SUCCESS STORY: Onboarding into a new cloud deployment model

The client, a network systems equipment provider, needed to improve the onboarding of new product platforms introductions effectively into its hyperscale cloud provider customer base. The customers' cloud operations model onboarding required rigorous vetting through their proprietary automated operations toolchain for continuous test, integration and deployment. 

As a first step in better understanding the operational requirements of the customer's proprietary processes, we first formalized a highly technical product owner role within the client's experience team who was best positioned to proxy as the voice of the customer back into the client's organization. 

The client's test process spanned engineering and professional services organizations and several experiments targeted this process. First, we inserted a journey manager/owner role accountable for working across departments. We established cross-functional forums between engineering and testing organizations and designed new data-driven processes to accelerate test plans/coverage and results. We designed additional experiments to drive continuous improvement, spanning automation, operational workflow, and ongoing publication of onboarding customer experience metrics.

We embarked on a commercial model redesign on the funding of the test environments and ultimately redistributed the testing model across functional boundaries to optimize results.

The next major platform generation was adopted with a 30% cycle time improvement. This significant time to value improvement was instrumental in securing franchise wins and market share gains. The client recognized financial efficiencies which could be invested for future growth.