Enabling further growth of a 50 mln+ software company (NDA)

The client is a 250+ person Software Company specializing in the development and maintenance of digital products (particularly applications for enterprises), as well as the use and integration of AI in business. The team supports clients in 14 international markets including the American, British, German, Norwegian, and Swiss markets, among others.

The technology company has won numerous prestigious awards and recognitions, including from Deloitte and Google. For years, it has been one of the world leaders among IT companies in custom software development. Due to its established experience, the Software Agency enjoys the trust of many financial institutions (FinTech companies and banks), with its client portfolio consisting of both global corporations and rapidly growing scale-ups.

Digitalkod was referred to the software company. Initially, the management wanted to evaluate the effectiveness of their marketing operations, including the B2B lead generation process, eliminate chaos, and understand what worked and what didn’t. After the initial audit, we saw that a more holistic approach, including both marketing strategy and execution, was required.

As a mature IT firm, it faced challenges often encountered by technology companies of this scale. At the beginning of our collaboration, the in-house marketing team consisted of nearly 20 people and carried out various activities across multiple channels, but these activities did not translate into business results, often were not aligned with strategic directions. There was a lack of a clearly defined marketing strategy, priorities, planning, and implementation of activities in conjunction with high-level goals, resulting in tactical initiatives and their low effectiveness. One consequence of this situation was the difficulty in acquiring new clients from abroad. It was also a challenge to make strategic decisions based on data: evaluating the effectiveness of already conducted marketing activities and optimizing them based on data. Furthermore, marketing operated as a silo, not aligned with sales or business. Additionally, the responsibility for managing marketing rested with a board representative who simultaneously fulfilled this role alongside their primary function. Similar responsibility resting on a C-level Executive is very time and physically demanding. Both the Board and the team felt that marketing could perform better. Initiatives were based on established patterns and habits, and the team lacked broader perspective and coordination, resulting in high costs and acting as a barrier to further business growth.

In the past, the software company sought the assistance of marketing agencies and other consultants, but the outcomes did not meet expectations. To provide relevant and substantive advisory, Digitalkod’s expertise in strategy, B2B marketing management, and extensive experience in IT marketing for software agencies, were essential.

*During the collaboration, additional challenges arose related to the consequences of the recession and the need for constant adaptation to the changing market situation, as well as at the company and marketing team levels, including revising marketing action plans, budget management, and managing change on the team’s side. 

The primary goal of the collaboration was to increase the effectiveness of marketing and sales activities, eliminate chaos and inefficiencies, improve marketing management, increase the predictability of the lead generation process, improve cooperation between marketing and sales. An important aspect was understanding what works and what doesn’t, and identifying the sources of problems, primarily “why” despite significant investments in marketing and a large team and its commitment, the actions did not yield expected results, including in the form of acquiring new clients and high-quality sales leads and a stronger brand. Starting from verifying the company’s marketing strategy, through substantive support enabling process improvement, including the process of acquiring new B2B clients (and designing better marketing-sales funnels).

The collaboration began with an analysis of the current state, an audit of the company’s marketing activities in one of the areas. The diagnosis and recommendations led the management team to decide to keep up the activities. They also increased Digitalkod’s role as a strategic partner. As a result, the collaboration with our consultancy had a long-term and holistic character. It included end-to-end support at every stage. It started with diagnosis (audit of B2B marketing and team skills). Then, it covered strategic planning, management of its execution, and growth marketing management. It also included strategic consulting for management.

Selected areas of responsibility:

Selected strategic and tactical actions:

As a consulting company that specializes in scaling software agencies, Digitalkod’s actions always begin with strategic and business goals and aim for the expansion and further growth of the clients’ businesses. All actions taken during the collaboration are integrated into software company’s commercial and strategic objectives, including:

Unlike tactical actions and point optimizations, changes at the strategic and organizational levels are time-consuming due to their nature. The cooperation between Digitalkod and the Software House lasted over a year and required team-level transformation.

The stages completed so far included, among others, marketing diagnoses and analyzes, strategic planning, B2B marketing management – Interim Marketing Management – coordination of the implementation of developed recommendations and action plan implementation, strategic and marketing consulting for C-level Executives, management, and team.

Results of the activities carried out so far: 

The cooperation consisted of three main stages: diagnosis of the situation, action planning, and implementation of the marketing plan for a tech company.

An independent team of Digitalkod consultants performed audits and marketing analyses. They prepared a comprehensive report on the current situation and recommendations for improvements. On the consultancy side, a long-term action plan for the marketing team was also developed. To be more effective and due to the large scope of the job, during the execution stage, the Digitalkod consultant, as Interim Head of Growth Marketing, took over Marketing and Employer Branding. This included team and budget management and coordination of marketing plan implementation. At every stage, the client’s team was involved. This included the software company’s marketing and sales team. It also included Board reps and senior managers.

The adopted cooperation model combined marketing and strategic consulting and Fractional CMO services, which enabled full support for management and the team in all areas of strategy and B2B marketing.

Stages of collaboration: