Business Services B2B Best Practices Case Study Competition

Division I: Cable Companies

“Channeling for Success: Launching the TWCBC Partner Program”

1. Background – Describe the market environment before you entered the

market. Please include the detailed reasons, challenges and opportunities that
led to the development of the campaign.

Time Warner Cable Business Class (TWCBC) has 24 divisions in five regions that
support 287,000 high-speed data subscribers and 16,000 Business Class Phone
subscribers using 50,000 lines. The majority of its customers are small-office/home-
office (SOHO) or small- to medium-sized business (SMB) clients with fewer than 100
employees.

With heavy concentration in the SMB marketplace, TWCBC has earned strong double-
digit annual growth in recent years through its direct sales initiatives, which have been
propelled by expansion of its offerings via its entrance into the voice market and its
focus on adopting high-quality, fiber-based Metro Ethernet services.

After broadening its scope and product mix, the company saw an opportunity to widen
its sales channels. Such a focus would help sustain its rapid growth and improve
efforts to aggressively move up market to enterprise-sized clients through a new
distribution channel.

TWCBC decided to expand into indirect sales channels via master agents, systems
integrators, value-added resellers and other telecom sales consultants. The company
identified a number of advantages of using indirect sales channel partners, including:
 Benefiting from their long-standing relationships with businesses, who trust
them to help facilitate IT and telecom spending decisions
 Leveraging their knowledge of and reputation in the SMB and enterprise
segments, especially among businesses without internal IT resources
 More “feet on the street” to supplement direct sales initiatives
 Expertise in upselling service “bundles,” to capitalize on customer desire for
“one solution” providers
Importantly, TWCBC research revealed that a business customer acquired
through the indirect channel has more sophisticated needs and more robust
telecom requirements. Thus, an indirect channel customer typically produces a
higher average revenue per sale.

Despite these valid reasons for pursuing an indirect sales channel strategy, the
company faced some challenges in entering this market.

First, the indirect sales channel industry has rarely worked with cable service
providers, so TWCBC would have to overcome skepticism and/or a lack of
awareness– since agents typically “sell what they know.” Also, channel partners have
specific requirements and expectations with regard to resources, compensation and
customer support. Finally, cable providers had a lingering reputation as being difficult
to work with because of their decentralized structure.

To address them, TWCBC deeply researched the market and unearthed best
practices. The company also assembled a team of experts, who had knowledge of and
experience in the indirect sales channel industry. This ensured that key indirect
channel “hot buttons” – competitive compensation, back office support tools and online
provisioning – would be built into the program to drive automation.

After several months of planning and development, TWCBC in March 2008 announced
the launch of its indirect channel, which the company named the “Time Warner Cable
Business Class Partner Program.” The comprehensive national program was designed
to enable select telecommunications master agents and system integrators to sell
TWCBC’s data and voice communications services, and thereby accelerate the
company’s growth and up-market strategies.

In its early stages, the program primarily targets the upper end of the SMB market (5
to100 employees) with its data and voice bundled offering. But TWCBC has also
directed resources to the middle and enterprise segments (100+ employees) thanks to
its dedicated fiber product offering designed to support multiple branch offices with
high-capacity connections over a wide geographic area.

The company also made sure that the benefits of being a TWCBC Partner Program
participant were well-articulated, including:

 Diversifying agent portfolios to provide a competitive alternative against such

legacy telecom services like Frame Relay, ATM and T1
 Leveraging cable’s scalability, data requirement solutions, efficient management
costs and breadth of products
 Taking advantage of the high reliability and efficient support provided by cable
broadband and dedicated Ethernet solutions
 Reducing downtime and management costs
 Doing business with a trusted, well-known and –branded national service
provider
2. Goals & Objectives – Describe your market objectives and provide specific
customer targets and sales goals for a 6-month to 1-year period, awareness and
reach of campaign.

The Partner Program launch campaign’s overarching goal was to build brand
awareness and credibility within the indirect sales channel community via an array of
integrated marketing communications tactics.

