JABRA CASE STUDY

Jabra case study: Rapidly scaling a developer ecosystem with EaaS

How Jabra makes millions every year from a thriving digital ecosystem

John Gould

Global Developer Experience and Channel Manager at Jabra

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The story behind Jabra’s super-engaged developer program

Jabra is an incredibly innovative hardware company (they developed the world’s first in-ear Bluetooth headset), selling a wide range of corded and wireless headsets for mobile and office phones.

They launched their first developer ecosystem – the Jabra Mobile Developer Program – in 2010 so they could attract creative developers and give them the tech and resources they need to create innovative, voice-enabled applications.

The program took off instantly.

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But John Gould, then the Global Developer Experience and Channel Manager at Jabra, knew they were going to need a different approach as the community ramped up.

That’s when he decided they needed to take an Ecosystem-as-a-Service approach. This is the story of how John evolved that community into what’s now recognized around the world as the Jabra Developer Zone.

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John Gould:

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Responsive image Responsive image We knew the program was going to grow but we were basically handling everything manually. Even technical support. It wasn’t scaling with the number of developers we were bringing on board. Responsive image Responsive image

– John Gould, Global Developer Experience and Channel Manager at Jabra.

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Problem

What Jabra needed

The instant success of the Jabra Developer Zone meant they needed to bring in new developers even faster than they were used to.

They knew they could increase the rate of innovation, broaden the number of 3rd party applications their devices worked with and even expand their customer base.

But they also realized the demands on their developer ecosystem administrators were quickly becoming overwhelming.

It took so much time and effort to onboard new developers that the admins had turned into a bottleneck, stymying the growth of the ecosystem – and consequently the business – despite their best efforts.

John knew they needed help. So he reached out to Constellant to understand how a best practice, Ecosystem-as-a-Service approach could help him build a thriving community that was aligned with Jabra’s long-term roadmap.

Solution

How EaaS helped

Working with Constellant, John and his team created and launched the upgraded Jabra Developer Zone, with our team providing ongoing support to manage the influx of new developers.

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The new ecosystem management platform helps Jabra with:

  • Unique registration
  • Automated, role-based access
  • Best-practice workflows for a world-class developer experience
  • An upgraded self-service portal that makes onboarding highly scalable
  • An intuitive module for technical documentation
  • A ticketing system with support tools
  • Ingestion of product data
  • Intelligent routing for sign-off of approved technology
  • A scalable certification process

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John Gould:

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Responsive image Responsive image Constellant has made a massive difference. Responsive image Responsive image

– John Gould, Global Developer Experience and Channel Manager at Jabra.

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Results

The impact of Jabra’s new digital ecosystem

Since the launch of the new developer ecosystem, Jabra has seen increases in:

  • Web searches
  • Page views
  • Sign ups
  • Engagement
  • Retention
  • Downloads

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Put all those metrics together and you start to see what’s really changed – the developer experience has been completely transformed.

User journeys are a lot more efficient and developers can more quickly find the resources they need to solve problems and innovate more rapidly.

John’s most proud of the ticketing system, user forums, publisher module (for technical documentation) and the ability to track deprecated SDKs.

Today, he can track what the developers are doing and how they work. The result is that Jabra has a better understanding of precisely what their ecosystem needs.

And it’s paying off.

The new Jabra Developer Zone has led to important, strategic alliances with businesses like Alcatel-Lucent, Cisco and Intel. Alliances that have been so successful, Jabra’s launching a full-fledged partner ecosystem next.

In fact, Jabra estimates that as much as $10-20 million worth of new business can be attributed to the developer ecosystem alone.

Now that’s impact.

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John Gould:

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Responsive image Responsive image We weren’t as professional before, and the developer experience wasn’t anywhere near what it is now. We think all of those things have contributed to people getting involved with us. Responsive image Responsive image

– John Gould, Global Developer Experience and Channel Manager.

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