Juniper Networks' J-Central

Challenger brands need pretty shrewd marketers. And when you are competing against a market leader with over 90 per cent of the market, it is unwise to go head to head.

This was the challenge facing Sarah Wright, enterprise programme manager EMEA at network solutions provider Juniper Networks in 2008. Although a market leader in the service provider market, she knew they had to fight hard to make an impression on the market share of Cisco in the enterprise market.

Juniper Networks provides hardware and software offering secure, assured communications over a single IP network. Juniper's JUNOS is a single operating system to integrate routing, switching, data storing and backup as well as security services.

Because JUNOS is a single, modular operating system that runs across an entire business, it has a strong advantage when it comes to managing and updating network systems. This gave Sarah and her team a unique selling proposition of simplicity and reliability - a compelling positioning for their enterprise users - but they still had to find a way of building a presence that helped them to compete against their larger competitor.