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Editor's Notebook Planning Not to PlanAs an enthusiastic college student a few years back (okay, a few decades back), I remember being intrigued in a freshman philosophy class at the idea of “planning not to plan.” The true existentialist, according to this theory, would structure his life carefully to create continual opportunities for spontaneous action and choice. That is, planning carefully to ensure an unplanned existence. Bear with me; I think this is actually relevant to technology marketing (and I'll give 10 points for anyone who can name the 19th century author of this idea!). Marketers today are consumed with minimizing uncertainty. We're constantly looking for more data, sharper analysis, and better predictive models. The drive for marketing accountability is all about increasing confidence that we can promise specific results with every investment we make. It's an understandable pipe dream. In a time of intense competition and limited resources, no one wants to waste time or money. Greater certainty suggests fewer mistakes and more efficient campaigns—even while we know as marketers that the world is far too complicated to really eliminate risk and chance. Analytics are obviously useful, and most companies could probably stand some increased investment in data-driven assessments of marketing options and initiatives. But what if the push for predictability is crowding out important new possibilities? If the age of creative collaboration is indeed upon us, opportunities will emerge from all sorts of surprising places within and outside the organization. Reserving some time and energy for diving into unplanned initiatives may prove to be as central to success as all the predictive models in the world. Perhaps the old philosopher was onto something after all.  [TOP OF PAGE] What's Hot Placing the Right Bets: Prioritizing Accounts to Maximize Limited Resources As the account-based marketing (ABM) trend picks up speed, ITSMA is seeing more and more of our member companies allocating resources to marketing plans for individual clients. Along with these investments, however, comes a very real issue: Where do you place your bets? ABM is too expensive to do for all your clients, so how do you decide which ones are worth the time and money? One thing is certain—the answer to that question is almost certainly not the clients your account teams feel most comfortable with today. This is a question of potential future growth, so the best investments may not even be today's highest-earning accounts. So how should you decide? We recommend using a prioritization tool to objectively score and rank your target accounts based on your strengths and what's important to your company. There are many prioritization tools around, but my favorite is the GE/McKinsey matrix. Developed in the early 1970s, the matrix was originally designed to differentiate the potential for future profit in each of GE's strategic business units, therefore indicating resource allocation priorities. The great thing about the matrix, though, is that you can easily adapt it to plot potential for future profit in each of your target accounts, thereby indicating where you can most confidently invest your ABM budget. The first thing you need to do is develop a list of criteria for prioritizing accounts that suits your company, grouped into two categories:
To ensure that you're selecting the right criteria, be sure to get input from your key internal stakeholders. One of the most effective ways to do this is to organize a workshop in which you'll decide together what makes an account attractive to you and where your competitive strengths lie. This way, you'll focus objectively on the criteria and agree on which accounts to score before you do all the analysis. What Makes an Account Attractive? When you're considering what makes accounts attractive, you may use these criteria, among others:
The trick is to get your list down to the three or four criteria most important to your business and then allocate points to them to show their importance relative to each other. In Table 1, for example, company size, technology spend, propensity to outsource, and a marquee name are the four most important criteria. By weighting each of the criteria, it becomes apparent that company size and technology spend are more important than the propensity to outsource or the blue chip name. Next, you'll need to define what you mean by high, medium, and low scores for each category so that you can rate actual accounts against them. For example, will you give $1B+ companies a score of 10, $500M-1B companies a score of 5, and those under $500M no points at all? To reach an overall attractiveness score for each account, you'll multiply the account's score for each criterion against the importance weighting you gave each one. The result is a quantitative measure of the attractiveness of each of your accounts for executing an ABM strategy. Using this example, a $1B+ company that spends $75M on technology each year, has outsourced "other" functions, and is a top 5 name will receive an overall attractiveness score of 75. Table 1. Weighting and Scoring Account Attractiveness Criteria
What Makes You Strong Competitively? To assess your competitive strength regarding each of your accounts, you'll want to look at criteria such as:
