Expanding to new geographies is an essential strategy that growing businesses often use. Selecting the correct geographies for expansion is of paramount importance to succeed during time-sensitive business growth periods. Given the abundance of data available from various sources, a meticulous and agile analysis of potential geographic expansion becomes integral to a business's growth strategy.

In this case study, we delve into the collaboration between Nextant and a Fortune 10 client, highlighting how we harnessed data-driven insights to analyze information across 14 different countries and select the best 5 targets for business expansion within a tight 12-month timeframe.

SITUATION:

The client, a Fortune 10 company, had built product offerings and a dedicated go-to-market team to serve the nonprofit industry and generate new revenue streams. During the first years of this go-to-market team’s operations, our client focused on North America and a select group of geographies in Europe for a total coverage of 8 countries.

After the initial business model and products were solidified, our client was ready to expand the business and set the goal of reaching 5 additional countries in the immediate term.

SOLUTION:

Nextant assembled a multidisciplinary team of business consultants and data analysts to deliver a comprehensive analysis to our client and provide recommendations on nonprofit organizations to target and the best geographic regions for expansion. Our team ran a project which lasted 4 months utilizing the following process:

Discovery & Planning:

Nextant conducted cross-team interviews and working sessions with internal client stakeholders to gather initial perceptions of attractive geographies for expansion. During these sessions Nextant also gathered information regarding available data sources, both internal and external, that stakeholders had awareness of and could help support the analysis.

Information Sourcing:

With the initial input from our clients, our analyst team worked on sourcing information from a variety of data sources to help estimate the potential revenue associated with eligible nonprofit customers in the prioritized geographies. This work included gathering information from publicly available data sources like industry databases and registries, in addition to information acquired by our client and generated through the previous two years of business operation. To identify "White Space" and potential expansion opportunities within existing customers, our team engaged in manual matching for three countries. This labor-intensive process involved reviewing registries of nonprofits, filtering based on criteria such as revenue and activities, and comparing the data with our client's sales records. The team also reviewed the existing customer base of 803 customers and compared it with a list of over 20,000 potential target customers to identify multi-entity organizations that should be all parented under a single customer account. This helped increase the accuracy of market potential calculations. Part of this work required looking up websites to identify organizations operating under multiple names.

Machine Learning Collating and Normalization:

With data centralized into a single database, our team leveraged machine learning models to conduct a holistic analysis of potential customers. This approach harmonized multiple data perspectives and sources, culminating in a unified source of truth.

Business Modeling and Analysis:

We worked with our client to define the logic and assumptions that would help determine the revenue potential for each target geography based on our client’s product characteristics and experience with geographies where they already operated. This allowed us to apply clear business logic to the dataset we had put together to effectively create an intuitive view of how each geography stacked up based on size and potential. We also produced Power BI reports that allowed stakeholders to navigate and digest the insights prepared by our team.

Final Recommendations:

We produced executive level presentations and detailed documentation to support recommendations related to expansion to 5 new geographies. These enabled our client to have successful discussions about geographic expansion with leadership across different levels of their organization.

RESULTS AND IMPACT:

The data-driven approach orchestrated by Nextant yielded substantial outcomes and instigated transformative impacts:

Confident Decision-Making: Equipped with data-driven insights, our client confidently charted the course for their next wave of expansion.		Stakeholder Alignment: The availability of tangible, addressable market data and intuitive reports streamlined alignment among internal stakeholders, facilitating the seamless execution of the expansion strategy.
Unlocking New Revenue Potential: In addition to geographic expansion, Nextant's analysis explored how changes in purchasing policies could unlock additional revenue potential, ushering in further business growth.

In conclusion, Nextant's meticulous and data-focused approach empowered our client to embark on a successful journey of expansion, leveraging insights and alignment to drive business growth.