From Idea to Offering: How Consultants Turn Trends into Value
When clients ask what “making an offering” actually means, I usually say: it’s about turning hype into something useful, structured, and sellable. A good offering isn’t just tech — it’s painpoints, value, packaging, and scaling.
How to Build an Offering
I keep it simple and structured:
Start with painpoints & ICPs → Who’s hurting, and why?
Size the opportunity → TAM/SAM/SOM to check if it’s worth the effort.
Pick 2–3 use cases → High impact + doable.
Design a reference architecture & packages → Typically a 3-step model (Discover / MVP / Pilot).
Define pricing, KPIs & risks → What success looks like, and what to watch out for.
Test with a lighthouse client → Fast feedback before scaling.
Once it works, sales enablement, playbooks, and partner co-sell make sure it grows.
Example: GenAI Contact Center Accelerator
Problem: long handling times, inconsistent answers, high training costs.
Solution: a RAG-based assistant with policy guardrails, analytics, and channel integration.
Architecture: Connector → ETL/Chunking → Vector DB → LLM Gateway (policies/evals) → Channels → Observability.
Value:
- –15–30% AHT
- +10–15 CSAT points
- Fewer escalations, faster ramp-up
Differentiation: compliance-ready (EU AI Act, GDPR), pre-built evals, industry playbooks.
Controls: guardrails, offline evals, caching.
KPIs: AHT, FCR, CSAT, deflection rate, cost/case, plus GenAI guardrail metrics like hallucination rate.
Measuring Success
Offerings should prove themselves on:
Commercials (pipeline, win-rate, revenue, margin)
Delivery (time-to-value, reuse-rate)
Customer outcomes (e.g. –AHT, +conversion)
Satisfaction (NPS)
For GenAI, I also add guardrail KPIs — it’s not just speed, it’s safety.
Key Principles
Don’t chase hype. Start with business pain, not shiny tech.
Move fast but safe: pilot, learn, adapt.
Balance build vs buy vs partner. Build the IP that differentiates you, partner for scale.
At the end of the day, developing offerings is about discipline: painpoints, structure, value proof, and scale. The tech is just the enabler.