Once you have identified your top three or four criteria here, the process of weighting and scoring each account is the same as it was for account attractiveness. What Does the Prioritization Look Like? By plotting each account on a matrix with the two axes of attractiveness and competitive strength, you get a clear view of where you should place your bets for investing in ABM: with accounts that rank high in both categories! One trick I've learned is to plot your accounts as circles (see Figure 1) the bigger the size of the account, the bigger the circle. For example, GE would have a huge circle and British Airways a smaller one. Figure 1. Weighting and Scoring Account Attractiveness Criteria Once you've completed this process, you'll have a scored and prioritized list of accounts that will allow you to confidently invest time, money, and effort in the accounts that can provide the greatest returns. When you share the list with your colleagues, there may be some shuffling in terms of the order of prioritization, but rather than simply arguing from gut feelings about the accounts, you'll have the scores for the criteria you all agreed to work from. Finally, we suggest making this an annual process because both you and your target accounts will no doubt change your performance in at least some of the criteria during the year! Bev Burgess, info@itsma.com FeatureJunk the Jargon: An Interview with Deloitte's Brian FugereBrian Fugere, partner and former chief marketing officer at Deloitte Consulting, recently sat down with ITSMA to talk about his new book, Why Business People Speak Like Idiots: A Bullfighter's Guide. Brian shared his ideas regarding what technology marketers can do to "fight the bull" and let customers know what their companies really do. ITSMA: This book is a pretty searing commentary on the state of business communications. What inspired you to write it? Fugere: I've been in the consulting industry my entire career, and one thing that became very clear is how much hype and doublespeak there is out there. In 2003, Chelsea Hardaway, Jon Warshawsky, and I wanted to do something to address the jargon problem. So we developed a software program called Bullfighter, which helps you find and eliminate jargon in your work. We were completely unprepared for the response we got—Bullfighter became a media phenomenon! Four hundred thousand people downloaded the software, and we thought, gee, we've really struck a nerve here. But there's so much more to the problem than just eliminating jargon. It's an epidemic, how insincere and obscure business communications have become. We wrote the book because we wanted to bring some authenticity back into the business arena. ITSMA: Why do you think business communications have become such, for lack of a better word, bull? Fugere: It's funny, because it's so much harder to pull the wool over people's eyes today, thanks to the availability of information on the Internet. You'd think companies would be on guard against the kind of corporate-speak that's come to characterize business communications. But really, business-speak has gotten even more obscure as a result of the litigiousness and political correctness of our society. Fear has companies erasing any sign of personality from what they say. ITSMA: Are you seeing any backlash? Fugere: Absolutely. People are really attuned to the problem these days. Look at how quickly blogging has taken off. Blogs are an extension of normal, open, honest conversation—the opposite of corporate-speak. But the real reaction people are having to all the bull companies are feeding them is that they're simply ignoring it. They're tuning it out. And in marketing, we know that being ignored is the worst fate imaginable. Being ignored means irrelevance, and irrelevance means death. ITSMA: What are some of the worst offenses you've seen? Fugere: Pick up one of Enron's letters to its shareholders as it was getting deeper and deeper into trouble. Those guys hid behind obscure language to make sure that nobody knew what was really going on, and to avoid taking responsibility for it. Or pick up any press release from just about any technology company and it's going to look like a disaster. They're horrible because they take jargon that means something in their company and expect everyone else to be able to understand it. News flash, guys: We don't. We have some good examples of bad tech communications on our blog. For contrast, take a look at Google's communications, or Amazon's—you can't find any crummy language anywhere. ITSMA: What can technology marketers do differently? Technology marketers have some hills to climb, that's for sure. They need to constantly ask themselves, what are we really selling? What do we really do? How is this going to benefit the user? They've got to put themselves in their customers' shoes and keep asking these questions, then answer them in clear, straightforward language that the customer can understand. We'll continue the conversation with Brian at Marketing on the Verge: ITSMA's 2005 Annual Conference on November 8-9 in Cambridge, MA. For more information about the conference, or to register online, visit: http://www.itsma.com/events/event_desc/05AC11N27.htm. On the JobCapgemini's Commitment to CollaborationThe other day, while standing in line at the office cafeteria, I overheard a bit of conversation about someone's experience with a consultant. "He's overly opinionated," the man said, "doesn't listen, and he talks too much. I know he's got some good experience under his belt, but he's a real pain to work with." Sound familiar? That's what Capgemini thought, too. So, in 2003, the technology services and business consultancy company decided to set itself apart by staking out an aggressive position based on its collaborative approach. At a recent ITSMA Breakfast Briefing, Stella Goulet, vice president in global marketing at Capgemini, spoke about the company's brand repositioning campaign. According to Goulet, the initiative was launched with two main goals in mind. First, the company wanted to raise awareness and increase market share by identifying and communicating Capgemini's value proposition in the market. Second, it hoped to drive change and harmony throughout the company by giving all the internal stakeholders a central message to rally around. "Our branding program is much more than a marketing or communications initiative," she said. "It's changed the way we operate as a business." The company's first step toward its new vision was to conduct