Marketing helicopter view for a fast-growing company Appunite

Appunite is a software company with a unique structure made up of a collection of cross-disciplinary product teams that focus their efforts on the business value their activities create for their clients. The experts create cutting-edge mobile and web applications that are characterized by outstanding design and great use of technology – while also aligning with the customers’ business objectives. The company provides support in digital acceleration to scale-ups, enterprises, and other rapidly growing organizations, leveraging its many years of seniority in the industry and extensive experience in building over 160 digital products.

Appunite has been consistently named one of the fastest-growing firms in the Financial Times 1000 since 2020 and has twice received the “Forbes Diamond” award. They have collaborated on a range of projects for startups and large enterprises from across the globe, including the USA, Scandinavia, the UK, and the Middle East, and have worked with some prominent companies including TechCrunch, Starbucks, Allegro, and Fishbrain.

At the beginning of the collaboration with Digitalkod, their team consisted of 140 specialists.

Despite its growth over the years, Appunite had been battling on at least two fronts: the management’s excessive participation in operational and tactical tasks, including marketing; and the marketing team’s capacity to generate quality sales leads from international markets. Both of
them required attention.

At scale, Client acquisition cannot exclusively rely on referrals or networking done by C-level executives. From the standpoint of the organization, this is neither safe nor scalable. Diversifying lead generation sources in their sales pipeline and maintaining the predictability of client acquisition can be a big issue for many rapidly growing IT organizations, especially those pursuing international clients, but it must be done.

Moreover, Appunite’s goal was to increase revenue and cement its reputation as a business partner that helps other organizations develop and grow with technology. So, the critical thing was to effectively communicate its distinctive business model and unique value proposition to potential clients, and – in doing so – set it apart from the competition.

Appunite’s CEO was looking for a consulting company specialized in B2B strategy and marketing for software and technology companies. He contacted us, Digitalkod, for assistance in increasing the effectiveness of their B2B marketing.

To address this need, we first performed an analysis of the company’s situation, goals, and marketing communication. Thanks to the close cooperation and engagement of both sides, the initial marketing audit was enough to conclude that the low effectiveness of the lead generation process was not the cause but the effect of marketing. The main challenge was thus to identify the root causes of these problems and create a list of actionable insights that the team could easily implement, with their structure, resources, and operational capabilities at the time all considered.

Many technology companies think that “fixing their marketing” requires them to start acting right away. They start implementing minor, localized changes which enable low-level optimization but do not significantly affect business results. They also don’t bring organizations any closer to achieving their business goals. Appunite’s experienced management decided to take a different approach – with Digitalkod’s help, they wanted to understand the situation and come up with workable solutions.

The assessment of the marketing situation was done using the Helicopter View method, supplemented with Digitalkod’s authorial techniques. We evaluated 10 areas related to both AppUnite’s marketing strategy as well as the practical use of data in marketing activities,
processes, and other elements related to the cooperation between marketing and sales.

Thanks to the independent analysis conducted by a consultant with years of experience in the IT industry and B2B marketing, Appunite’s management and marketing team received valuable insights into the effectiveness of their activities and areas for optimization. They’ve also received recommendations on both strategic issues, such as setting goals and planning marketing activities, as well as tactical concerns, including the implementation of tools and the development of their in-house team. These insights and recommendations informed the Appunite’s team what they should focus on during the next stages, and which areas have the greatest impact on business results.

Appunite’s management consists of experienced professionals who have successfully scaled their business in foreign markets and who understand the importance of marketing for business growth. The insights they’ve received from Digitalkod are a reference point for managing their marketing team, strategic planning, setting priorities, and optimizing downstream efforts.

The analysis we conducted is intended to serve as a starting point, laying the foundation for further work. The diagnosis itself has already proven valuable to the company, allowing them to identify and understand not only the effects but also the underlying causes of the problems that hinder the effectiveness of their marketing team.

Moving forward, the actionable insights we provided will reduce the risk of guesswork and save valuable time that would have otherwise been wasted on unnecessary experiments or tests. With a clear direction to follow, the team can now focus their efforts on the areas with the greatest potential impact.

As a consulting company, we believe that knowledge transfer to client teams is vital to developing in-house competencies and enhancing the impact of their marketing team on business results. During our collaboration with Appunite, we provided them with templates and other materials that facilitate effective analysis of marketing data, lead generation processes, and team competencies. By utilizing these new tools, the Appunite team will be able to implement proven solutions more efficiently, thereby increasing organizational transparency and improving overall performance.

We have stumbled upon challenges with marketing scalability due to organizational and domain debt we’ve collected throughout years of dynamic scaling.

Thanks to collaboration with Ania from Digitalkod, we’ve been able to dissect and categorize problems and challenges much faster and in a more educative manner than we would have been able to ourselves. A perspective and unbiased opinion from someone with Ania’s experience was truly helpful and we will definitely come back for more.

Andrzej Wyduba
COO at Appunite