The challenge

Verizon's Business Solutions Store (BuSS) is where sales teams build and sell bundles of products and services to small and mid-sized businesses. Verizon wanted to use it to grow cross-sell and upsell, with a goal of doubling revenue, and to sell complex IoT, 5G, and edge computing solutions from one place. The platform was holding it back:

• Adding new products took a long time, and new products were announced only by email.

• Quotes had to be rebuilt by hand as carts, and discounts needed manual intervention.

• Orders couldn't combine products from multiple catalogs.

• Custom IoT and edge solutions needed terms and billing the platform couldn't handle.

As one person put it: "Our platform inhibits growth. In some ways we need to take it back down to the studs."

What I did

• Interviewed sales, solutions architects, professional services consulting, sourcing, channel, product, revenue assurance, and platform management.

• Defined five user groups (product management, sales, consulting services, channel, and billing and support) and mapped how they work together across email, Salesforce, info pages, and BuSS.

• Wrote the vision and goals for a centralized solution store with full-stack fulfillment and an online experience designed to leapfrog competitors.

• Mapped the sales journey and built an application map as the base for the product roadmap and vision prototype.