| |
Fall 2001
Welcome!
We are pleased to present our premier issue of The Apex, the quarterly newsletter of Cambridge Consulting.
Our work with a variety of emerging technology leaders gives us a unique vantage point on the industry's
rugged landscape. We hope The Apex will provide a perspective that helps you navigate this rocky terrain
safely and successfully.
Cambridge Consulting is a leading provider of high-tech marketing and business development expertise for
Fortune 500 and top-tier technology clients. From initial strategy through tactical implementation, Cambridge
Consulting delivers customized solutions that help you expand existing markets and launch new products and
services — right now, in real time. By bringing together innovative companies and high-performance
professionals, we're building relationships that build success.
To find out how we can help build your success, visit us at
www.cambridgeconsultant.com or for immediate response please
call us at 800-816-8006 and ask to speak with a client representative.
Product Immersion Training: Come On In — the Water's Great!
The approach to Product Immersion Training brings back memories. Those diehards
of the college all-niters will remember calling it accelerated learning or neuron ignition. It
was, and still remains, the most practical method for absorbing an enormous amount of information
intended to be recalled shortly thereafter. Today, this learning approach must be a staple in
every high tech product training portfolio provided by your Product Marketing and Management (PMM)
team.
We all know Moore's Law. But consider that the original concept of microprocessor
evolution every 18 months is actually more like 3-6 months, and apply the same knowledge evolution
to all new product and technologies emerging in the high tech market. The amount of knowledge
created today is staggering, and the depth one can absorb becomes increasingly limited.
Product Immersion Training is an approach that allows the PMM team to provide the right level
of marketing, sales and technical product training in a very short period. Each immersion-training
module is a self-contained, one-day session with feedback loops. Progressive immersion extends
the one-day to a three or even five-day period, allowing the level of knowledge depth and transfer
to increase each day. The value of the progressive approach is to have your sales engineers, marketing
and sales reps start off in the same class together. This builds a solid go-to-market team and
allows the engineers to remain in the training as the presented material becomes more technical.
The essential elements of a good immersion-training program resemble the effect of a cool swim
in the river on hot summer's day.
Get your feet wet with a market overview. Provide the macro and micro conditions that exist in
your product or technology space. More complex products and technologies may require you to start
at the macro level. This could focus on the customer solution level, or, if the market characteristics
are well defined, at the market segment level.
Plunge in with a product overview. Provide the rich feature benefits of your product line versus
the competitors. Quickly move through the water at a shallow depth, sticking to the customer value
proposition. Your exploration should be limited at first to immediate business issues and how
you configure, price and fulfill a product or service offering.
Next, swim with the current and dive down to get a technical understanding of the capabilities
of the product or service. Here, you dig into both your product environment and your generic customer's
environment. The complexity level grows. Certain aspects of the product will surely be known,
and customer condition may be researched — but this is where you're often subject to the
currents, which are your customer's unique requirements and how your offering works with
them.
In today's business climate, training your resources to drive the marketing and sale of your
product or service is a time and cost issue — one that often forces companies to limit the
length and interval of any new or existing product training.
At Cambridge, we firmly believe in the value of training — especially training that provides
immediate knowledge transfer and retention. Product Immersion Training provides a cost-effective
approach that makes efficient use of staff resources. Plus, an invaluable feedback loop built
into every Product Immersion Training module lets you know immediately if the breadth and depth
of knowledge are actually useful. Then, with follow-up feedback gathered two weeks after the final
session, you'll know if the knowledge is retained and the investment has paid-off.
Our experience has shown that with a well-designed training, the pay-off will be readily apparent
— and well worthwhile.
If you are a company looking to outsource your IT infrastructure and you want lower prices from your vendors, your ship has arrived.
Why? Because if excess supply equates to more competitive prices (lower costs) for companies looking to outsource their IT infrastructure, the chart on the right tells a compelling story of over-supply in the IT hosting industry.
Conversely, if you are an IT infrastructure hardware, software or networking supplier, and if
you market your products to IT outsource suppliers, then take note, your sales forecasts for existing
product/services to these customers better reflect reality or your management/shareholders will
be surprised, and justifiably upset at your actual sales results.
Managing Scope Creep: Don't Let a Good Project Go Bad
Have you ever had a project that seemed to change its focus after only a few weeks, or even days? Of course you have! Let's face it, what sometimes appears to be a straightforward project often has a funny way of taking on a life of its own.
Sure, a responsible Cambridge consultant will go to great lengths to document, in advance, the objectives, scope and deliverables for his/her project. In fact, this due-diligence is often a prerequisite to setting the fees associated with the project. But the reality is, projects do change — and often they'll change several times before they're complete. When those changes cause deliverables to be added to the consultant's plate, we call this "Scope Creep."
In its most positive form, Scope Creep results in maximizing the consultant's utility and "value-ad" by addressing the most pressing and dynamic issues facing the client. In its most destructive form, Scope Creep results in a client that feels "ripped-off" and a consultant that feels "abused."
