Marketing Services

Advertising Strategy/Brand Development

HAF has developed advertising campaigns/plans for new products and wireless operators. Additionally, our extensive brand experience to both start-ups (selecting bid and launch brands) and existing operators (repositioning brands) has resulted in strong relationships with brand specialization and advertising firms which provide us with unique insight into executing effective campaigns.

Frequently, clients ask HAF to review, select and manage these firms to maximize their performance for our clients. Based upon our extensive operational experience including hiring staff, budgeting and targeting we can help improve a client’s ability to maximize their advertising spend.

HAF Consulting has lead the development of two award winning brands; Flash (Ukraine GSM operator) and Alas (Spain GSM “bid” brand).

Channel Strategy, Distribution Strategy and Sales Management

HAF provides assistance to TMT players requiring distribution strategies. We have successfully developed and negotiated agreements with distributors, developed and implemented sales compensation plans and hired/trained direct sales forces to maximize revenue, service and customer retention. Combating churn has become a significant challenge in the TMT industry. Clients frequently engage HAF to capitalize on the opportunities and challenges presented by churn dynamics. Given that HAF has demonstrated operational success for both incumbents and start-ups, we are able to assist clients with effective channel management strategies that capitalize on strengths and weaknesses of the respective players in any given market.

Emerging markets present operators with unique distribution channel management issues. Given our 10 year plus track record in emerging markets throughout the world, we can help TMT operators ensure such challenges to not interfere with marketing plan requirements.

Demand and Revenue Modelling

HAF has provided fully integrated business case teams (marketing, technical and financial) to clients on successful billion plus dollar transactions and TMT start-ups. Additionally, we are happy to provide marketing assistance to compliment the capabilities of clients.

Our telecommunication and CATV demand modules for business case analysis are thoroughly “road tested” and can usually be adapted to any opportunity. Given the strong operational experience of our marketing consultants, we provide data-driven, reasonable and attainable market projections. We do not believe in complexity for complexity sake. We structure our demand models to reflect the primary drivers of value creation that can be benchmarked verses the experience of other operators or tested by some type of quantitative research. Each module within one of demand models handles one of the primary value drivers.

We excel at packaging and presenting our demand and revenue projections to the investment community; including private equity groups, investment bankers, hedge funds and regulators. We feel that any set of marketing projections must support the central value creation proposition of any particular opportunity.

Due Diligence

HAF provides various levels of due diligence on potential acquisition targets, license opportunities and distressed assets. We have been engaged on a wide variety of projects; from being the first “on the ground” in the most challenging of emerging markets to conduct quick investigations of telecommunications opportunities to leading marketing due diligence teams for comprehensive multi-billion dollar transactions of CATV triple play networks to helping hedge funds to decide whether to quickly enter or exit various trading positions.

We are able to quickly synthesize information memorandums, annual reports, investor presentations and a wide variety of other data to identify the critical questions any discerning investor would likely have. Given our recent and comprehensive portfolio work for a variety of hedge funds, private equity and investment banks, we believe HAF Consulting has an industry leading reservoir of benchmarks and competitive analysis regarding telecommunications and CATV players which allows us to quickly answer key investor questions.

Our approach to marketing due diligence includes conducting a full range of the usual methodologies (interviews with key executives inside and outside the target company, competitive analysis, analysis of distribution channels, pricing comparisons, etc) and capitalizing on our experience in working throughout diverse markets worldwide.

Fund Raising (Representation of marketing strategy/business case to investment community)

HAF Consulting has extensive experience helping represent telecommunication and CATV players to the financial community regarding their business strategy and related business cases. In this respect, we help clients strengthen their business plan, develop a compelling value creation proposition, package the opportunity and effectively introduce it to potential sources of financing.

