At a Glance
Company
Anonymous
B2B Tech AI
Challenge
The AI unit had grown 50% and aimed for 100%, but costs outran revenue, and an external strategy deck, almost a six-figure sum in fees, described the market without telling any team what to do.
Key insight
Growth did not need more market analysis, it needed focus on where the company was genuinely differentiated and which capabilities let it outperform the alternatives.
Approach
A three-month winning offering sprint (Ambition, Conviction, Traction), run outside-in from customer interviews, at about a quarter of the deck's cost.
Results
Growth accelerated further to 67%, above the prior period's 50% though short of the 100% target, with two priority segments in focus, shorter sales cycles, lower CAC, higher conversion, and teams executing in weeks.
Full Story
They knew the market. They could not act on it.
Sales rep: We really want to make the most out of the momentum that AI has gained with our existing, but also new customers.
The strategy that looked perfect on paper
The business unit head had a 120-page strategy deck on the table. Months of work by an external advisory firm: market analysis, trend projections, competitive landscape, technology roadmaps, AI capability matrices.
It was comprehensive. It was extensive. No one could act on it. Sales read it, product read it, marketing read it, and none of them could turn it into what to do on Monday.
Ambition outrunning revenue
The AI business unit had grown 50% the year before, and the company wanted to lead the category, targeting 100% growth a year for five years. So it invested and hired specialists, expanded sales and marketing, and engaged an advisory firm.
Costs rose faster than revenue. The deck was meant to fix that, and it was not cheap: almost a six-figure sum in external fees alone, before counting the internal time it consumed. It analysed the AI market in depth. What it never did was tell the teams which customers to serve, or how.
What the deck missed
The strategy was market-focused, not customer-focused. It detailed AI trends, technologies, market alternatives, and market size. It did not say which customers to target, what problems they actually faced, how the offering mapped to those problems, or what each team should do differently.
Business unit head: We knew the market was big. We did not know which customers to serve, what use cases, or how to address them.
Underneath sat a fear of missing out. Positioned as an all-purpose enterprise AI provider, any project, any industry, the company was reluctant to narrow. That worked while enterprises were experimenting. Once the market matured, buyers wanted specific solutions to specific problems, tailored to their architecture, processes and people, and the generic story stopped resonating.
The sunk-cost trap
The recommendation to change course met immediate resistance. The company had spent a year and almost a six-figure sum on the deck. The strongest alternative was to do nothing and keep executing it. But holding on meant another six months of the same results. The unit head made the call.
Business Unit head: Let us try a customer-centric and agile approach to strategy. Three months. If we do not see progress, we go back to the deck.
The sprint: a winning offering in three months
We ran a three-month winning offering sprint, following the constant three steps: Ambition, Conviction, Traction. The whole engagement cost about a quarter of what the deck had (in time and money).
Ambition, the demand worth serving. We asked one question: which customers do to win and why? We mapped current accounts by retention and expansion and drew three to four candidate ideal-customer profiles.
Conviction, an offering built on real differentiation. We interviewed customers who had expanded and customers who had left, profiled the alternatives from the buyer's side, including doing nothing and explored other offerings in the market. That showed where the company was genuinely different and which of its capabilities let it outperform the alternatives on the problems buyers cared about most. Two segments showed the strongest fit.
Traction, ready to sell and adopt. We restructured the offering packages for those two segments around that differentiation, built segment-specific sales stories, enabled the teams, so product, sales and marketing were finally pointed at the same customers.
The difference from the deck was simple: it used a common language across teams and focused on the core problems customers face. Yes, market analysis was part of it too, but the key point is translating insights and data into actions that deliver results. We also built internal capability through our work rather than dependence on an outside report and framework.
The turning point
Seven weeks in, sales reported the first changes.
Sales lead: The new positioning makes sense. Prospects get it immediately. We are having different conversations.
By three months, CAC was trending down, sales cycles were shortening, conversion was rising, and revenue growth had increased to 67%, above the prior year's 50% and well beyond the outlook they were on, though short of the 100% original ambition. It was achieved just as economic conditions and AI-investment sentiment were turning more cautious.
Business unit head: We achieved more in 7 to 12 weeks than in the entire year-long process before it. This was tangible. Teams could actually execute on it.
Why it worked
Not more market analysis. Focus. Knowing where the company was genuinely differentiated from the alternatives, which of its capabilities let it outperform them, and building the offering and the story around exactly that in a way all teams can execute.
The strategy deck cost almost a six-figure sum and only described the market. The winning offering sprint cost about a quarter as much, focused the teams, and reaccelerated growth to 67%.
Cost against outcome: an expensive deck no team could act on, and a sprint at a quarter of the cost that teams executed
The deck analysed the market and cost almost a six-figure sum; the sprint that replaced it analysed the customers and cost about a quarter as much. That is the difference between a strategy that looks good and one a team can execute, and it is why positioning is worth rechecking whenever the market shifts under you.