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FoxInsights: Thought for growth

FoxInsights is a growth company that helps its customers know what happens next. It enables companies to optimize their business processes and resource efficiency using smart remote tank monitoring — and soon, a lot more. In only seven weeks, we helped FoxInsights craft three compelling, sales-corroborated growth stories, a pilot, and a new sales channel for existing products, in addition to evaluating a new joint venture with a partner.

Three coworkers (two sitting, one standing) look smilingly into a laptop as they work in a bright office conference room.

The challenge

FoxInsights provides analytics-driven, easy-to-implement and highly scalable solutions based on remote tank monitoring and data processing to improve operational routines for recurring off-grid services. Although the company has experienced solid growth and knows its industry, the big question was: where should it be heading in the future, and how can it enter the next scaling phase? Thus, FoxInsights needed a compelling growth story about a credibly addressed customer need, the pain and gain of a new product or service within FoxInsight’s expertise, a potential business model, and having served a sufficiently large market. The story also had to be easily adaptable into a final investor pitch.

Impact and outcomes

  • Fueling growth in just seven weeks

    Three compelling, sales-corroborated growth stories, a pilot, a new sales channel for an existing product, and evaluating a new joint venture.

  • Concrete methods for cost-efficient scalability

    Identifying and differentiating in the new market.

  • A starting point for success

    Several new use cases, requests for proposal, new sales channel, and joint venture for a completely new area of product.

What we did

To find a compelling growth story for the next 3–4 years, and to provide pitches for investors, we deep-dived into both the new and current markets through the lens of new products and offering.

First, together with FoxInsights’ business development and the founder team, we ran three growth sprints to find candidates for the compelling new growth story. The focus was on looking for new products rather than new applications for existing ones. As a starting point of the sprints, we developed idea cards with suggestions for new products. After clustering the ideas, we chose two priorities to start with. By doing explorative interviews with the industry experts, we were able to identify opportunity areas for new products and services and even first use cases. Next, we started a Lean Startup process of building hypotheses for new opportunity areas and use cases, measuring desirability, feasibility, and viability, and learning from the measuring in order to discard or build again.

Within just seven weeks, we were able to explore all three focus areas and two bonus areas, as well as identify 21 opportunity areas and 22 use cases. We conducted 99 interviews with different people, ranging from experts to possible clients or partners, carried out 20 small and three deep market studies, calculated three business cases, and opened five sales opportunities. Concurrently, we helped the new business team adopt the best practices and avoid pitfalls.

The process was successful for several reasons. First of all, we worked closely together as a team, holding continuous exchange and adaption sessions, providing full transparency and fast decision-making. Secondly, we gathered outside views by talking a lot to people to measure and break bubbles as fast as possible. Also, we were in a continuous exploration and validation mode, delving into the existing client base to see what mattered to them and how FoxInsights could help them do better.

Why it matters

FoxInsights is now ready to enter new markets and genuinely stand out from the competition. Fundamentally, the process was all about a mindset shift and empowering a new business team with lean methodologies and concrete plans to proceed.

The strategy is tested, future-proofed and cost-efficient, requiring minimal investments by adapting the existing solutions and know-how into the areas that make a difference – not only for the business, but the people and the world. Most importantly, FoxInsights has everything it needs to turn words into action.

The Futurice approach was structured, customer-centric and highly agile from day one. By working together in sprint logic and thanks to the interdisciplinary team from FoxInsights and Futurice, we were able to perfectly combine market knowledge, methodological expertise and an entrepreneurial approach, validate new potential and convert it into concrete leads in the shortest possible time. We would certainly not have been able to achieve this concentration and speed in our day-to-day business.
Christine Wienhold
Head of BizDev FoxInsights

About FoxInsights

FoxInsights is a growth company specializing in developing smart IoT products and solutions. It was founded in 2017 and is based in Munich, Germany. Through digitalization and data analytics, FoxInsights revolutionizes sales and ordering behavior, as well as supply chains, mainly in the energy, mobility, and recycling sectors. Based on smart remote tank monitoring, the company develops customer-oriented and measurably successful solutions that create added value for both partners and their clients.

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