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Case Studies / Projects / Success Stories

What follows is a sampling of the engagements and outcomes that characterize our contribution to our clients. 

  • Situation –  Client Mandate: “Turn the business around”, TCI was the largest cable company in the USA with 14.2M subscribers that was churning 50-100K subscribers per month consistently for 18 months prior to my arrival.

  • Obstacles –  With no prior cable TV experience, working with a company with a highly unfavorable reputation and a geographically dispersed workforce empowered to operate autonomously in their regions, I needed to influence and align business unit behaviors of executives who did not report to me, to coordinate and ensure alignment corporate objectives and enable sales.

  • Action – by interviewing key stakeholders, I identified major barriers to the necessary alignment, and proposed a resolution to corporate leadership which was implemented immediately facilitating the requisite dialog and engagement. (The primary barrier was a misalignment of management incentive which focused on cash flow as the singular metric for bonus achievement, not customer growth).

  • Result – The restructuring of management incentives created a demand for corporate marketing and receptive to integrating the arsenal of tools available from corporate marketing and opened the doors to several other innovative strategies that drove sales, improved corporate reputation and enabled implementation of incremental revenue generating programs such as the first customer loyalty program ever to exist in the cable industry. These efforts resulted in a 350,000 NET GAIN in subscribers contributing $650M to the valuation of the company within 12 months. Based on this performance, the company was able to secure an acceptable strike price and the company was sold to AT&T for $48B, a record at the time. 

Telecommunications Inc. (TCI) was the largest cableTV service provider in the USA with operations in over 36 states serving over 14M subscribers.

Zoono is a novel antimicrobial technology that provided persistent efficacy on hard surfaces and human skin over 1000 times longer than traditional solutions. An entrepreneurial investor group acquired the distribution rights to the USA and sought to commercialize this innovation nationally. I joined the firm  a year after the management team had undertaken this quest, into which they had invested $1.0M and had no appreciable sales or traction in the market.

  • Situation – My assignment was to build a company from a failing starting point for a technology that had no precedent (a disinfectant technology that had 30 days of persistent efficacy vs. conventional technologies which had a maximum efficacy duration of 10 minutes). I needed to build a team, secure regulatory approval, educate target on value proposition, prove efficacy, build distribution, manufacturing, and provide quantification of economic value proposition to customers (i.e. showcase associated savings from employing this technology) with significantly limited resources.

  • Obstacle –  Identify “fastest path to revenue” for an unknown, radical innovative technology that required significant education and significant change in operational behavior for commercial customers and consumers, all in the face of well entrenched competition.

  • Action – B2B sales were slow and unsupportable. I implemented a strategic pivot from B2B to B2C, created line of 20 products, secured both FDA and EPA regulatory approval, built the brand, planned and executed all manufacturing and logistics for this technology that was regulated by the FDA as a “Drug”, which required significant manufacturing implications and rigorous, regular product testing.

  • Result – I secured national distribution through CVS #1 pharmacy retailer in under 6 months generating a $1.0M revenue stream with 50% margins in year 1 to fuel other business activity. Building on this initial success, the business grew to $10M ARR. Business growth was limited by available resources but after 4 years, the business reached an infection point and investors approved a sale of the venture, which I orchestrated successfully in 2021.

Cablevision, was the 5th largest cable TV service provider in the USA. In the early 2000's, HD technology had come of age and the visionary chairman of Cablevision saw enormous potential in capturing an early position in the market. I was engaged as one of the core team to define the business plan and enable the launch of the first HDTV service via satellite. 

  • Situation – I co-authored the business plan with a former DirecTV executive for this $1B venture. Following board approval of the business plan, my challenge was to build and launch a brand and create the necessary infrastructure to support the acquisition, retention and customer service for this business in 6 months.

  • Obstacle – The challenge was: how to find and hire a team, train them, build a brand, define a launch plan and execute on every facet from pre-launch to post-launch, on PR, Advertising, social, promotion, branding, research, etc. while preparing to service, manage and bill potentially thousands of new customers. 

  • Action – I opted not to hire personnel but rather engage agencies with the requisite specialties to do both the agency work and function as my contract employees. I devised a novel concept whereby I executed a "Holding Company Pitch". The plan was to reach out to the top 5 ad agency holding cos – IPG, WPP, Omnicom, Publicis, Dentsu – the first initiative of its kind where agencies were required to operate as a single unified unit as a ‘virtual’ marketing team and leverage all of their agency resources across disciplines (PR, Advertising, Promotion, Research, Branding, etc.) 

