The voice software business unit of a major technology infrastructure company had, over time, developed three platforms serving very different market segments. To stay competitive in each segment, the company needed to continually develop additional applications. Marketing and engineering resources were constantly stretched too thin, and execution suffered on all fronts. In addition, an emerging web services framework would impact all the products, requiring major changes in all platforms.

The company commissioned SDG to create a valuation framework spanning the company’s market and product opportunities. Questions to be answered: Did the company want to be in all its current markets? And, did it need one, two, or three platforms to serve the target markets?

Our investigation showed that the company’s most complex market segment to serve added little value to their business. In consequence, the company discontinued one of the platforms and a variety of applications. We also looked at what functionality was core to the remaining two platforms and developed a roadmap for how to migrate toward one next-generation platform. The result was a clear direction for future development efforts that was well received by customers, who welcomed the clarified approach.