Specific, measurable objectives included:

o Objective 1: sign 8 partnerships with the top Master Agencies to extend

TWCBC product portfolio to nationwide agent base.

o Objective 2: Build brand awareness within the channel community, by

generating a minimum of 2 million earned media impressions with target-right
media.
 Central to achieving this objective was a carefully-designed and
executed launch announcement, during the Spring 2008 Channel
Partners Conference & Expo.

o Objective 3: Achieve 100 percent of launch phase goal for sales leads
generated by new Partners.

o Objective 4: Achieve 100 percent of launch phase goal for average revenue
per sale (by emphasizing Metro Ethernet and HSD/Voice bundles).

3. Product Offering or Campaign Description– Describe how the product offering

or campaign demonstrates the unique advantage of cable’s platform, including
how the initiative contributes to new customer acquisition and/or customer
retention and satisfaction.

The TWCBC Partner Program enables national and regional telecom agents, value-
added resellers (VARs), and systems integrators to offer competitively-priced data and
voice communications solutions through a leading MSO provider with a name
customers know and trust.
By joining the TWCBC Partner Program, participants benefit from several key
advantages over traditional Telcos:
 Access to a wholly-owned, carrier-class network - 100% of infrastructure is
Time Warner Cable and not leased from 3rd party
 Complete bypass of local Bell Central Offices – TWC fiber routes are
independent from the Telcos
 Portfolio diversity, by offering reliable data, voice, and security services that
serve as a valuable alternative solution to traditional Telco providers
 Increased profitability via a lucrative performance-based compensation
program that offers excellent earning and profit potential
 Heightened productivity with best-in-class online self-service tools that drive
efficiency and fast results (Partner Portal)
 Powerful ties to a Fortune 500 company with financial stability and an
outstanding track record of customer service
 Participation in a training certification program that pays special attention to the
technical prowess of telecom agents and delivers a solution that is automated,
user-friendly, and consistent (Partner Training Center)

A key element of the Partner Program launch was the company’s emphasis on how
the TWCBC initiative benefits end-user customers acquired through partners, as well
as addressing and satisfying partner needs. Many program elements – compensation,
easy-to-use web portal, comprehensive online training, co-marketing opportunities –
address channel desires and serve as points of differentiation with other providers.

These attributes are summarized in the Messaging Matrix (below), the foundation of
the program’s supporting marketing materials.
 Messaging Approach for Par
Messaging Key Messages Key C
Pillar (example) Be

The TWCBC Partner Program takes an active role in ensuring a profitable relationship with partners providing them wit
Profitable
More lucr

The TWCBC Partner Program is committed to providing partners with a reliable more complete communication s
Comprehensive

Enhanced cr

The TWCBC Partner Program provides a seamless working relationship with dedicated channel support and automated online ordering services to
Collaborative
Committed s

The TWCBC Partner Program is proactivelyProgressive

providing partners access to support tools, training and marketing support
Skills and produc
to
4. Strategies & Tactics – What strategies did you employ? Describe the tactics
used. If appropriate, attach samples of sales collateral, correspondence,
creative and other communications.

The architects of the Partner Program developed a four-pronged, comprehensive,

integrated marketing program that included several support elements, as detailed
below:

Overall Marketing Plan & Key Metrics

AWARENESS ONLINE PROMOTION COLLATERAL ENGAGEMENT
Advertising E mail campaigns Market definition Trade show marketing
PR Cooperative campaign materials Partner events
Web site /portal development
Newsletter (possibly E-newsletter) Online advertising Sales support materials Advisory board
Presentation materials

Visits to the portal Visits to the portal Visits to the portal New master agent contracts
New sales opportunities through sub agents Sales leads Usage of materials Sales lead opportunities with sub-agents
Awareness and positive associations by the agent community

Importantly, TWCBC strategically launched the initiative during the Spring 2008
Channel Partners Conference & Expo, the industry’s only telecom channel-focused
trade show. This enabled the Partner Program to achieve maximum visibility with its
primary target audience.

