Hi Gary,

Business orientation is a must in todays market.People and firms that cans translate/cut thought the techno-speak and still deliver the expected results will win the day.

Staff augmentation and outsourcing have changed the landscape a bit. I think many companies are attempting to build or integrate software “in-house” using staff aug PMs and Developers vs looking to outside firms. We have several folks the require us to be “onsite”.

As long as the communications lines are strong and frequent, software can be developed anywhere. I believe it is the perception of control that has created this “in-sourced” mentality.

We use sort of own mixture of Agile PM and Agile Software development to deliver projects and most of our clients enjoy the way we interact.

Back to changing your business model.

You are correct about needing to change your organization to match your stated value to the customer and brand promise.

Hope this helps,

Cheers,

Greg

It is our problem as well. We provide support and implementation for high end co-located IT systems. It is very hard to get a new client
from “outside” of the network. We are trying to do the best what we do but also we say that we concentrate on certain verticals:

- High end e-commerce web sites (or any transactional web based systems)
- Advertising. We build system helping ad agencies to sustain traffic that ad campaigns generate.
- Financial. We build pretty big processing clusters that can run hedge fund management for example.

Unfortunately we still don’t see any difference. We all have to figure out how to better relay our message to the audience. For our
clients it is something else, not just a vertical experience. That would be great to get recognition in the vertical that you want to
concentrate on but you would have to do huge marketing work. For our clients it is more the way how they do business. How they got
used to talk to vendors. Some vendors they remember phone numbers by heart. It is about trust and I don’t know how to build that trust in
pre-sale.

I would say we have to figure out better processes. Come up with better operation flow so our clients would see that they are in
control over what is going on with THEIR technology projects rather than we would concentrate on a vertical. We have to analyze a risk
that our buyers are going through and figure out how to minimize risk. We have to build trust in pre-sales or even marketing stage.
We have to build trust. Trust equals intimacy plus competency divided by risk. So we have to figure out how to increase competency and
minimize risk for your clients. I want to hear what other people think about minimizing risk and maximizing competency in the eyes of
our clients.

Sorry for long message but it is my pain as well.

Thanks.

Mike

Gary,

I feel your pain as I think most companies do faced with this problem.  It sounds like you’re trying to rise above the noise in a very noisy space.

The interesting thing is that, in the IT consulting space, there are literally 10’s of thousands of IT consulting and service providers.  Customers are confused because the differences between one service provider and another are hard to distinguish. 

Some time ago, I read a book by Michael Treacy called The Discipline of Market Leaders where he explains how companies compete in today’s world.  Market leaders, he says, compete by focusing their company strategy on one of these disciplines:

-- Operational Excellence - think low-cost competitor like Wal-Mart, Southwest Airlines

-- Product Innovation - think Intel or Sony whereby they keep pushing the envelope on new technologies

-- Customer Intimacy - think Nordstrom’s or Starbucks where the product is the customer experience

In a market like IT services, we found that a combination of technology innovation like the way you describe below, combined with an innovative way to drive customer experience, will help to distinguish IT service providers in a very crowded space. 

Jim Collins in Built to Last talks about this a lot.  He asks the question:  “What can you do that is better than anyone else?” I think he calls it the Hedgehog Concept. 

The good news is that it’s possible and doable but, you’re right, it does take a new focus to align the company around the value proposition.

Let me know if I can be of further help.

Steve

Very good.

We are breaking our heads now about our marketing positioning and your 3 disciplines were very helpful.

Thanks a lot.

Mike

Gary,

This is and has been a hot topic within many hardware/software companies; and has been addressed by many but like you, not all. And I would say it is never to late to recognize that there is a need to have business expertise as part of your business model.
The customer has moved from having just their IT teams evaluate and buy the business solutions that they need, and instead ensuring that the business users are involved in the process as well. Not only providing user requirements, issues and goals/objectives, but then contributing to the development, testing and implementation of the solutions.  This ensures that the investments made meet the specific need that the business has; minimizing risk not only for themselves but for you as well. Therefore, it is imperative for solution providers to have ‘like business people’ to be able to position, demonstrate and help to sell and even implement the solutions. Business talking to business is key.


Bernadette B.