Online Briefing

Rethinking Brand and Reputation:
New Priorities for Sustaining Competitive Advantage

March 23, 2005
8:00 am Pacific – 11:00 am Eastern – 16:00 London (Duration: One hour)
(Free for ITSMA members)

Registration Closed

The new buyer reality for IT services and solutions has dramatically changed the rules for managing brands and reputation. Buyers are smarter, busier, and more skeptical than ever; they have little time or inclination to pay attention to the typical blah-blah messaging that pervades the marketplace. Everyone claims to offer solutions to business challenges, but cutting through the clutter has become nearly impossible. To make life even tougher, the slightest news about a job gone bad flies around the Internet in a nanosecond while positive success stories languish on the virtual shelf.

Meanwhile, even as companies cut back on branding in favor of immediate lead generation, brand and reputation have become increasingly important in the struggle for customer consideration and preference. Industry consolidation and buyer wariness of false promises means that brand leaders will almost always make the short list, leaving that much less room for other challengers.

But hope should not be lost! Savvy marketers have an array of strategies and tactics at their disposal to strengthen brand differentiation, enhance corporate reputation, and build advantage in targeted markets.

• The research imperative: understanding competitive strengths, weaknesses, and gaps
• Building the internal story
• New approaches to influencing the influencers
• The importance of narrowcasting: creating advantage one client at a time
• Sustaining advantage by managing the client experience

General Information

ITSMA's Online Briefings offer recent research findings or survey results from thought leaders on a variety of services marketing topics. The Online Briefings can be viewed individually, or in groups composed of people within the same company. The briefings are available anywhere in the world that has telephone service and access to the Internet. A typical program runs 45 minutes followed by 15 minutes of questions and answers. The person making the online presentation speaks into a telephone and advances the visual portion of the presentation via their computer connected to the Internet. At the end of the presentation. and at the presenter's discretion, the listeners are invited to ask questions. Each listener with a question identifies him or herself and is listed in a queue and taken one at a time by the presentation monitor. The monitor also manages the question and answer session by giving each questioner access to the phone line to communicate with the presenter.

Technical Requirements

This briefing will be administered by Connex International. All participants are required to test their browsers on Connex International's Website 24-48 hours prior to ensure they are ‘Java-enabled’. This test can be done at www.connexpresents.com, by clicking on the "Equipment Check" icon.
You will receive a pass code and dial in number 24-48 hours prior to the briefing.

The technical requirements for this ITSMA online briefing are:

• Direct or dial-up Internet connection of 28.8 kb/s or higher.
• Netscape Navigator 3.04 or higher, Microsoft Internet Explorer version 3.02 or higher, or any JAVA-enabled browser.
• A separate telephone line to access the audio teleconference.
• If participating from your company, ask about your company’s Internet Firewall 48 hours prior to the event. This will enable your technician or a Connex technician to reconfigure connections to ensure access to the Internet portion of the briefing.
• No plug-ins or software downloads are required.
• Compatible with a wide variety of browsers including Netscape 3.0+, IE 3.02+, or any Java-enabled browser. (Compatible with NT, Win95, Unix, Win3.1, Mac.)
• Works through 99% of all firewalls and proxy servers.

Fees and Registration

Aside from the telephone call, the fee for the presentation is complimentary for active ITSMA members, and $95 per location for non-members.

Note: Registration is on a first-come/first-served basis. You must register by 5:00 pm ET, March 22, 2005.

About ITSMA
ITSMA specializes in helping companies market and sell services and solutions. As a membership organization, we work with the world's leading technology, communications, and professional services firms to generate new business, strengthen customer loyalty, and increase brand differentiation. Through research, consulting, training, and community we provide the insight companies need to improve marketing impact, sales performance, and business results. ITSMA is based in Lexington, Massachusetts, and has offices in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Japan. Learn more at www.itsma.com.