  • Result –  IPG was selected. They assigned a 9-agency team to build brand, execute all pre and post-launch activity, including all initial marketing, PR, Promotion and subscriber acquisition. The brand, VOOM, and service was launched in the 6 month time frame set by the board of 10/15/2003. This group was led by me and performed their specialties until internal teams could be identified and hired over the ensuing 6 months. The business grew steadily through consistent targeted marketing and strategic retail presence including 'pop up ' stores. The business was operated successfully for 2 years before the assets were sold for $350M to a competitor. The brilliance of this strategy included all of the HD content Cablevision had created giving the most profitable portion of the service access to 100X more subscribers than were able to access the programming via VOOM alone.

Innovative Communications was the the incumbent local exchange carrier (ILEC) of the Virgin Islands that served more than 58,000 access lines throughout the U.S. Virgin Islands and provided high speed broadband services through its DSL network delivering service to approximately 80% of the households in the Virgin Islands.

  • Situation –  As the #1 telco serving the USVI and neighboring islands, the company had a ‘lock’ on the market. However, weak management had allowed the infrastructure to fall into disrepair and corporate culture had become dysfunctional. Company ownership sought to divest this asset but in order to sell the company, a network overhaul was required, operations need to be improved and new products needed to be added to restore revenue and generate new subscriptions. The FTI consulting company was hired to address the issues and prepare the business for sale and I was engaged to improve sales, marketing and customer service in preparation for the sale of the company. 

  • Obstacle – Network improvements were required to adequately deliver services, the company needed to restore a service orientation company-wide and the suite of service offerings needed to be better marketed, priced and promoted and new services to bring the offerings up to date. Funding for these improvements was available but significant effort was required to implement the initiatives, particularly due to significant resistance of the employee base, who were largely native islanders, to the influx of mainland consultants.

  • Action –  I sunsetted antiquated, low-margin offerings, upgraded customers to newer, higher-margin offerings, grew the subscriber base, introduced streaming video services, and engaged the customer service team with new product and packaging training, customer handling skills, instilled incentives for superior service, all while overcoming the negative bias to me as a mainland consultant. I was also intimately involved with the preparation of company-wide due diligence and presentations for management and investors. 

  • Result – I restored positive subscriber net gain trends across most service lines delivering target revenue and profitability numbers required to support company valuation, while simultaneously improving customer service ratings. The company successfully completed the sale of the property in 12 months for a materially higher price ($145M vs $90M) than was on the table prior to these efforts.

Origin Digital was a global video applications service provider that applies the rigors of broadcast to the management, transformation, syndication, and reporting for all forms of digital content from any source to any destination. Origin Digital provided hosted applications, tools and services to simplify the capture, conversion, and control of digital media across the value chain. The company was absorbed into Accenture in 2013.

  • Situation –  This business’ technology offered major video content creators to record and live-stream sporting events via the internet in real-time – a novel capability at the time and the ability to translate analog video into digital information enabling on-line streaming . This company was the ‘first mover’ in this arena. This was one of the first video conversion platforms and was commercialized using a, "Platform as a Service" (PaaS) model.

  • Obstacle –  Adoption of the service was slow for two reasons: 1) business leadership of client companies lacked an effective business model for monetizing streaming content and 2) the company’s sales paradigm was “feature focused” vs “solution selling” (i.e. selling the capabilities of the technology vs. presenting a complete picture of the benefits of the technology and how it could result in increased revenue for clients).

  • Action –  As head of sales and marketing, I changed the company's sales/presentation approach from Feature Focused to Solution Selling, leading with the benefits (not the attributes) of the technology and created business models/proposals for how the content could be monetized for each client’s unique scenario.

  • Result – My contribution secured $9M in new customer projects with major content producers in 12 months with companies such as: J&J, IBM, USTA, IMG, HBO & ESPN. The company was eventually absorbed into Accenture to add to their proprietary capabilities. 

As one if the first innovative wireless Application Service Providers (WASP), GiantBear.com provides end-to-end turnkey wireless data and mobile commerce solutions for wireless carriers, e-businesses and corporate enterprises at a time when such service were a novelty.. GiantBear's suite of services include application development and implementation; portal and platform development and integration; hosting and maintenance services; strategic planning and marketing assistance; content and mobile commerce distribution; billing and customer service integration and the first interactive advertising platform on wireless devices.

Through GiantBear’s innovative applications, companies can deliver personalized, local, national and company-specific information or commerce across multiple delivery channels – wireless cell phones, pagers, PDAs or other pervasive computing devices.

  • Situation – Challenge: build and launch a suite of Apps into a primitive/early stage mobile device market where Apps did not exist. There was no awareness of or demand for Apps, the medium, SMS, was limited to a set number of characters restricting the relevance of a message and the business model was D2C Subscription.