extensive market research to uncover the messages that would resonate with customers. When the key stakeholders sat down and reviewed the results, they realized that Capgemini's experience and core values spoke to the idea of "The Collaborative Business Experience" quite well. The company didn't decide to rebuild the business around a totally new concept. It made a choice to play up its strengths. "Our philosophy—that collaboration makes you stronger—is really at the heart of everything we do," said Goulet. "Collaborative selling, collaborative marketing, collaborative delivery, collaborative people—these elements are of equal importance to, if not more important than, our external communications and advertising campaigns." Easy to say, but the impressive thing about Capgemini's efforts is that the company has shown a tremendous dedication to actually changing the way it does business to support its key marketing message. According to Julie Schwartz, chief research officer and senior vice president at ITSMA, "Collaboration isn't what we would call a unique differentiator. It's a differentiator by degree. Many other services firms could lay claim to it. But are other companies giving it the time, resources, and attention that Capgemini is?" she asked. "No. And that's what makes Capgemini stand apart." The company's commitment to collaboration is reflected in its thorough approach to repositioning. Months before any of the firm's new messages or collaborative tools went out to the market, the company launched an intensive internal education program that included training on the newly developed tools. This ensured that every employee and stakeholder was aware of and prepared to uphold the new promise the company was making to customers. One example of Capgemini's collaborative approach to doing business is its Collaborative Dialog Tool, a set of questions and techniques that allows salespeople to identify client/prospect priorities, along with the level of collaboration they want and expect. Based on the results of this exercise, Capgemini creates a Collaborative Business Experience Statement that supplements the client contract by describing how Capgemini and the client will work together. Another example is CP-Connect, a joint set of services for the consumer products industry that the company is currently working on with partners Intel and HP. In fact, Capgemini has begun harnessing the power of strategic collaboration with partners in more and more of its offer development and marketing initiatives. By commissioning research to assess the strength of its position as it moves forward, Capgemini is able to see whether or not its messages and approach actually have an impact on the market and adjust its strategy accordingly. "This is a company that's done a good job selecting a message that customers and employees believe in, a good job ensuring that the customer experience supports that message at all touchpoints, and a good job of keeping track of how well the market responds," concluded Schwartz. "All in all, it's a great example of how to differentiate yourself in a crowded market." Meghann Grandy, info@itsma.com Moving to Solutions Surfing for SolutionsWe've all been there: You're surfing the Internet, you type in something incredibly obscure and voilà! Seconds later you have more information on the topic than you thought even existed. (More than 52 Websites give specific instructions on how to balance a spoon on your nose!) A little later, however, you type in something very specific and you find...nothing. So what's the experience of visitors to your Website who are looking for information about your solutions? Can they get there quickly, finding data that is accurate, easy to understand, and compelling? Or do they click through heaping piles of services, products, and other distracting Web pages until they leave your Website altogether, empty-handed, and hoping beyond hope that your competitor's site will be more informative? Ready or Not, Here I Come! According to a study conducted by ITSMA, over two-thirds of buying decision makers surveyed last year claimed that they do research to find appropriate vendors before they ever pick up the phone. A recent study conducted by Computerworld, IDC, and the Tolley Group, revealed essentially the same behavior; 89% of IT professionals said that they search the Internet for educational materials before contacting vendors. The trend is clear. When your prospects are ready to shop, they have a wealth of information at their fingertips, and they're pretty darned good at figuring out what they want—or at least what they think they want. ITSMA has spent a significant amount of time evaluating our members Websites to better understand what customers experience when they want to find out more about your solutions. What we've discovered is that:
We've Seen the Enemy, and They Are Us! To ensure that you're providing visitors with a successful solutions experience on your Website, we recommend keeping the following six factors in mind:
As solutions marketers, we're all tuned into the importance of The Customer Experience. Your Website is often the first step a prospect takes in experiencing your company and solutions. As Jeff Bezos, founder and CEO of Amazon.com, said, "If you build a great Website experience, customers will tell each other about that. Word of mouth is very powerful." Now, does anyone care to argue with Mr. Bezos? Steve Hurley, shurley@itsma.com Research Desk Software Vendors and Integrators: Who's Winning the Positioning Wars?The enterprise software market, according to ITSMA's latest study, Enhancing Customer Value from Enterprise Software Applications and Services, is vastly different from the IT hardware market. Hardware has, in many respects, reached commodity status, and great service is the main thing that differentiates very similar products from each other. Want to buy, for example, a cell phone? I don't know