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Resonate Case Study
Category:
Network Traffic Management Software
About:
Located in San Jose, CA, Resonate is a privately held startup founded in 1995. The company’s Network Traffic Management solutions optimize traffic flow and resource utilization. They monitor network performance and resource availability, and then route traffic to maximize application availability and performance.
Challenge:
The CEO was having a difficult time finding a new VP of Marketing and was concerned that the company was missing a great market opportunity to “own” the space for high-end traffic management products. F5 Networks and Cisco Systems had become more aggressive in the space, and Resonate needed to accelerate the launch of a new product to remain competitive. The CEO had worked briefly with Barbara Saxby at a previous company and had several others recommended her for the assignment.
Assignment:
Barbara served as Interim VP of Marketing and member of the executive management team from August 1998 to April 1999. The goal was to manage the marketing team and drive the strategy and execution programs to reposition and re-launch the company and the Resonate Commander product.
Process:
Resonate was doing well in the market selling its Central Dispatch product, so we instantly stepped in and kept all current marketing activities moving forward while we planned for the next stage of growth in parallel. There was a Marketing team of nine, at the time, including corporate marketing (PR/ advertising), Marcom, channel marketing, and product marketing. Working with the CEO, Founder, and others in the management team, we built the annual business plan and set the success metrics and milestones for each marketing discipline, by quarter. This served as the roadmap for the rollout of new products, timing for signing partner deals with major alliances, and goals for channel development.
We began working on market analysis and segmentation studies to help with the positioning and messaging. To better understand customer requirements, we conducted a series of focus groups in key markets across the country. Based on the information gathered, we refined the messaging and re-positioned the company to take advantage of the burgeoning Internet boom that was putting significant loads on application servers running popular Websites. We identified key customer segments to address, and embarked on a campaign to “Swarm Sun (Microsystems)” with a goal to partner with them to deliver real-time, end-to-end application performance management solutions. The campaign came to be known as “Keeping e-business Open for Business”. Several new campaigns and programs were launched, and Resonate catapulted to be the market leader for high performance traffic management systems.
Outcome:
The “Swarm Sun” campaign worked exceedingly well. Not only did we partner with Sun Microsystems in our channel and go-to-market programs, but they made a substantial investment in Resonate. Resonate had a very successful IPO in 2000 making an estimated $400M in stock sales. The company and was acquired in 2002, and is once again operating as a private entity. |
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"Barbara filled a critical gap as Interim VP for six months to launch a new product and re-launch the company. She helped with strategic planning, focus groups, positioning, messaging and managed the creation of our new corporate identity, collateral, sales presentations, demos, and the alliance marketing program. She was highly effective in this role and we appreciated her contributions.”
— Chris Marino, Founder and EVP Resonate, Inc.
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