We have helped clients “pitch” to a wide range of investment banks, private equity and hedge fund groups including: AIG, Bank of America, Blackstone, GE Capital, Silver Point Capital, Texas Pacific and many others. Our relationships with investment banks large and small provides us with valuable insight regarding how opportunities should be presented to the financial community. We excel at assisting clients requiring investments in the $50 Million to $1 Billion range.

Information Memorandums

For over a decade, HAF has prepared numerous information memorandums and investor presentations for telecommunications, media and technology players resulting in successful financing. Our strong preference is to be involved in the formation of the business case so that the information memorandum (IM) is structured to reflect the value creation proposition. In addition to the IM, we assist in developing “teasers” for the investment community, along with summary presentations.

License Applications

HAF has provided fully integrated license application teams (marketing, technical and financial) to many clients (over 40 GSM license applications, tenders, etc). Occasionally, we are asked to supplement a client’s existing application/tender team by being responsible for one particular functional area; like marketing. Given our extensive experience with a wide variety of tender and license application formats, we are able customize boilerplate content where we can and develop new content that meets the desired positioning of the client. Consequently, we are able to meet aggressive regulatory timelines with a high quality application.

Finally, we have successfully managed simultaneous license applications for one client; the point being that we are willing to tackle almost any assignment, almost anywhere.

Market Research

HAF Consulting has helped clients select, manage and review market research vendors. Additionally, we have assisted clients with questionnaire design to conducting focus groups and quantitative field work. On of the advantages we offer clients is the ability to tie such research to directly to key business case and operational plan assumptions; thereby improving the overall quality of marketing strategies.

People

Given that HAF only provides consultants with extensive operational experience at the Director level and above, we are frequently asked by clients to provide interim Chief Marketing Officers and Directors of Marketing. We draw from our pool of proven consultants that have demonstrated success and a minimum of 15 years experience in the TMT industry worldwide. These consultants have a blend of business development and operational experience. Best of all, they can form and lead teams; from hiring marketing employee #1 to managing the largest of marketing organizations.

Product Design/Strategy

HAF has conducted extensive analysis regarding clients’ existing product lines, compared with their competitors, and recommended strategies that better maximize revenues and customer retention for fixed telecom, wireless telecommunications, CATV and various triple play product portfolios.

On a typical telecommunications assignment, this involves modeling various pricing attributes and scenarios in a sophisticated financial model, conducting primary quantitative research to determine the satisfaction/demand/retention impact of those attributes and scenarios, understanding the regulatory regime as it relates to interconnection and finally forecasting overall impact on product profitability.

We believe the marketing consultants we utilize on these product strategy and pricing design assignments are the best in the business; given their demonstrated record of success and breadth of experience.

Strategy and Planning

HAF Consulting provides world class strategists that combine their operational experience across many markets to help clients solve problems. A strategy is only good as its ability to be implemented quickly, within budget and produce measurable results.

HAF Consulting has zero interest in producing expensive “bookshelf” strategies with large consulting teams comprised of primarily “junior people”. HAF usually provides from one to three senior consultants reporting to Executive Teams or Boards of Directors interested in hard-hitting, fact based assessments of the current situation, and a recommended innovative path to “solve the problem” and/or “seize the opportunity”.

We are frequently requested by existing telecommunications and CATV operators to provide various deliverables of a sound planning process: strategic plans, marketing plans and segment plans to “re-energize” their existing efforts or to tackle new competitive threats and market opportunities.

Our approach is simple: get the facts, make a plan and assist with implementation. Getting the facts involves HAF Consulting rolling up our sleeves, working with an operator’s existing organization gathering data, coaching their staff when requested, interviewing key decision-makers and customers, implementing management reports that will drive behavior, securing external data from the operator’s market and finally drawing upon our extensive bench-marketing library. The point is to help put in place a system that will help monitor and understand implementation of the particular plan. And, that the rigorous methodology utilized to develop a plan needs to become part of the method of operation for those investing money in planning. Otherwise, the effort is likely to be a “one off” affair, and, be confined to forgotten book case somewhere.