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Dear ITSMA Friends and Colleagues, We've added a new feature this month to our usual mix of updates on ITSMA events and research. The Toolbox section will highlight new ideas, applications and tools immediately useful to services marketers. Let us know what you think, and while you're at it, please take a few minutes to respond to our EZINE Reader Feedback Survey as well. Now that the Olympics are over, you've got more free time, right? - Rob Leavitt, Associate Director of Research, Editor of ITSMA's E-ZINE What's Hot: Genuity's Black Rocket Launch Highlights Network Services Savvy Upcoming Educational Events: Get Smart with ITSMA Sign up online and receive a 5% reduced fee! October 25-27, 2000: ITSMA's Accelerated Development Course (Northampton, UK) November 13-15, 2000: ITSMA's TelecomServices/2000 Annual Conference (Orlando, Florida) November 21, 2000: How Customers Define Value (Online Briefing - free for ITSMA members) Research Desk: New Data, New Opportunities New Reports on Brand Awareness, Sales Effectiveness, Profitability Sponsorship Opportunities for Brand Awareness Studies Member Voices: Can Hewlett-Packard Make the PwC Deal Work? Toolbox: Balanced Scorecard, Building a Masterbrand E-ZINE Survey: Whaddya Think? Please
forward this E-ZINE to interested colleagues! What's Hot: Genuity's Black Rocket Launch Highlights Network Services Savvy Genuity's September 19 launch of Black Rocket, an integrated e-Business infrastructure service, exemplifies the aggressive, holistic approach necessary for success in today's network services market. Genuity, formerly known as GTE Internetworking, presented Black Rocket as the Internet industry's first Network Services Platform for building e-Business solutions. The service ties together Internet access, Web and application hosting, security, and transport in a service package designed to simplify and speed e-Business development for medium-sized and large enterprises. Genuity's offer includes a 10-day installation guarantee, and a service-level guarantee of 99.9% uptime. For network and telecom services providers, the Black Rocket launch, backed by a $20 million marketing and advertising campaign, illustrates at least four critical aspects of successful network services marketing today.
The Black Rocket marketing campaign is just getting underway, so it's too soon to measure its ultimate success. Judging from the initial launch, however, Genuity appears to have gotten the fundamentals right. Assuming solid implementation, Genuity's new campaign could prove a big bang indeed in the fast-growing network services space. - Rob Leavitt New approaches to marketing network and telecom services will dominate the discussions at ITSMA's third annual TelecomServices Conference next month. The November 13-15 executive-level conference features such issues as the rise of mobile e-Commerce, new opportunities in voice and data convergence, new approaches to partnerships in professional and managed services, and online customer interaction. See below for more details and registration information. ITSMA's upcoming Brand Awareness Study on Networking and Telecom Services provides a great opportunity to explore customer perspectives on the rapidly evolving market. See below for details. Upcoming Educational Events: Get Smart with ITSMA [TOP OF PAGE] ITSMA's education lineup for October and November includes our first ever services marketing course in London, our annual Telecom Services conference, and an online briefing discussing customer perspectives on value delivery. Check out the dates and details below, and on our Website.
October 25-27, 2000: Creating Results-Driven Services Marketing Programs (Northampton, UK))
November 13-15, 2000: ITSMA's TelecomServices/2000 Annual Conference: The Services Agenda for a Networked Economy (Orlando, Florida)
November 21, 2000, 12:00-1:00 p.m. EST: Online Briefing: How Customers Define Value (free for ITSMA members)
Download Now: Getting the Metrics: Building Accountability for Services Marketing
Coming Soon: Highlights from ITSMA's MarketingServices/2000 Annual Conference Marketing in the E-Millennium
Research Desk: New Data, New Opportunities [TOP OF PAGE] IBM's Brand Awareness Lead Narrowing in E-Business Solutions: ITSMA Report Shows Andersen Consulting Gaining Ground ITSMA's third Professional Services and E-Business Solutions Brand Awareness Study, Summer 2000 shows that IBM Global Services has maintained leadership and momentum in the sizzling e-Business solutions market, but Andersen Consulting has narrowed the gap by more than doubling its awareness over the last six months. The bad news for Andersen, of course, is that the firm must find a new name by January 1, 2001. More important, the market as a whole remains quite fragmented. IBM is far from dominating the market, and many e-Business professional services firms remain mired in single-digit awareness levels among Fortune 1000 decision makers. Other key findings from the survey of 400 US-based executives include the following:
