Bringing a Business Connectivity Portfolio to Market

I was responsible for defining and delivering a business connectivity product portfolio within a full-fibre network environment.

The brief was to take an emerging commercial opportunity and turn it into something that could be sold, installed and supported reliably. In practice, most of the work sat in the space between product definition, operational readiness and customer experience.

Operating as the Sole Product Role

At that point, I was the only person in the organisation working in a product role. There was no established product function or framework to rely on, so the role naturally covered product definition, delivery coordination and cross-functional alignment.

Early work focused less on features and more on shared understanding. Sales, engineering, network operations and customer service were approaching the same opportunity from different angles, each with their own assumptions about readiness. Aligning those perspectives proved as important as the products themselves.

Defining Business Connectivity Products

The portfolio covered multiple business full-fibre service tiers, with a mix of line-only and bundled connectivity products designed to work for organisations of different sizes and levels of technical confidence.

Market and competitor analysis informed product positioning, but decisions were grounded in what could realistically be delivered and supported at launch. The emphasis was on clarity, repeatability and avoiding unnecessary operational friction.

Pre-qualification processes, installation guidance and self-service materials were treated as core product components. The aim was to reduce surprises once customers began ordering and to support both customers and internal teams through clearer expectations.

Product Delivery and Cross-Functional Execution

Delivery involved close coordination across engineering, network operations, customer service, customer experience, sales, marketing and platform teams.

Process and flow diagrams were used to surface assumptions early, align dependencies and identify delivery risks before build commenced. Installation documentation was deliberately designed to work within existing hardware packaging, minimising additional cost and complexity.

Trial deployments helped validate assumptions in real-world conditions, with documentation and operational processes updated based on what actually happened rather than what was expected.

Outcomes and Decisions

Line-only business connectivity products were delivered and adopted by the commercial team. More complex managed elements were sequenced later, once it was clear what operational capacity could reasonably support.

This was a deliberate product decision, balancing speed to market with customer experience and long-term sustainability. Throughout the programme, I provided regular updates to senior stakeholders, focusing on trade-offs, risks and sequencing rather than status alone.

Reflection

Looking back, the most valuable part of the work was not a single product decision, but the creation of shared clarity across teams. Building B2B connectivity products in infrastructure-led environments is rarely about completeness at launch. It is about judgement, prioritisation and knowing when to pause as much as when to push.

This article reflects my personal experience and does not represent the views of my employer.