TWCBC developed an integrated marketing campaign for the launch, consisting

primarily of:
 Conference sponsorship, utilizing various sponsorship-benefits to maximize
brand visibility
 Press announcement, via a news release endorsed by a Yankee Group analyst
 TWCBC expert to participate in a key conference panel
 Pre-launch interview (under embargo, to coincide with launch date) with Phone
+ magazine, the show’s media sponsor

As a result, the Partner Program earned significant “buzz” before and during the show,
and generated broad-based media coverage, numerous channel inquiries and sales
leads (see section 5 – Results – for specific details).
Following are examples of marketing communications materials that were used to
launch and sustain visibility for the program, including samples of or descriptions of
print ads, sales collateral, the Partner Portal and the Partner Training Center.

Partner Marketing
Build brand awareness for potential national & regional partners

Print ads

Collateral

Sales Sheet
Overview Brochure
Partner Portal – Launched

Communications tool with

TWCBC Partners
Marketing tools
Customized product collateral
Promotions & incentives
Site pre-qualification
‘Partner Training Center’ for
eLearning

Partner Training Center

 eLearning system platform

 Integrated into Partner Portal
 Online reporting and tracking
5. Results – Please share specific quantitative and qualitative outcomes and
describe the metrics used to measure. Detail the measurement of campaign
success in relation to objectives. Please explain what your company learned
from this campaign and why you would or would not recreate this campaign.
NOTE: This is the key element that judges will use in evaluating entries.

The Partner Program rollout has been well received, both inside TWCBC and among
its targeted audience of the top players in the indirect sales channel industry. Tangible
results, compared to the company’s original objectives, show rates of adoption and
sales well beyond the initial plan.

Specifically, here’s a snapshot of the accomplishments in light of primary Objectives:

o Objective 1: By August 1, 2008, sign 8 partnerships with the top Master

Agencies to extend TWCBC product portfolio to nationwide agent base.
ACHIEVED
TWCBC had signed 11 Master Agencies, including 3 of the largest Master
Agents in the industry

o Objective 2: : Build brand awareness within the channel community, by

generating a minimum of 2 million earned media impressions with target-right
media. ACHIEVED
media impressions, with media highlights including:
 Phone + magazine exclusive article, “Time Warner Cable Takes
Agent Program National”
 Coverage in the show daily, Channel Partners Expo Show Daily
 Coverage in trade/business publications: Telephony, Bloomberg
News and Inc.
 Numerous online media hits (TMCNet; Cable360; Broadcast
Newsroom; etc.)

o Objective 3: Achieve 100 percent of launch phase goal for sales leads
generated by new Partners. ACHIEVED
Through August 1, 2008, received over 350 new sales leads since the
launch of the agent program, which is well above the launch phase sales lead
goal.

o Objective 4: Achieve 100 percent of launch phase goal for average revenue
per sale. ACHIEVED
due primarily to the popularity of its Metro Ethernet and high-speed data
products. (NOTE: TWCBC can not release actual sales figures).
Key Learnings:

The Partner Program’s success can be attributed to:

 Careful planning, driven by research and a strong business strategy
 Creating a comprehensive Sales, Marketing and Operations team with telecom
experience, particularly in the indirect channel
 Designing and implementing a program that was attractive to top Master
Agencies (emphasizing compensation, back-office support, strong name
recognition and other must-have resources)
 Timing program launch to maximize visibility during the Spring 2008 Channel
Partners Conference & Expo, the industry’s only telecom channel-focused
trade show

Overall, TWCBC is very satisfied with the launch and initial growth of the Partner
Program. Based on initial 2008 year-to-date results, the company is planning to build
additional resources which support the indirect channel in 2009. These include adding
headcount to support its growing legion of channel partners; improving online systems
that drive automation, particularly in the area of serviceability; and expansion of
manufacturing efforts in the areas of incentives and promotions for agents. .