Scope Creep isn't a bad thing unless both parties, client and consultant, fail to realize it's happening. If Scope Creep occurs, and the parties have not agreed on new priorities and, if necessary, new compensation metrics, the likelihood of having a satisfied client at the project conclusion is slim indeed.
Given that Scope Creep can be a naturally occurring byproduct of high tech marketing consulting projects, how can it be managed such that all parties are satisfied at project conclusion?
The process is actually quite simple.
Managing Scope Creep:
- Before starting a project, Cambridge always develops and documents a statement of work that
clearly outlines project objectives, scope, deliverables and terms. Both the client and consultant
must sign the statement of work.
- Keep a copy of the original statement of work and review it each week to ensure it still applies.
If it does, great! If not, you have the beginnings of Scope Creep.
- As soon as you detect Scope Creep, document where the project diverges from the original
statement of work.
- Communicate your observations to Cambridge as soon as possible. It's our responsibility to
effectively help manage the change.
- Gain consensus from the client that the project has indeed deviated from the original, and
make recommendations on how to handle the deviation.
- Based on a consensus agreement, and assuming the changes are substantive enough, the changes
should be put in writing and added as an addendum to the original statement of work.
- Continue to project conclusion — but be vigilant about managing further Scope Creep!
Of course, gaining consensus on project changes and their consequences can be tricky. So let's explore this delicate issue in more detail.
Gaining Consensus Regarding Scope Creep:
The old adage, "it’s not what you say it’s how you say it" definitely applies to the issue of
gaining consensus. Here are the critical elements to creating positive results.
- Accept the fact that Scope Creep happens and maintain a positive attitude about handling changes.
- Be proactive and communicate your concerns, face-to-face, as soon as possible. Make it your
responsibility to keep the project on track. Chances are, the client is too busy handling other
issues to even notice that the project has morphed into something different.
- Make recommendations and propose deliverable trade-offs such that no increase in project cost
is required. Give the client some options — nobody likes to be backed into a corner without
any choices.
- Recognize what you are capable of accomplishing within a reasonable time frame and make this
clear to the client. Don’t over-promise — chances are you'll end up under-delivering.
- Communicate, communicate, and then communicate some more until a true consensus is formed
and agreed upon.
Consultants Do you have a perspective you'd like to share with other consultants? If so, please contact us to discuss submitting your thoughts for our next issue.
Which Way Wireless?
To the casual observer, the current global wireless landscape has grown more confusing
today than it was promising just a short 12 months ago. As an active participant in this
emerging industry over the past two years, Cambridge Consulting has a keen interest in the wild
gyrations of the wireless world — and one thing we can say with certainty: it's not for the
faint of heart.
Wireless has ridden the WAP wave from end to end and back again. It has experienced rarely
fulfilled promises of delivering timely and effective 2G, 2.5G, and 3G technologies. And
now, the U.S. market is facing a scenario that essentially has its governing body (the
FCC) selling spectrum bandwidth that it doesn't own to a technically bankrupt company,
so the company can help build infrastructure for "the next generation of the wireless
revolution."
Say what?
Well, in May of last year, the FCC sold $17 billion dollars worth of wireless spectrum to a variety
of internationally known wireless carriers. This was a handsome sum of cash that the U.S. Congress
eagerly accepted for a multitude of "important" and mostly unrelated funding targets
(can you say Pork Barrel?). One small problem: apparently, the FCC sold this spectrum "property"
without actually owning the right to do so. A U.S. Court of Appeals ruled that the spectrum space
sold last year for $17 billion had already been sold and is currently the "property"
of NextWave Telecom, a cellular telecommunications company that bought the spectrum for $4.7 million
back in 1996. Who can blame the FCC for trying to execute what appears to be an unbelievably lucrative
Ponzi scheme?
Hmmm ...
So what wide-ranging developments may we expect next across the near-term wireless landscape?
What's the next real "killer app" beyond SMS and personalized email-like
applications? So far, on a worldwide basis, very few offerings look to be the next "killer
app." Will financial securities trading and transaction applications be as attractive
in the future given current macroeconomic and e-security environment?
It appears the biggest bets are being placed on "mobile entertainment" —
but what will "entertainment" include? Are we talking streaming audio and/or
rich media? What about mobile gaming? What about online wagering and bookmaking? And how
can we overlook the largest, most significant, economically viable business on the Internet
to date? You know ... "adult entertainment."
Or, are bandwidth-intensive applications completely irrelevant in the current landscape
until the pipes get bigger? Doesn't it really depend on how much cash you have, and
how long you can wait until the required infrastructure and bandwidth are available to
prove your business model? Until then, is rich media delivery over wireless a moot point?
What about cell-blocking? A nascent industry today, it is predicted to grow three times
its current size in the next 12 months. And even though it's supposed to be an illegal
technology here in the U.S., an Industry Standard report confirmed the usage of such technology
in the legislative chambers of a state which shall remain nameless.
One thing is absolutely certain: we can expect more surprising, if not downright bizarre,
events to emerge as 2001 fades into the wireless sunset. Hang on to your hat!
Have an opinion? Write us and let us know your thoughts and/or predictions on the above
topic. We'll print what we can.
|
|
