CASE STUDY
Spirit Telecom: Digital aggregator platform
The SpiritX digital platform supports an aggressive growth strategy and meets market demand for bundled services.
At a glance
Wanting to expand its service offerings, Spirit Telecom partnered with DiUS to build SpiritX—a new digital wholesale and consumer platform—that supports an aggressive growth strategy and significantly increases Spirit Telecom’s channels to market, without requiring more sales people.
Working closely with key Spirit Telecom stakeholders, DiUS guided the design and development of the SpiritX platform to quickly deliver on the telcos vision and go-to-market strategy.
Our services:
The challenge
Supporting an aggressive growth strategy and meeting market demand for bundled services
Launched in 2005 as a provider of fixed wireless and fibre internet solutions, Spirit Telecom has grown rapidly both organically and through acquisitions, becoming a publicly-listed company in 2016. To become the leading provider of Internet and IT services to small and medium-sized businesses across Australia, the telco needed to expand its service offerings.
Looking for a technology partner specialising in digital, data and devices, with specialist expertise in software development, Spirit Telecom enlisted the help of DiUS to build SpiritX—a new digital wholesale and consumer platform—to pivot and scale its business and support an aggressive growth strategy. DiUS provided the end-to-end team, driving design and direction for the build through to product launch.
SpiritX has enabled Spirit to offer instant service qualification to its partner base as well as direct to the public, dynamically displaying available services based on the user’s address and reducing quote times from 1 to 2 days down to seconds. SpiritX also paves the way to expand into service bundles which will combine Internet connectivity with security, unified communications, and IT management.
What we did
Taking a time-to-market approach
The initial idea for SpiritX was to band together fixed wireless Internet service providers from across the country to provide a one-stop-shop for both them and the end customer—similar to the approach taken by Airbnb. This strategy would allow Spirit Telecom to start driving growth very quickly, and then evolve the product towards the telco’s ultimate aim of delivering a direct to consumer and reseller digital platform.
However, by quickly developing a core end-to-end customer flow and testing the concept directly with wireless Internet service providers and customers, DiUS was able to demonstrate to key Spirit Telecom stakeholders how the team could work to bring its vision to life straight away.
The team was able to pivot with confidence and the initial version of the platform was released to agents and partners in under six weeks, gaining valuable feedback and critically securing the confidence of investors who were an essential part of the platform launch.
The lean technical architecture, and the fact that the cross-functional DiUS team were working in close collaboration with the Spirit Telecom product owner, enabled the team to pivot, build and launch a digital wholesale and consumer platform in under six months—ultimately unlocking a much broader strategy and enabling Spirit Telecom to leverage additional capital through partnerships and acquisitions.
Enabling a focused growth strategy through digital transformation
SpiritX supports the sale of Spirit products, certified reseller and competitor products to its agents, partners and customers. The new platform gives customers and partners the ability to validate available services at an address within seconds, enabling a unique and next-generation customer experience. The platform also allows customers to place an order directly through the platform, in just a few clicks.
“In just six months, SpiritX has already processed 12,000 service qualifications and we’re expecting to double our active partners and resellers to 300 by December 2020 scaling revenue to $100m from acquisition and sales through the platform.”
– Sol Lukatsky, Managing Director, Spirit Telecom.
Results for Spirit
Moving into a new phase of growth
Internally, the SpiritX platform seamlessly integrates directly with Spirit Telecom’s existing off-the-shelf and custom-built business systems via APIs. This enables leads and sales to flow through with no additional overhead, facilitating a much more effective conversion.
The platform allows the telco to easily add new products and services when new partners and resellers join the program, and exposes Spirit Telecom’s products and services to other resellers via an API. This significantly increases the telco’s channels to market and its ability to close sales efficiently, without requiring more sales people.
Spirit Telecom now requires less capex investment to serve a wider footprint and can continue to obtain new agreements with other service providers to utilise their towers and fibre where the telco doesn’t have a physical presence.
Spirit Telecom is strategically positioned to fill the growing demand for bundled, high-speed Internet links and IT services in one offering, and on one bill. The telco has targeted and gained a strong foothold in growth verticals including schools, hospitals and aged care—with many more new avenues for growth identified.
