What was the goal?

Company StartX, a leading provider of cybersecurity software, corporate education programs was seeking for new customer segments currently unaddressed by their portfolio. It was crucial to identify, how to acquire new customers from IT, Finance, Support and other departments instead of traditional Information Security.

They partnered with B5 Research to analyze international micro-trends in Cyber Security field and validate product assumptions with executives from 4 industries

Solution:

1. Macro-level Market Analysis. As first part of collaboration, we have conducted a high-level assessment to select priority areas in IT and Cyber Security fields that will become focus points for validation.
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2. In-depth Research. As a second phase, we have collected and analyzed micro-signals from the industry, gathering data on law suits, effects of cyber attacks on stock performance, disclosed reputation and financial damage and root-cause investigations of successful attacks.
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3. Executives Outreach. With validation list containing critical product assumptions developed during a full-day workshop, we have established dialogues with Chief officers of IT, Finance, Architecture, Operations in CIS region.
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4. Portfolio Benchmarking. We have mapped insights from the executives with existing porfolio, highlighting business-critical features that are essential for product adoption by a decision maker outside of Cyber Security field, creating a clear backlog for 2025-2026.

Results:

The collaboration between Start X and B5 Research yielded remarkable results, bringing industry insights that have validated product needs and shaping necessary portfolio modifications:

1. Market Intelligence Data, delivered in the form of
   - Two extensive market intelligence reports, covering international cases, trends, insights and quantitative losses assessment in the field of the customer.
   - 22 identified new product hypotheses, 10 feature enhancements for existing solutions, and 6 key industry experts portraits for outreach.
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2. Validated Market Opportunities, delivered in the form of
   ‍- 12 C-level and 3 Team Lead-level interviews with respondents from financial services, eCommerce, retail, and telecommunications.
   - Defined new customer segments, key decision-makers, and essential product requirements to support portfolio expansion.
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3. Actionable Strategy, delivered in the form of
   - Portfolio audit report, benchmarking all products in the portfolio against market needs, highlighting business model adjustments, refined marketing approaches.

Summing up

With extensive network of B5 Research industry experts and solid in-house analytical skills, we ere able to deliver market insights from both outside and inside of the industry, providing necessary knowledge for product decisions and stakeholder-specific feature development.