Hello, this is Mike Burnett, principal with the Alexander Group and co-leader of our Business Services practice here at the Alexander Group. Today, we’re going to be talking through a little bit more about a specific subsegment of our Business Services practice. Before I go there, a brief background on the Alexander group and just a reminder of our area of expertise.
So the Alexander Group is a management consulting firm that focuses exclusively in revenue growth services. That means we’ll be working with organizations across the sales, marketing and commercial services function.
Business Intelligence is one of the larger subsegments within our Business Services practice. This sub-vertical includes providers of data, analysis and software that oftentimes is used to help deliver insights and intelligence to organizations. In today’s world, data is everywhere, and these organizations are really at the forefront of trying to help organizations better leverage data and information as it’s being consumed on a daily minute by minute basis.
What we’re finding is organizations are being faced with a few different challenges and expectations from customers. One is making sure that the data they’re providing is both timely and relevant for the very complex set of needs that customers are facing. So organizations are constantly culling the types and formats of data that’s being collected, and they’re also upgrading the platforms or the ways that they’re able to deliver that data and insight to customers through different data visualization and automation platforms. We’re also seeing that organizations are having to extend beyond just providing the data and analytical capabilities and actually helping to provide insights on top of those core offerings. Organizations are being forced to better calculate, better determine and really demonstrate what the ROI is for their organizations as they’re continuing to consume this data on a recurring basis.
Within business services, today, we’re going to be digging deeper into our business intelligence subsector. What we found based on the prior slide in terms of the challenges that these organizations are facing is that organizations are typically focused on six key imperatives from a go-to-market perspective in order to be more successful in today’s marketplace.
First, is organizations are looking to continually upgrade and better suit their offerings to reflect customer use cases. So shifting from describing what they can sell and what information they have available to more the problem that they can help their customers solve. Second is we’re seeing organizations take a concerted investment and interest in developing an omnichannel strategy. So really thinking outside of the box in terms of how they could potentially engage with their customers, but also even execute sales transactions. Everything from the traditional field and phone-based resources being put in place, as well as e-commerce or digital channels in terms of purchasing being allowed. Third, is a prioritization of recurring revenue streams. This is something that is impacting most industries. This segment being no exception. So organizations are trying to prioritize and shift away from one-time or non-committed revenue into more of a recurring, predictable revenue model. In order to support that the fourth area that we’re seeing organizations focus on is investing in Customer Success. Not just as a function in it, but as an ideology for the organization. So now you have organizations focused on making sure that customers are getting maximum value out of the data or analytical capabilities that we’re providing to them or licensing them to use. Number five is based upon this shift in model that I was describing a number of three and four, we’re seeing organizations look to continually upgrade the skills and talent within their organization. So that means bringing in more technical capabilities to support the more complex delivery mechanisms. But it also means bringing in potentially talent from outside of the industry that are better adept at selling subscription-oriented business models. And then lastly, really an underpin to all of this is point number six, which is building out a digital roadmap. If we’re thinking about executing an omnichannel strategy or we’re thinking about trying to better reach and connect with new customers, areas that organizations are focusing on is building out digital marketing, digital delivery and digital selling capabilities in order to be more successful from a go-to-market perspective.
If you’re interested in learning more or further discussing any of these mandates or you’re interested in terms of our capabilities and experience in terms of working in this space, please feel free to reach out or visit us online at alexandergroup.com.
