As Seen In… 2006 Archives

Here you’ll find a collection of articles published during 2006.

MarketingProfs

High Tech Marketing/Business Model Boot Camp, Part 6: Stepping up to the Microphone
September 26, 2006

Can you imagine what it would be like to charge 20-200% more than your competitor and own market category dominance? This final part of the Boot Camp series focuses on ways your organization can increase its economic power.

Success isn’t an equation that looks like this:

Great Product + Advertising + Price Point + Distribution = Success

If only it were that easy. Instead, it’s about building on the foundation of a solid business strategy combined with a good go-to-market plan, then adding the ability to connect people and ideas.

Practice: Deliver
Permalink

Download PDF of this publication.

SoftLetter

The SaaS Channel: A Work in Progress
September 15, 2006

According to an AMR Research study of 500 respondents representing companies of all sizes, more than 78% said they are currently using or considering SaaS. As ISVs push SaaS applications into the mainstream, ISVs and VARs need to consider likely changes to the channel economic model. One of these changes is likely to be a shift in the balance of power toward full-service VARs. While ISVs will find some of these changes hard to swallow, they need to keep in mind that this is the cost of extending the reach of their applications into additional market segments.

Practice: Deliver
Permalink

Download PDF of this publication.

MarketingProfs

High Tech Marketing/Business Model Boot Camp, Part 5: Blue Plate Special, a la Carte, or All You Can Eat
August 29, 2006

Do you remember a time when most meals were the sit-down, full-service, dessert-included kind? Even if all you wanted was a cup of soup or a simple salad, you were offered the blue plate special with everything at one price. Then the culinary folks came up with small plates, a la carte items, tastings, pairing menus, buffets, and the like. Whew! Choices — who knew!

So is it any surprise that high-tech companies have stopped serving everything one way with a side of structured licensing? Where once companies had to select /install/customize/upgrade, now we’re allowed to use smaller-scale online services that do one thing really well, without integration and without customization.

Practice: Deliver
Permalink

Download PDF of this publication.

MarketingProfs

High Tech Marketing/Business Model Boot Camp, Part 4: Go-to-Market Mix in the Web 2.0 Era
August 22, 2006

It’s been 40+ years since E. Jerome McCarthy published Basic Marketing, the business book that introduced the 4 Ps (product, price, place/distribution, and promotion) to the world. The categories still hold true, but what was once the leading edge has drastically evolved.

Web 2.0 has also had an impact on the paradigm by changing what product definitions look like, and how things that are sold as “free” can make money. So while the 4 Ps are a good start as buckets, let’s update them for today’s era and discuss what you need to be doing to keep your mix both relevant and impactful.

Here’s my take on what’s happening… and some ideas on what you need to do to win your market.

Practice: Deliver
Permalink

Download PDF of this publication.

MarketingProfs

High Tech Marketing/Business Model Boot Camp, Part 3: Building a Strong(er) Ecosystem
August 15, 2006

In grade school, one of the key determinants of popularity on the playground was how quickly you were selected when the time came to choose up sides for basketball, baseball, or soccer. In the same way, the developing business model for the next 10 years depends hugely on which set of developer and ecosystem partners pick you.

However, unlike grade school, you might have more ability to influence this selection.

Practice: Deliver
Permalink

Download PDF of this publication.

SandHill

Metrics: Getting Rid of the Voodoo in Marketing
August 14, 2006

It’s time for marketers to get out of the realm of voodoo and spin, to create a more defensible position for budget dollars and develop a more secure “seat at the table” by being the business champions they are.

The original publication can be found at this link.

Practice: Deliver
Permalink

Download PDF of this publication.

MarketingProfs

The High-Tech Marketing/Business Model Boot Camp, Part 2: Don’t Be the Dinosaur Brought Down by Mosquitoes
August 1, 2006

We work in Silicon Valley… and there are a few hundred new acronyms and technologies introduced each year that we need to understand. Being a trusted advisor means that clients need us to be really smart, on top of the latest trends, and interpreting what really matters so we can engage with them to design new, winning business strategies.

And one thing I’ve noticed: Many of the things that get hype today won’t matter down the road. But there are always a few in the mix that need to be considered deeply. Figuring out the difference is hard, especially with the high volume of noise that can exist in coverage of the next big thing the business press.

Practice: Deliver
Permalink

Download PDF of this publication.

MarketingProfs

The High-Tech Marketing/Business Model Boot Camp, Part 1: Give Me That Thing Called Love
July 25, 2006

The central character in a G.K. Chesterton novel finds it so important to maintain a solid and vibrant relationship with his wife that he continuously re-enacts their courtship.

