Product and commercial metrics that influence networking decisions
Product and commercial teams use success criteria to evaluate whether they are meeting business objectives. This section describes the product or commercial metrics that can be positively or negatively influenced by the networking access decisions that your organization makes.
Use these metrics and self-assessment questions to evaluate how your network access approach aligns with your business positioning and market strategy. This assessment helps you determine if your current networking decisions support your company's market differentiation, competitive advantages, and target audience needs.
This section contains metrics and self-evaluation questions for the following topics:
Business model and market positioning
These metrics relate to your company's position in the market, including competitive differentiation, market reach, and brand perception. It is critical that you assess the alignment between the network access approach and the business model. Perform an assessment regardless of whether it's subscription-based, usage-based, freemium, tiered, marketplace, API-first, or white-labeled. Make sure that the model supports the organization's goals and the goals of customers.
High-score criteria
The network access approach seamlessly aligns with the business model. It eases adoption and delivery of the service. It supports the long-term financial viability of the business model, and the cost structure is compatible with expected growth. It minimizes any friction for customers or partners when adopting the offering. This enhances the user experience and encourages broader uptake of the service.
Low-score indicators
The selected network access approach is misaligned with the business model it should support. The cost structure and lead time to deployment represent a blocker for adoption in the target market. The ongoing infrastructure and operational costs inhibit any potential profits. This prevents business growth and makes it difficult to operate at the intended scale. Alternatively, the properties of the network access approach might prevent customers from considering the service due to regulatory reasons.
Self-assessment questions
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What are the cost implications of the selected network access approach for initial deployment and ongoing delivery? What are the fixed and variable costs of the approach?
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Can the network access approach scale effectively and efficiently to meet the growth demands of the business model? Consider the individual tenant size and the number of onboarded tenants.
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Does the network access approach impose any technical or operational limitations that could limit the flexibility or adaptability of the business model?
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For the network access approach, how does the deployment lead time align with the speed to market that the business model requires?
Total addressable market, new client acquisition rate, growth, and scalability
It is crucial that you assess the impact of networking decisions on the organization's capacity to expand into new markets, acquire customers effectively, and maintain operational scalability. These factors affect conversion rates. They also influence whether the network access approach supports expansion into significant market segments or limits you to only serving specific customer types.
High-score criteria
The network access approach helps the organization to reach a significant portion of the target market, or it can be effectively combined with other network approaches to extend market reach. This approach should require minimal additional integration effort. The approach supports short lead times for deployment, rapid market entry, and expansion. It allows for a high number of parallel deployments. Integration is straightforward for customers, which lowers the barriers to adoption and enhances the customer experience. The approach minimizes operational overhead, preserves operational capacity, and supports growth projections.
Low-score indicators
The network access approach supports only a small part of the target market or is suited primarily to niche segments that are not prioritized in the business strategy. It does not effectively complement other, already supported network access approaches. Lead times for deployment lag market demands, which limits market expansion and new client acquisition. The deployment model is sequential, which increases the risks of service bottlenecks as demand grows. Complex integration processes deter potential clients, which negatively affects the acquisition rate and conversion rates. Significant operational overhead diminishes the organization's operational capacity. This becomes a blocker for projected growth.
For these indicators, evaluate whether introducing a new network access approach can help the organization reach its strategic business objectives. Consider whether the new network access approach might create new product dependencies or consume operational resources without delivering the desired outcomes.
Self-assessment questions
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Are there any gaps in the current approach that prevent you from reaching larger segments of the target market?
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What is the minimum set of non-overlapping, standardized, list of network access approaches that you should support to cover 70–90% of the target market?
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What reach does each network access approach enable, and what are the related increases in important metrics, such as infrastructure costs, operational cycles, and dependency on experts?
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How do the deployment capabilities and service limits of the network infrastructure align with the growth expectations in your target markets?
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Does network integration create any barriers to entry for new customers? How can these be addressed to improve conversion rates?
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How does the operational overhead of managing the network affect your capacity for growth and scalability?
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What strategies can you implement to reduce lead times for network deployment and improve market expansion and customer acquisition?
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Are there any dependencies on expert resources that would delay deployment or integration with customer ecosystems?
Customer experience and retention
Metrics in this section help you understand your organization's ability to acquire and, most importantly, retain customers. Understanding the relationship between networking access approaches and customer satisfaction can help product and engineering teams make decisions that are informed by data.
High-score criteria
The network access approach is reliable and easy to manage. It contributes to high customer satisfaction (CSAT) and net promoter score (NPS) results. These scores are indicative of a strong brand reputation and customer loyalty. Thanks to seamless integration with your customers' existing ecosystems, adoption friction is low, and there is a low dependency on experts. Your organization consistently meets service-level agreements (SLAs), which reinforces customer trust and contractual obligations. Because customers enjoy stable and dependable services, you have high customer retention.
Low-score indicators
Difficult integration and inconsistent access to services commonly leads to customer frustration and negative feedback. This damages the brand reputation. New customers fail to convert from free or trial plans to paid services due to a dependency on experts or because of prolonged onboarding and integration times. Frequent failures to meet SLAs results in financial penalties and a loss of credibility, potentially reducing customer retention rates.
Self-assessment questions
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How does network performance (such as speed, uptime, and latency) directly affect CSAT and NPS results? What specific network improvements could drive these scores higher?
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How do current network latency and uptime metrics affect the initial user experience and adoption rates? What specific network performance improvements are required to optimize these metrics?
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Are there any recurring issues in network configurations or security settings that complicate integration for new customers? How can you streamline these processes?
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How does the ease of configuring network access affect the onboarding experience for new users? Are there specific network access points or lead times that can be optimized to enhance initial user impressions?
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What are the challenges to automating network service provisioning for new clients. How can you adjust this process to improve scalability and reliability?
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Analyze the root causes of recent SLA breaches. Were they related to network configuration, capacity planning, or external vendor issues?
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How often do network issues cause you to miss SLA commitments? What are the most frequent network-related failures?
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Which network performance improvements have shown the most significant positive impact on customer satisfaction in the past?
Efficiency and financial performance
This category assesses the financial health and profitability aspects of your business, such as cost efficiency, long-term viability, profitability, return on investment (ROI), and total cost of ownership (TCO). By streamlining network operations through standardization, you can reduce operational overhead and maintenance costs. This supports your organization's growth objectives.
High-score criteria
The cost structure of the network access approach is aligned well with the business model. It supports sustainable growth, and the significant cost savings that you achieve increase profitability. Efficient network access enables rapid customer onboarding, which shortens the time to deliver value and accelerates market penetration. This directly shortens the revenue recognition cycle.
Low-score indicators
Customers are turning to your competition in order to accelerate delivery of their applications and services. Your organization has increased operational costs associated with complex and varied network configurations and extended lead times. The cost structure and business model are misaligned, which might cause high upfront costs for subscription-based services. Cumbersome onboarding processes reduce market penetration and postpone revenue recognition.
Self-assessment questions
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What are the current lead times for new service deployment, and how do they affect the time to market and revenue recognition?
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How effectively do standardized network operations reduce overhead and maintenance costs?
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Are expert resources required to successfully complete the initial integration, operate on a daily basis, troubleshoot issues, or implement changes?
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How sustainable are current network investments in terms of technological advancements? Are you investing in future-proof technologies that align with projected market developments?
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How effectively do you allocate and track costs related to network traffic and usage by individual tenants?
Regulatory compliance and risk management
It's fundamentally important to validate compliance with network-related regulations. This confirms that you are operating legally and can maintain customer trust. Standardization across network operations simplifies the compliance process and promotes consistency across various jurisdictions and geographies. These measures help you expand your services.
High-score criteria
Network operations consistently adhere to legal standards without complications, which contributes to market expansion, decreases adoption friction, and enhances customer trust. Demonstrated compliance with critical regulatory frameworks, such as Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA) and National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), helps you win customers that are sensitive to regulatory compliance. Continuous visibility into your compliance status reduces the time required to complete an audit.
Low-score indicators
Gaps in in network compliance cause high adoption friction, service launch delays, legal challenges, and potential fines. These challenges lead to delayed or canceled plans for expansion into new markets. It is difficult to maintain standard compliance practices across different jurisdictions, and this affects operational efficiency and market reputation.
Self-assessment questions
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How well are your network operations aligned with applicable regulatory or industry guidelines? What did your must recent compliance audit reveal?
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How are you maintaining compliance with emerging regulations in the digital and network security realms?
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How effective is your documentation and reporting process in meeting the requirements of different regulatory bodies?
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What risk management strategies do you have in place to identify and address potential compliance risks before they lead to legal challenges?
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What level of compliance training and awareness do your network management teams require to support your network access approaches?
Partner strategy
Assess how well the network access approach aligns with an ecosystem of recognized partners, platforms, and marketplaces. This is essential, especially if your growth strategy depends on scaling through partners.
High-score criteria
The network access approach is integrated across your partner ecosystem. Its cost structure aligns well with the business models of your key partners. Partners possess the necessary networking skills for seamless integration of your SaaS offerings, and they can deliver sustained access and functionality.
Low-score indicators
The selected network access approach demands specialized skills, resources, or equipment that are scarce or hard to procure. It differs from the standard network access protocols that are commonly used by platforms and marketplaces. This results in an unpredictable cost structure that is challenging to reconcile. The network access approach is misaligned with the business models of your key partners.
Self-assessment questions
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What are the cost implications of the network access approach for partners. How do these costs align with their business models? Which side of the integration bears the bulk of the costs, and how many operational cycles must be invested?
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For the network access approach, are there any barriers to integration or maintenance that could affect partner relationships or ecosystem scalability?
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How can the network access approach be optimized to enhance compatibility and ease of integration across the ecosystem?