Alcatel had a traditional product portfolio, created by responding as a contractor to conservative Telco requirements. It wanted to reposition itself with target customers as higher – value added business partner. It wanted to understand better how sales to end user customers operated and how it could help its customers differentiate themselves in competitive Telco markets.
David provided advice on an initiative to introduce Centrex capabilities (PABX and ACD functionality based on public network switches) capabilities on Alcatel’s products, and sell them through Telcos. The project, looked at two angles – firstly what was the added value proposition for Telcos and secondly, what was the proposition for end user customers. It addressed typical concerns on revenue, cost and operational impacts, including billing and customer service, and identified critical success factors required to make the end user proposition compelling. The study used end user and operator interviews from David’s network in the industry, and a detailed cost-benefit model of eight realistic customer scenarios, to develop the business cases behind the propositions.
David developed effective business case propositions to encourage telephone companies to launch Centrex and to enable these companies to sell the service effectively to end users. This work helped drive Alcatel’s product and proposition development into a new, more proactive direction.