Do your customers look at your products with the same eager anticipation as they once did? Have your customers stayed “married” to you? Would you consider them still in love—or waiting it out until someone better comes along?

If you’re like most of the tech professionals we know, you can answer those questions, but only vaguely and sporadically. And if that’s true, what’s the likelihood that your customers absolutely, passionately want to continue with you as a vendor? Our experience with firms (including Symantec, Adobe, Logitech, and others) suggests that only when you know customer desires intimately can you fulfill them.

Practice: Deliver
Permalink

Download PDF of this publication.

SandHill

You Have Less Credibility
July 3, 2006

I hate to be the one to break this to you, but you have less credibility than you once did. It’s nothing personal, mind you. There’s something bigger going on that’s impacting all high-tech companies. Because of it, you’ll want to shift the way you approach the market, before your competition whips past you.

The original publication can be found at this link.

Practice: Deliver
Permalink

Download PDF of this publication.

SandHill

Sales Model is Critical Go-to-Market
June 17, 2006

Sometimes an OEM model makes more sense for a small enterprise software company than trying to take on sales and marketing themselves. CEOs who wish to build their own sales force might rethink their more expensive approach, and see if their growth and profits increase.

Two audiences might want to pay attention. First, product management folks who think it’s about building a better mousetrap and the thing will ‘fly off the shelf’, know this: aligning your product offer to your sales model is critical to the business success. This is often the most overlooked, taken for granted part of the go-to-market model. 2nd, CEOs of small size firms. More on that later.

The original publication can be found at this link.

Tags: , ,
Practice: Define
Permalink

Download PDF of this publication.

C2ES

Keynote: The New Era of Partnership
June 10, 2006

What web 2.0 will do to partnerships in the future and how firms adapt to the new frontier?

Tags: ,
Practice: Define
Permalink

Business Week

Microsoft Sweeps Into Security
June 1, 2006

About 18 months after promising a consumer-security product — and striking fear in the hearts of rivals’ shareholders — Microsoft’s OneCare has finally hit the market. The aim is to provide a low-cost, easy-to-use product that gives consumers antivirus, anti-spyware, and firewall protection. “The consumer experience is going to be a lot easier,” predicts Gina Narkunas, lead product manager for OneCare at Microsoft. “OneCare is like a pit crew [taking care of your car] for your computer.”

The original publication can be found at this link.

Tags: , , , ,
Practice: Defend
Permalink

Download PDF of this publication.

SoftLetter

Help! Microsoft is Targeting My Business, Part II of II
March 1, 2006

Not so many years ago, Microsoft was famous for its ability to focus on one unifying goal. The cry would go out: “Make Windows the dominant OS,” or “Make Internet Explorer the dominant browser,” and the company would rally around that cry. Of course, no large company ever focuses entirely on one thing. But more than most other companies, Microsoft had a knack for aligning its best managers and its most powerful assets against a single target.

Practice: Defend
Permalink

Download PDF of this publication.

Books

Wisdom Leadership & Spirituality
March 1, 2006

Willis Harman — eminent futurist at the Stanford Research Institute and regent of the University of California — once pointed out the opportunity and responsibility that business leaders (at all levels) face in these stressful days of global communication, global economics, and global competition:

Leaders in world business are the first true planetary citizens. They have worldwide capability and responsibility; their domains transcend national boundaries. Their decisions affect not just economies, but societies; and not just direct concerns of business, but world problems of poverty, environment, and security. World business will be a key factor in the ultimate resolution of the macro-problem. It crosses national boundaries with much more ease than do political institutions and the business corporation is a far more flexible and adaptive organization than the bureaucratic structures of government. Up to now, there has been no guiding ethic… (but) such a new ethos for business may be in the process of forming.

The original publication can be found at this link.

Practice: Deliver
Permalink

Download PDF of this publication.

SoftLetter

Help! Microsoft is Targeting My Business, Part I of II
February 15, 2006

“Microsoft is moving into my market.” Recently we;ve been hearing that from more and more of our clients and contacts in the industry. The companies being targeted usually assume they’ve been singled out for special attention from Microsoft, but when you add up all the reports, a different picture emerges. Microsoft is targeting almost every major tech company, all at once. This is a fairly new behavior for Microsoft, and it means the rules of competing with Redmond have changed as well. After the company’s loss of
its antitrust case and the DOJ restrictions which have been woven around the Redmond giant, many industry observers predicted the industry would be dealing with a kinder, gentler Microsoft. It doesn’t seem so.

Practice: Defend
Permalink

Download PDF of this publication.