardware centric to system solution value propositions
The importance of roadmaps for strategic customer engagements can not be underestimated. Tier 1 customers are strategic and have processes to determine and select who their long-term supply partners will be. Customer strategic supply selection can determine the future growth of many companies within their vendor base. Conversely, it can also eliminate suppliers who do not take roadmaps seriously. This was a real risk with a tier 1 sales and business development engagement. Roadmaps were considered a "tick box" item for this supplier and were evolutionary with insufficient value. Products on the roadmap were not underpinned with IP development. Design, verification and qualification time schedules were unrealistic. If this approach was to continue, the supplier would be downgraded and blocked for new projects. Driven by sales, a completely new process of Product Strategies and Roadmaps was developed and implemented across multiple Business Units within the supplier. Extensive competitor benchmarking was completed with future predications of competitor product solutions determined. This data drove the Product Strategies required to outmanoeuvre existing suppliers and create credible roadmaps with value that resonated with the customer challenges and strategic direction. The outcome was a highly engaged tier 1 customer who respected the roadmap quality and integrity and ensured that a preference for design selection existed in their global database. This resulted in sales growth and higher customer intimacy with key stake holders who were prepared to invest time in the supplier technology and portfolio.
Internal investment
Idea
Competition
Innovate
Scale
Sell
Competition
Internal investment
Innovate
Roadmaps
Develop
Customer
Customer
Sell
Scaleable innovation for productivity
Innovate
Develop
Team
Roadmaps
Scale
Energy companies face issues in operational productivity, especially unplanned downtime. Despite legacy process control and safety systems, they lack other high value data on reliability and maintenance. Previously such data had to be accessed by either a highly skilled person spending time on manual collection or investment in expensive, time-consuming projects to install bespoke equipment. The requirement was to design, test and deploy a solution that would free up time for more high skilled work and eliminate siloed solutions at an order of magnitude less time and cost. With this comes the need to interface to many legacy types of equipment and to conform to strict cyber security rules. The solution developed was an architecture using edge compute platforms, IoT middleware, cloud data ingestion, cloud storage and application hosting. This enabled connection to an array of data sources in the field and edge capability for protocol translation, complex compute and AI/ML inferencing. This data was routed to the cloud over enterprise networks or cellular connections, including private 5G. Once the data is in the cloud, it is made available to any consumer, be that individual applications, digital twins or as contextual data for broader AI/ML analytics when linked to other sources. A new lab facility was built and a team recruited where sensors, edge compute and communications have been evaluated, products built and solutions tested in an expedient way prior to installation on an operational site, saving further time and cost. Deployments around the globe are underway, serving multiple use-cases through this common architecture.
Concept to reality
A Health-Tech startup set out to bring a new product to market that has the potential to significantly improve the health and dignity of patients in care-homes and hospitals. They had reached a point of an initial “analogue” prototype but needed additional support in technology integration, product roadmap and scaling for volume manufacture. Working directly with the Founder CEO, innovation was applied to quickly iterate to “digital” prototypes that were then used in field trials and created a roadmap for further feature development and performance enhancement. The scope of the project expanded to include development of a Cloud Infrastructure, Web Portal and Mobile Application. After the field trial demonstrated the benefits and return on investment of the product, a further phase was begun to scale the product both in terms of volume production for hardware and deployment of the software services. Further supporting the CEO, the next phase was to identify and manage a specialist Contract Electronics Manufacturer that would produce a final iteration of AI-ready hardware, suitable for volume manufacture and certified for sale in global markets. Alongside the hardware, a complete upgrade of the Cloud/Web/Mobile platforms to the latest versions of code and integrations was completed as some original components had been made obsolete over time. The process has seen the incubation a solid initial idea, through validation, risk mitigation and further innovation to a product that is now ready and fit for a volume market roll-out.
Innovate
Develop
Roadmaps
Customer
Risk
Manufacture
Scale
Creating new teams and entering new markets
The Internet of Things (IoT) started accelerating and creating new and large addressable markets. Customers became focused on data generation, analytics and new applications and revenue streams this could drive. Access to remote and real time information increased efficiencies, improved services and reduced operating costs. The challenge to address this market was the complexity of the IoT technology stack which included sensing, edge computing, wireless communication, gateways, security and cloud services. With customers looking for complete system solutions combining the IoT stack, electronic supply companies were not equipped to specify, promote and support new customer opportunities. The competence gap was the ability to architect and specify the complete end to end IoT system. To enter this new market and create value, a completely new go-to-market was required. A team including marketing, business development, system architects (including cloud solutions) and engineering design was established. This required the recruitment and onboarding of new resources and skills. A new sales strategy was created to cover the complex solutions and services to be supported. The "heavy lift" was convincing customers that this new structure could adequately support complex, high value IoT system development for their most critical projects. With competent new capability spanning the complete IoT technology stack, the supply organisation was well placed to talk the same language as the customer, understand their challenges and recommend credible solutions. This go-to-market strategy established the first end to end IoT system solution provider in Europe and opened up new addressable markets. This resulted in significant business opportunities being monetised.
Innovate
Internal investment
Team
Customer
Scale