Selected work led by Rob Cerbone through executive roles and Cerbone & Co., focused on turning complex product and connectivity challenges into measurable business results. Additional case studies are being added over time as summaries are finalized.
Case Study 1
Rationalizing a multi‑acquisition product portfolio in security and home automation
Client
A North American security and home‑automation provider that had grown rapidly through multiple acquisitions and organic expansion.
Challenge
Years of M&A and organic growth left the company with hundreds of overlapping packages, add‑ons, and promotions inherited from different brands and channels. Sales, marketing, and operations struggled to navigate the combinations, resulting in inconsistent quoting, longer sales cycles, and a confusing customer experience. Leadership needed to simplify the portfolio without damaging revenue or partner relationships.
Approach
- Conducted a comprehensive inventory of residential security and home‑automation offers, including bundles, add‑ons, and promotions across legacy companies and channels.
- Grouped and analyzed offers to identify redundancy, gaps, and misalignment with the current strategy, pricing framework, and target customer segments.
- Facilitated working sessions with sales, product, finance, and operations leaders to design a simplified “to‑be” portfolio that preserved key value propositions while eliminating unnecessary complexity.
- Defined clear migration paths from legacy offers to the new structure, including mapping rules for renewals, upgrades, and new sales, and outlined implications for systems and processes.
Results
- Reduced the number of residential offer/package combinations by roughly 95%, dramatically simplifying quoting, training, and internal communications.
- Enabled a cleaner, more intuitive portfolio suitable for a modern digital sales and self‑service experience.
- Improved alignment between product, sales, finance, and operations on what was being sold, at what price, and with what feature set, reducing friction across teams.
Case Study 2
Using private wireless to pivot a carrier‑focused managed services provider into the enterprise market
Client
A U.S.‑based managed services provider with deep roots serving wireless carriers and operators, offering network, security, and managed services over a nationwide infrastructure. The company wanted to expand beyond its traditional carrier base into enterprise and public‑sector customers.
Challenge
The provider saw private LTE/5G as a strategic anchor to enter the enterprise market but lacked clarity on which segments to pursue, what specific problems to solve, and how to package offers so they aligned with enterprise buying patterns rather than carrier contracts. The leadership team needed a concrete enterprise entry strategy built around private wireless—covering target industries, use cases, offer design, pricing, and go‑to‑market—without losing focus on its existing carrier relationships.
Approach
- Assessed the enterprise opportunity for private LTE/5G, focusing on verticals where the provider’s carrier-grade network, security capabilities, and experience with operators created an advantage.
- Identified and prioritized high-value enterprise use cases (e.g., industrial facilities, campuses, public safety, and critical infrastructure) that could be credibly addressed with private wireless and managed services.
- Defined a set of private wireless-anchored offers, including reference architectures, service tiers, and managed options that bundled connectivity, security and ongoing operations.
- Developed pricing and commercial models appropriate for enterprise customers (rather than carrier-style wholesale contracts), including options for pilots, phased rollouts, and managed service subscriptions.
- Built a phased go-to-market plan outlining entry segments, messaging, sales enablement, and early-adopter strategies to test and refine offers before scaling.
Results
- Gave leadership a clear strategy for using private wireless as the anchor to pivot from a carrier‑centric business toward targeted enterprise and public‑sector segments.
- Provided sales and product teams with concrete target industries, use cases, and value propositions tailored to enterprise decision‑makers, improving alignment on where to focus initial efforts.
- Enabled the provider to move from exploratory discussions about “getting into enterprise” to a structured plan for pilots, early reference wins, and scalable enterprise offers built on its existing carrier‑grade capabilities.
Case Study 3
Evaluating private wireless options for a national research and education consortium
Client
A U.S.‑based, member‑driven advanced technology community that provides a high‑performance national network, cloud solutions, and identity services for hundreds of higher‑education and research institutions, regional research and education networks, and partner organizations.
Challenge
Member universities and research organizations were under pressure to improve campus and facility connectivity for data‑intensive research, smart buildings, and modern learning environments. At the same time, the private wireless landscape—spanning Wi‑Fi, LTE/5G, and shared spectrum options like CBRS—was evolving quickly, with new vendors, deployment models, and regulatory considerations. The consortium needed a clear, vendor‑neutral view of how private wireless could fit into research and education environments, and practical guidance its CIO and networking communities could use to evaluate investments and build roadmaps.
Approach
- Analyzed the private wireless ecosystem, including spectrum options (such as CBRS), technology architectures, and emerging service models relevant to research and education institutions.
- Developed a set of use cases spanning research facilities, smart buildings, residence halls, and wide‑area campus deployments, with attention to security, identity, and integration with existing wired and Wi‑Fi infrastructure.
- Created a decision framework CIOs and network leaders could use to compare private wireless against existing solutions, focusing on technical capabilities, operational models, governance, and total cost of ownership.
- Delivered the work in two forms: an interactive training presentation for university technology leaders and a detailed white paper for the broader CIO and IT leadership community across the consortium’s membership
Results
- Equipped member institutions with a common vocabulary and evaluation framework for private wireless, reducing confusion around marketing claims and narrowing conversations to practical options.
- Helped CIOs and networking teams understand where private LTE/5G and CBRS can complement, rather than simply replace, existing Wi‑Fi and wired investments in research and education environments.
- Enabled more strategic, community‑wide discussions about pilots, procurement approaches, and long‑term connectivity strategy, supporting the consortium’s mission to solve shared technology challenges its members cannot address as effectively on their own.
Interested in similar results?
If you are facing portfolio complexity, preparing to launch new connectivity services, or planning the next phase of your wireless strategy, Rob can help you move from options to decisions and from decisions to results.