Jan '24 edition | Business Strategy, Partnerships & Alliances, Industry predictions 2025-2030

How to capture a lead at the first stage? Shifting from FTEs to value-added services — a working approach; What to consider when developing a partnership channel?

Hello, business enthusiasts! ??

This month I focus on business strategies, business development, partnerships, and market transformation predictions for 2025-2030—key insights your company needs to stay ahead.

Let’s dive in!

??Wiseboard achievements

+2 new clients signed

+3 new advising projects: Marketing and Sales tracks.

+3 new advisors joined: Our pool now totals 272 expert advisors.

?? New expertise unlocked (+2)

Sharing the latest expertise to our service catalog that your company can hire:

1. Organizational structure optimization

Evaluate and optimize org structure to improve operational efficiency, administrative function share and increase NPM. Define roles, responsibilities, authority, and KPIs to align with business goals.

2. Venture builder establishment / new products launch

Validate existing ideas & develop new products. Conduct market research and competitive niche analysis to evaluate feasibility, and shortlist the most promising niches. Develop a go-to-market strategy, financial model, and MVP backlog.?

Prepare the product launch, including user acquisition campaigns, analytics setup, and App Store optimization.

Let me know if any of these match your current business needs.

?? Available talent for hire

Wiseboard has active recruiting pipelines for our clients for the following roles:

1. Head of Sales / VP Sales
2. Delivery Director / Head of Delivery / COO
3. Account Manager / Client Partner?
4. Content Marketing Lead

DM me if you’re hiring for these positions.

?? Market observations

1. Many companies try to compensate for a bad previous quarter by aggressively chasing new business in this one.

Three out of four companies ended last year poorly (a lack of new deals, weak leads, client budget cuts, sudden project drops, and missed upsell or referral opportunities). But this isn’t just a market shift — it’s a result of a low-quality client relationship role. Clients don’t suddenly drop teams or projects—they delete inefficient cost lines from their spreadsheets. So if you’re not delivering irreplaceable value, you’re just another line item to delete.

Example: A 200-person outstaffing company hired truly rare specialists but offered nothing beyond staffing. Eventually, a competitor vendor—who worked with the same client but provided extra value beyond staffing —stepped in and pushed them out. I’ve heard a dozen stories like this in 2024 alone.

2. New Services and emerging niches

2.1 Companies are searching for greener pastures, researching new services, and testing new niche segments. For instance, here is what the CIO’s agenda you need to take into account, as they are one of your key buyer personas:

2.2 In the meantime, other things to consider for IT companies is how digital business and AI transformation will look like till 2030

Let me know if you need help aligning your business strategy and services with these market trends—I’ll help you out.

??Advisors’ spotlights

Build a wide service portfolio to capture a client

Companies need to create a broad range of offerings—technical assessments, consulting, product development, design, benchmarking, etc —each separately packaged and clearly defined. The goal is to replace rate cards and communicate the value with clear deliverables — common advice by Taras Petriv, Wiseboard Client Partnership Advisor

When having such offerings variety, clients will always find something relevant. And once they engage with one service, it opens the door for firther expansion—migration, modernization, additional consulting, or ongoing support.

“In the U.S., consulting companies have mastered this approach for years. In Ukraine, companies are just beginning to adopt it.”

To make a broad service portfolio work —build a strong business development function that will drive account expansion and maximize client lifetime value.

How to Make It Work:

1. Map out the client journey – identify the entry points where clients typically engage with your services. Do they start with a tech assessment? Advisory? Product development?
2. Define clear deliverables – clients don’t buy “consulting”; they buy outcomes. Package services with specific, measurable results.
3. Create logical upsell paths – if a client buys an assessment, what’s the next natural step? Build a seamless transition into implementation, modernization, or ongoing advisory.
4. Train your sales and delivery teams – your teams should know how to connect the dots between services and guide clients toward long-term collaboration.
5. Proactively drive account expansion – don’t wait for clients to request more services. Have structured check-ins and roadmap discussions to propose additional value.

Need to refine your service portfolio and build stronger client partnerships?

Jump on a call with Taras

Shift from FTEs to added value

Antonina Skrypnyk, Wiseboard business strategy advisor, and the “We need two developers and one designer” case.