about you, but I pick the services provider first (based on the quality of reception, rates, contract terms, etc.) and then select a phone from the ones the service provider carries in its stores. But this isn't the way the enterprise software applications market operates. Here, the study reveals, features and functionality still drive the customer decision process. Typically, in the software space, customers pick the product first and then look for services providers. Indeed, the report shows that buyers of enterprise software applications and services are more aware of, more familiar with, and more likely to call a full-suite software vendor like SAP or Oracle than a smaller niche vendor or a third-party integrator such as Accenture, Deloitte, or Capgemini. There's good news, however, for companies—integrators, consultants, and smaller niche vendors alike—that compete with the software giants. The report indicates that third-party integrators and smaller, more specialized software vendors are making strong moves to position themselves head to head with software industry giants, particularly in the enterprise resource planning (ERP), supply chain management (SCM), and business intelligence/analytics (BIA) markets. In fact, the study shows that 40% of the 501 U.S.-based decision makers surveyed prefer to work with smaller specialist vendors rather than full-suite providers. It also shows that, when implementing the software, more customers rely on a third-party consultant or integrator than a software company. Both findings can be attributed to the strong market positions many specialist firms and integrators have carved out for themselves, along with the positive qualities customers associate with them. The data also signifies that buyers are doing their homework and not simply selecting the company with which they're most familiar. So, although the large software companies own more mindshare, it's obvious that customers look very favorably on the smaller niche vendors and third-party integrators. Many buyers prefer to work with them, too. Despite the importance of features and functionality, enterprise customers value services quite highly; providers that concentrate on staking out a reputation for responding to customer needs, enabling regulatory compliance, and mitigating risk will achieve great things in this market, whether they're full-suite vendors, third-party consultants, or niche players like Lawson, Cognos, or Manugistics. Lori Weiner, lweiner@itsma.com For more information on the enterprise software applications market, see Enhancing Customer Value from Enterprise Software Applications and Services. The report benchmarks the brand equity of full-suite application providers, integrators, and niche application developers across five major application categories. It also explores the customer decision process for buying enterprise software applications—both for the market as a whole and for the following specific applications: ERP, HCM, CRM, SCM, and BIA. This ITSMA Brand Tracking Study is available for sale at member and nonmember rates. To learn more, visit: http://www.itsma.com/research/abstracts/bss001.htm.
If You Can't Measure It...For many companies, solutions—which cut across the enterprise in ways that traditional products and services never have—represent a whole new way of doing business, and measuring them is proving to be difficult. This is especially true when it comes to internal measures of success, which can be less about "hard numbers" and more about measuring company culture and employee behavior. ITSMA recently began conducting in-depth interviews with leaders in the solutions space to get at the heart of what they're measuring. Our research has revealed that when it comes to the internal measurement of solutions, many companies are looking at cultural and behavioral issues such as the level of partnership involvement and internal awareness of solutions. They are also tracking business process issues such as the number of solutions entering and retiring from the portfolio. External measurement typically falls into the financial, sales, and customer categories. During a recent briefing on how to meet the solutions metrics challenge, we outlined a six-step approach to building a robust solutions measurement system:
—Anna Whiting For more information on how to track solutions success, see Meeting the Metrics Challenge: Measuring Solutions Success. This ITSMA Briefing is available at no charge to ITSMA members and for sale to all others. To learn more, visit: http://www.itsma.com/research/abstracts/OLB071205.htm. [TOP OF PAGE] Upcoming Events Account-Based Marketing: Improve Demand, Positioning, and Profitability
within Target Accounts Best Practices In Solutions Marketing How Customers Choose Solutions: Responding to the New Decision Process Transforming Marketing for a Solutions World
Ask ITSMA! Do you have a services marketing question? (c) Copyright 2005, ITSMA Please forward this newsletter, but only in its entirety. Public citation or publication of any information herein is encouraged but subject to U.S. and international copyright law and conventions. Any citation must include full attribution to ITSMA. Individual graphics or paragraphs can be published without permission as long as attribution to ITSMA is included. Publication of longer selections or complete articles requires ITSMA permission. For permission or more information, contact pr@itsma.com. [TOP OF PAGE] Subscription Information Subscriptions are available in text and HTML versions. To SUBSCRIBE or to change the format of your subscription, visit http://www.itsma.com/aspfiles/press/ezine.asp. To UNSUBSCRIBE, please email us at unsubscribe@itsma.com or mail us at ITSMA Subscriptions, 420 Bedford Street, Suite 110, Lexington, MA 02420, USA. Back issues of ITSMA E-ZINE are available at http://www.itsma.com/News/ezine/default.htm. |
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