The Delicate Dance Behind Rapid New Service Deployments

Speedy, successful deployments of new services to market are as much about the processes and people involved, as they are about the enlisted technology. More so, actually.

The lifeblood of any business, what keeps its charter afloat and on that upward trajectory, is the ability to create new revenue streams. That, of course, requires a nimbleness in being able to bring new products and services to market quickly, before your competitors do. The time it takes from the inception of a new product or service to its ultimate launch can make or break a company’s future. When done correctly, the speed of this feat is less of a science and more of a dance. By that I mean a well-oiled and orchestrated act of precision among collaborative teams of people, planning based on years of practice and perfectly timed processes all pointing toward a common goal.

The foundation for any successful deployment is established in the initial conversations held among stakeholders. More listening, less talking. First, however, you need to ask yourself:

Are you talking to the right stakeholders?

My years of experience and expertise have taught me that to best understand existing systems and the challenges they pose, you need to talk to the people using the system and managing it, those in the trenches, not the business people. You need to focus on the core use cases those people face in building your approach to the solution.

Consider the value of starting small and building upon it. When implementing new systems and processes into an existing ecosystem, first, solve the immediate challenges in front of you. This front-facing solution technique allows for that internal value footprint to increase organically as you have the opportunity to leverage learnings from that initial experience into more systems.

Another question to ask yourself: Is your deployment product-focused or customer-focused?

For a product-focused company, everything in the deployment comes back to the product, with a list of pigeon-holed things that have to happen for success - constricting things in the process.

In the customer-focused method, the product team zeroes in on solving the immediate challenges of the customer first and in doing so is able to identify what to be productized into the system. Down the line, upcoming product iterations can focus on expanding the business and adding value to the current offering.

By being more customer-focused, you are building out your new product at the same time you are helping the customer, cutting time to market by more than half.

As an example of this method in action, I worked with one customer with a sports offering that was interested in including season pass offers. Our product team listened to the customer's needs and requirements and was able to quickly implement this offering. For the next sports-centric customer who came to us with the same interest, time to market was drastically reduced because the solution itself had already been productized.

A solution to one customer’s problem now becomes a feature, with much less work and time needed, for every succeeding customer.

The teams I’ve worked with have found success by implementing products to customer needs and simultaneously productizing it as much as possible, in comparison to many of our competitors who choose to build the product first and then implement it - product first, customer needs second.

The difference between the two methodologies can often be measured in years. I worked with a customer who sought to implement a cancel flow. A peer solution tried for two years to provide the same solution we delivered in three weeks. The difference? Our team productized the solution while solving the customer's problem. Instead of a ‘land and expand’ policy, we bring incremental value to the customer with speed.

This is more common sense than rocket science, but sometimes that’s all it takes to deliver - and deliver quickly.

Tech & team

Having a highly configurable platform architecture, pre-built third-party integrations and easily scalable cloud-based technology is preferable to more traditional tech, which requires long runways for any type of deployment. Yet, those implementing the technology are essential partners in this ‘deployment dance.’

An agile, experienced team can cut down deployment time by quickly comprehending and configuring a solution to any challenge put in front of them with a minimum of integrations needed.

A proven track record delivering in various global regions and for many different types of complex use cases not only sets a deployment partner at ease, but helps set the right tone from the beginning of any deployment.

As global marketplaces become more saturated, capitalizing on time-sensitive opportunities while optimizing time-to-market will remain significant factors in long-term growth and sustained success. Now is the time to leverage these common-sense ideals and bolster your business potential. It’s time to dance.