From commitment to launch in 49 actions

Understand the managed services market opportunity and how it applies to your business.

Given your existing capabilities, evaluate and determine the managed service business model you will pursue.

Using the Qualification and Readiness Assessment and other available information, determine your business readiness and the priority of this initiative.

Affirm your executive commitment and assign an executive sponsor with full authority to develop Extreme managed service capabilities and offers.

Secure your extended leadership team's support and commitment.

Establish the working team that will develop and execute the practice development action plan.

Formulate your managed services vision and mission statements.

Use the Business Model Selector to choose the Extreme managed services business model best suited to your business.

Perform a SWOT analysis to identify opportunities to establish competitive differentiation.

Model your anticipated financial performance and define your managed services financial objectives.

Develop your managed services business plan, outlining financial and development objectives, tasks, activities, and timelines.

Establish practice, leadership, and individual MBOs / OKRs to drive performance and accountability for execution.

Analyze your installed base to understand your managed services opportunity and your customers' likely service requirements.

Drawing on your market and installed base research, segment customers to identify differentiated managed service requirements.

Use the Service Evaluation Matrix to identify three candidate managed services, outline segment requirements, and quantify strategic value and priority.

Facilitate a Managed Service Discovery Workshop to vet the candidate services, decide which to advance, and begin to frame the service.

Develop a New Managed Service Idea brief to capture high-level service details to vet with prospective buyers and take forward for concept commit.

Engage target buyers through digital marketing, surveys, or focus groups to validate the high-level service concept.

Establish unique value propositions for target customers, Extreme as your business partner, and internal stakeholders.

Confirm internal concept commit to secure the resources and investment required to develop the new managed service.

Facilitate a Managed Service Creation Workshop, using the workshop agenda and development template, to define the new service in detail.

Evaluate opportunities to package or bundle the new service with other offers, and define the requirements of doing so.

Based on the service requirements and the unique value offered, determine pricing for the new managed service.

Based on updated service constructs, investment requirements, and pricing, finalize the business case and obtain agreement.

Where possible, validate the offer one final time with prospective buyers.

Develop a managed service description (MSD) outlining the features of the new service.

Define your customer onboarding process and methodologies.

Define your requirements for both the NOC and the service desk.

Evaluate your NOC and service desk requirements and decide whether to build, buy, or partner to deliver them.

Define the platform requirements for provisioning, managing, maintaining, and billing the new services.

Identify, procure, and configure the platforms required to provision, manage, maintain, and bill for the new services.

Create and configure your Extreme Platform ONE dashboard.

Integrate your new platforms with your existing OSS/BSS/PSA platforms for seamless handoffs, delivery, and visibility.

Establish a lab environment to validate services before launch and to replicate and troubleshoot customer issues.

Define your ordering processes and establish the business rules in your OSS/BSS/PSA platforms, including recurring billing.

Define your rules of engagement for the transition from onboarding to live service.

Establish a structured pilot that will validate your new managed service capabilities.

Execute the structured pilot and address the gaps identified.

Develop your go-to-market plan to take your new managed services to market.

Define and execute your managed service marketing plan, including required collateral.

Determine your sales routes to market for each target customer segment and buyer persona.

Develop and execute a sales readiness plan for each route to market.

Assess sales readiness against the skills and capacity required to take your new services to market.

Develop and execute a sales enablement plan so sellers can position the value, capabilities, and features of the service, the sales motions, onboarding, and delivery.

Establish sales KPIs / OKRs aligned to your GTM plan and your managed services business plan.

Align sales compensation to your business plan so it drives accountability and rewards superior performance.

Based on the success of the pilot, develop customer use cases and testimonials to use in your launch.

Identify your initial target customers in preparation for launch, and plan key accounts with your Extreme account team.

Launch your new Extreme-powered managed services offer(s).