Market and Product Strategy: assessment of the company’s market strategy in terms of product category, market segments, product offering, value proposition, positioning and partnerships.

Technology and Products: assessment of technology stack and product architecture with a focus on appropriate use of commercial-off-the-shelf and open source technologies; product agility; product development and release planning; product security; product quality and usability; product evolvability, scalability and integrability.

Intellectual Property: assessment of appropriateness, broadness and completeness of technology patents and the market value of such patents.

Services: assessment of professional/implementation services processes, tools and metrics for customer discovery, provisioning, configuration, training and “go live”, including the use of 3rd party VARs.

Operations: assessment of the infrastructure, tools and processes used to support deployed products.

Agile Processes: assessment of key product management and development processes with scalability, competitiveness and customer success in mind.

Competition: assessment of likely emerging and existing competitors and the sources of competitive strength and weakness of the company.

Customers: assessment of customer satisfaction, field service responsiveness and true referenceability.

Personnel: assessment of key management in terms of skills, depth, adaptability and domain knowledge.

Risk Analysis: identification and assessment of key risk areas related to market, personnel, technology, products, competitors and customers.

Exit Scenarios: assessment of exit strategies and scenarios in terms of appropriateness and reasonableness.

Technology Advisory Board Services: Often times investors and corporate boards desire an outside perspective on strategy, markets, technology and product plans. INSTEP staff play active technology advisory roles to corporate boards, as well as assist in the formation of and participation in technology and product advisory boards.