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OrderFusion's $100,000+ software solution embodied the direct marketing experience of its founders. Their retail catalog background clearly had helped define the product's features, but also squarely placed the Company in a mature market. The Company's management team realized it had to find a new market consistent with its core competencies and then refocus the product's strengths into a new product offering. OrderFusion brought in New Business Strategies to reposition the company and its products and facilitate development of an action plan to refocus the company's sales, marketing, and delivery efforts. The repositioning included developing a new value proposition for the company, identifying the proper target market, and creating a tactical marketing plan to communicate to the new target audience. "In order for us to be successful," said Bob Harrington, Vice President of Marketing, "we had to find an immature market that was ready to explode. We knew our target customer base would have to be rapidly-growing, financially strong customers with field sales forces in need of support." New Business Strategies began evaluating a new value proposition by helping OrderFusion gain a comprehensive understanding of the electronic commerce marketplace. The goal was to identify adopting segments of the market with a ready need and limited solutions. "New Business Strategies categorized the functions our product provides, looked at 10 to 12 groups of competitors, some with several dozen products, and mapped the market segments," Harrington added. "They then identified and prioritized the capabilities that each market segment was seeking and noted the solutions that met those needs." In analyzing the results, New Business Strategies identified an emerging electronic commerce market need for applications that enable the planning and execution of sales and marketing efforts, personalized customer interaction and customer fulfillment. The identified need solved OrderFusion's value proposition conundrum and fit the Company's core competencies and vision like a glove. "You get to reposition once" OrderFusion couldn't put business on hold while the marketing team evolved its positioning. It had to test the new value proposition and new marketing messages as it moved forward, providing iterative tactical marketing while it evolved through the repositioning process. "This couldn't be an MBA-only process," Harrington said. "We had to have tactical marketing to support us in parallel." New Business Strategies provided that tactical support which OrderFusion's sales force utilized during the repositioning. This provided real-time feedback into the repositioning process that helped modify and confirm the new value proposition and refine the marketing messages. At the same time, New Business Strategies contacted target audiences to confirm the veracity of the market opportunity. "We needed to positively identify the pain to insure the problem went beyond the intellectual discoveries of our secondary research," Christine Crandell, President of New Business Strategies, said. "New Business Strategies has been a real integral part of our company, bringing an extremely valuable outsider's perspective, " Harrington stated. "We had to go through this process," he added. "Especially in marketing, we like to think we have divine inspirations that are 'The Truth.' But the price of being wrong is very high-you don't get to reposition twice." After testing the new value proposition and messaging with OrderFusion's sales force, customers, press and analysts, with refinement, the new value proposition was crystallized, and tactical marketing support helped carry it to the customer base. A Forward Focus With OrderFusion's new value proposition defined, the next job was to focus momentum of the company behind it via a strategic action plan with responsibilities and budgets, enabling everyone to move forward in synch. OrderFusion's CEO Tom Hennings explained the value of having New Business Strategies facilitate the creation of the plan. "As president of a company, you have to know how to do one" he said. "But what you don't have is the outside perspective. New Business Strategies is one of the few firms I would have trusted to help us create that action plan. They are highly experienced in the workings of a software company, so there isn't a ramp-up issue there. Plus, they can evaluate you objectively within the environment you're in." In 1999, OrderFusion released its 'Orders of Magnitude Web Reach' and 'Orders of Magnitude Personalized Selling' best of breed applications. With positive feedback from press and customers, OrderFusion is poised to lead a segment of the multi-billion dollar market for sell side electronic commerce solutions. "We still have to execute," Harrington said. "But we do so knowing the OrderFusion value proposition solves a problem that is painful for our target audience, with proof points in hand and a vision for how our solution will help them."
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