When working with client requests, don’t just stop at fulfilling tasks like “We need X FTEs.”?

While it’s straightforward to deliver on such asks, this approach limits your role to a vendor.

Your goal is to become a technical partner, extend the project lifespan, and increase profitability. So go deeper. Explore the stakeholder’s pain points and understand the real challenges behind their requests.

The approach

1. Ask the questions to uncover the true needs behind the request.?

What challenges are they solving? What outcomes do they expect? Are you out of time? Is it a technical debt, or perhaps the founder has to show the demo to investors and it’s ok to make it quick and simple?

This determines the features you need to build and how you approach the solution.

Work with Startups? The simpler the case is since they are often more transparent about their challenges.?

2. Tailor your Value Offering to address these pain points.?

For example, if it’s a compliance or infrastructure readiness issue, propose solutions that align with regulatory or technical standards. Now, you have the opportunity to package your offering and compete with expertise rather than only rate cards.

And even if it’s pure outstaffing, this still determines the FTEs you involve in the project.?

“Focus on understanding the “why” behind client requests and integrating it into your approach.”

Form your value offering based on these insights and communicate it clearly. This is how you transition from being a service provider to a trusted technical partner.

Need help defining pain points for your core buyer personas or building tailored value offerings?

Jump on a call with Antonina

Partnerships & Alliances

I have spent the last nine months learning partnerships across dozens of outsourcing companies. I have found that 80% of partnerships fail. In fact, 50% to 80% of partnerships fail within the first year due to incompatible partners and lack of commitment.

Many companies I work with already have organically settled partnerships. But such partnerships remain limited to occasional calls and ad hoc collaborations, rather than being integrated into daily operations.?

Oleksii Sigov, Wiseboard Partnership Advisor, shares a common partner operations cycle. But companies usually skip stages 3-4-5 which turns their partner database to go dormant instead of generating revenue.

How to Build a Scalable Partnership Ecosystem?

Orest Furhala, Wiseboard Partnership advisor, shares a partnership ecosystem that helps companies expand beyond their existing partnerships and unlock new revenue streams. When done right, partnerships can become a major revenue driver—in fact, for companies with 300–10,000 headcount, up to 80% of total revenue can come from this channel.

But before you jump into partnerships headfirst, do your homework. Here’s what you need to define first:

1. Define your IPP (Ideal Partner Profile)?

• System Integrators (SI partnerships) – Product companies where you can serve as an integrator.
• Talent platforms – YouTeam, Toptal, and similar networks.
• Recruitment vendors – With ongoing requests for engineering resources.
• Digital transformation consultants – Who need delivery partners.
• VC funds & accelerators – That support startups needing your expertise.
• Niche associations – Industry-specific networks where partnerships can form.
• Hyperscalers (AWS, Azure, GCP) – Where integration partnerships exist.
• Larger companies similar to yours – That can subcontract work.

??Terminology to note:

Sometimes, a client in your portfolio regularly brings projects to you from other companies you wouldn’t have direct access to: this is not your client —it’s your partner.?

2. Define the Goal of the Partnership

Is the partnership only about revenue and new projects, or does it offer strategic benefits beyond money?

For example:

• Access to new markets or industries

• Brand credibility & thought leadership
• Stronger positioning for large enterprise deals

3. Craft a UVP for each type of partner.

?? Note:?

Your UVP for partners is NOT the same as your UVP for your clients.

Most outsourcing companies sound the same—“skilled engineers,” “wide tech expertise,” and “referral fees.” That won’t set you apart. Instead, ask:

What else except a skilled team that knows every framework and referral fee you can put on the partnership table?

If you skip this step, your sales team will drown in hundreds of calls with irrelevant partners that never result in deals.

It takes 8–12 months to build a functioning partnership model. Like sales and marketing, partnerships require constant iterations and validations. So, be prepared to invest resources, stay persistent, and commit to partnerships in your yearly strategy.

As a positive side-benefit, 5%+ of partners eventually become your clients.

Need help with establishing or enhancing partnership function?

Let me know

That's all for this month. If you found this update valuable, please share it with others who might benefit.

If you feel your business faces challenges or plans to grow this year – let’s jump on a call; I’ll help you out.

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Best wishes, Artur Founder & CEO at Wiseboard

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