  • Obstacle – Identify App content/subject, build a suite of relevant Apps using SMS (a primitive, highly limited a service for sending short messages of up to 160 characters), launch an unknown brand nationally, create awareness and demand for Apps which were a relative novelty with no precedent for wireless applications of this kind. Cost to launch and build a national brand properly was not available and even the most robust adoption forecasts would not support operating costs. 

  • Action – Two track effort: Track 1 - Build Apps as planned and Track 2 - concurrently find a more fruitful way to enable the venture.

    • Track 1 - I led market research initiative to identify the most viable and compelling suite of Apps that might be of interest to the consuming public. We built a total of 26 fully functional apps which received high marks for value, relevance and functionality (i.e. horoscope of the day, traffic alerts, joke of the day, etc). Initial consumer adoption rates were low, underscoring the DTC model was unsustainable. 

    • Track 2 - I identified and recommended a parallel approach of selling through wireless carriers, using the Apps as a value-added feature for subscriptions. High interest from the carriers was due to these Apps consumer "plan minutes" lessening the minutes "carryover" liability. Apps also added a degree of novelty and utility for the subscriber but also, due to low cost of service to the carrier, could be used liberally for promotion or as a high margin add-on.  

  • Result – Selling through carriers created massive demand from all carrier partners, initially across the company's existing partners and quickly expanding to include all carriers. Revenues exploded, company valuation multiplied and management exercised an exit option selling the platform to Infospace (a major aggregator of wireless technologies). This exit was 12 months ahead of management's most aggressive exit time table.

Hiram Walker began as a small grocery business in 1856. Today it is one of the three largest distilleries in the world, exporting products to over 150 countries. Through growth and expansion, the company now consists of three Canadian distilleries and four American marketing subsidiaries, as well as a bottling facility, a glass company, and a distillery. It owns 11 Scottish distilling plants and has holdings in France, Mexico, Argentina, and Spain. In addition to their signature brand, Canadian Club, the company represents a host of top of the line products in every category from cognacs to cordials.

  • Situation – Kahlua was the #4 brand of distilled spirits in the USA (1.4M cases/ $450M retail) was experiencing a 7-year annual volume decline of 3.5%. Kahlua had over a 1000% markup and was the primary revenue driver for the company.

  • Obstacle – one major reason for the brand’s decline was a brand perception problem. The primary consumer (women) believed Kahlua contained “Fat” and wanted to avoid “Fat” at all costs. The brand had lost its relevance. 

  • Action –  By connecting two key facts, 1) Kahlua is 100% fat-free 2) Through insightful research, the target did not associate “fat” and “Fattening”, led to a rebranding of Kahlua as “fat free”. This gave the primary consuming audience to reconsider their favorite product and resume previous consumption habits. Additionally to restore relevance, I built and launched a line of premixed cocktails (a novelty for a distilled spirit to build a single serving size item) and created an on-premise campaign to raise awareness of the brand and re-sample young consumers.

  • Result –  Not only was the 7-year decline trend reversed, sales increased an additional 3.5% for the 12 months following the repositioning. This represented a 7% increase over forecast, equating to sales of approximately 100K cases and $10.0M in gross revenue.

In 1994, a triumvirate of companies (RCS, GM Hughes, US Satellite Broadcasting) joined forces to launch the first 18” satellite TV service. Satellite had been something reserved for rural customers and involved a 10 meter dish and considerable expense to obtain. This new technology allowed any consumer with an unobstructed view of the southern sky to access a greater volume of programming at a competitive cost giving consumers the first and only option to the cableTV monopoly. Through a series of acquisitions, this service is known today as DirecTV.

  • Situation – Three companies, each representing a share of the offering, agreed to co-operate to launch this innovative technology.

  • Obstacle – enabling effective coordination through three separate entities with similar but often competing agendas: Introduce a new technology, create and launch a consumer brand, raise awareness, motivate a change in behavior to shift from Cable TV, acquire customers for a service that initially required a $700 hardware purchase in addition to a service subscription from two different service providers, USSB and DirecTV.

  • Action – Understanding that knowledge of the customer is power, the company invested significantly consumer research. Through the understanding of barriers and motivations, the company was able to build an unassailable argument for switching to this platform and then effectively and efficiently target high potential prospects. Through a considerable national marketing efforts that involved not only awareness generation but drive to retail where the service could be demonstrated both through established retail as well as the novel concept of 'pop-up' stores.

  • Result –  Acquired 1.2M subscribers in 12 months, making this the fastest-selling consumer electronics product in the history of the industry (at that time).

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