When Sales won a new contract with a re-seller, everyone was thrilled! More revenue, more clients, this is great right?! Except that it wasn't great. It was terrible. Running the numbers, we realized that we'd be under water, as it cost the same to deploy our software to a $6K ARR client as it did a $100K ARR client. We had to find a new way to package, and deliver our product. One that was designed to scale.
We identified four top challenges to profitable product delivery across our business:
We then made a work plan, aiming to maximize margins and maintain a high quality bar.
We addressed the challenges individually, tackling each one in a unique way:
Our highest point of leverage was creating a Best Practices Library and Foundation Build. This made our product configurable, instead of custom. Partnering with the re-seller to package this new Foundation build, we increased product delivery throughput by 3X.
Our new product delivery model increased project throughput by 3X.
We extended the Foundation Build concept across the business, improving our mid-market and enterprise delivery times by 3X and 2X respectively. This also had a side benefit of improving our client satisfaction with the implementation process. Clients loved hearing about best practices, and getting product access sooner.
Sales loved this(!) because they could tell prospects, "Set up is easy. We have many clients like you, and created a tailored build just for your specialty."
Finance loved it because we could bill upfront, and successfully deliver a high quality product within 4-8 weeks, instead of 16-20 weeks - booting our margins.
After this engagement was completed, our four previously identified challenges became new areas of strength:
