A Case Study

Two professionals collaborating on financial documents in a modern office setting.

The Assignment:

Help innovation agency McClennan Group guide an accounting SaaS brand through the new product and brand development process.

What we did:

The Difference Engine strategists embedded with the team for a 12 week assignment to help them get from client brief to product brief to early product and brand territories.

We led internal ideation sessions with the both client and agency teams to further develop and refine the ideas.

  • We facilitated stakeholder interviews with key clients, end users and other advisors who would influence the final decision to establish the ground truth of the project.
  • We provided a rapid competitive audit of the client’s existing tax accounting category, creating a category “family tree” of related products, customer needs, emerging trends and regulatory requirements, customer profiles, product benefits, price points and product configurations, and current marketing approaches from traditional ATL advertising to social content and their digital properties.
  • We gathered customer feedback via 1:1 interviews at each stage of concept iteration, first discovering trends, pain points and how potential customers understand the overall ecosystem of products related to taxation, governance and compliance, and then to help home in on a final product idea, ideal customer profile, and value proposition.

What they got:

It doesn’t happen every day – but we in fact discovered an emergent need in the international tax compliance space for businesses that buy and sell goods and services internationally.

The results:

Not only did we develop a product brief and core product concept with a clear value proposition, through continuous prospect engagement, we were also able to find early evangelist customers who would be first in line to sign up for the new product at launch. The product is still in development, but the brand shifted its overall value proposition for its existing product suite to embrace regulation and compliance, appealing to more potential customers.