The findings of the Professional Services and E-Business Solutions Brand Awareness Study, Summer 2000 is available at a cost of $10,000 for ITSMA members, and $12,500 for all others. For more information or to order the report, visit online. Now Available! Closing the Sales and Marketing Gap: ITSMA Report Details Priorities for Services Sales Effectiveness [TOP OF PAGE] ITSMA's first major analysis of the goals, attitudes, preferences, and needs of services sales representatives is now available to all members and non-members. The study was presented earlier to participants in ITSMA's Services Sales Effectiveness program. Key findings include the following:
Closing the Sales and Marketing Gap is available for sale to ITSMA members at a cost of $5,000 and to non-members at a cost of $7,500. Analyzing Profitability in the IT Services Space: The Haves and the Have-Nots [TOP OF PAGE] Despite spectacular revenue growth in recent years among IT services providers, profits have inched up only slightly, at best, and not yet appeared at all among many of the newer e-Consulting firms. ITSMA's new Update, Analyzing Profitability in the IT Services Space, analyzed the financial data of 33 public IT consulting and e-Business services firms to assess opportunities for beefing up those thin profit margins, and helping the emerging firms move toward a new model of profitability. Drawing from older and newer firms, ITSMA constructs a new "best-in-class" model for improved gross and operating margins in the emerging e-Services market. Analyzing Profitability in the IT Services Space was sent to all delegates and sponsors at ITSMA member companies last month. Additional copies are available to members for a nominal reprint charge, and to all others at a cost of $495. New Research Opportunities: Brand Awareness Studies for E-Business Consulting, Telecom/Network Services, and CRM Services [TOP OF PAGE] Over the last two years, ITSMA has conducted customer-based research to help services organizations assess the effectiveness of their marketing and branding activities. Recent studies in the e-Business solutions space have highlighted critical data for study sponsors and others, including assessments of aided and unaided brand awareness, relative positioning vis-à-vis key competitors, customer selection criteria, and influential information sources. Sponsorships are now available for upcoming studies in e-Business solutions, telecom/network services, and CRM services, as follows: E-Business Consulting Brand Awareness Study, Fall/Winter 2000 [TOP OF PAGE]
Networking and Telecom Services Brand Awareness Study, Fall 2000 [TOP OF PAGE]
CRM Services Brand Awareness Study, Winter 2000 [TOP OF PAGE]
Member Voices: Can Hewlett-Packard Make the PwC Deal Work? [TOP OF PAGE] Last month, ITSMA aired its skepticism about Hewlett-Packard's bid to purchase PricewaterhouseCooper's consulting arm in a special commentary e-mailed to members. Despite the obvious appeal to HP of leapfrogging immediately into the top tier of IT and e-Business services providers, our sense is that the likely difficulty of integrating the two organizations makes it a bad bet for both sides. A number of ITSMA members concurred, especially those who have lived through large mergers and acquisitions (is there anyone out there who hasn't?). This month's Member Voices highlights thoughtful responses to the ITSMA commentary. ITSMA Commentary: Can HP Pull It Off? For Hewlett-Packard, the logic of acquiring PricewaterhouseCoopers' massive consulting business is clear. But HP will likely confront major challenges in successfully bringing the two companies together. [Full article.]
Please let us know if you'd like to see more of these ITSMA commentaries on breaking news in services marketing. ANSWER NEXT MONTH'S MEMBER VOICES QUESTION: Are the new marketing automation software tools ready for prime time? Are you getting your time and money's worth?
Toolbox: Balanced Scorecard, Building a Masterbrand [TOP OF PAGE] This month's E-ZINE includes a new feature on tools for services marketers. Each month we will highlight one or two new ideas, books, applications, or other tools that services marketers can use immediately to strengthen their programs and organizations. A Balanced Scorecard for Services MarketingThe impact of services marketing is notoriously hard to measure. Results are often intangible, benefits are usually long-term, and traditional financial reports contribute little to a serious assessment. According to ITSMA research, most services marketers rely on a handful of metrics, including services revenue, services profit, and customer satisfaction. Other common metrics include contract renewal rate, market awareness, and number of deals signed. Useful as these metrics are, they are much too limited in focus. Most important, they fail to address critical drivers of future success, including internal processes, brand equity, and emerging customer priorities. Robert S. Kaplan and David P. Norton introduced the idea of a "balanced scorecard" measuring marketing performance (Harvard Business Review, January-February 1992). They emphasized the need to tie marketing metrics directly to corporate strategy, and to look at performance in four dimensions: financial, customer, learning and growth, and internal business processes. In subsequent articles and a book (The Balanced Scorecard, Harvard Business School Press, 1996), Kaplan and Norton explained how innovative executives used the balanced scorecard as a central organizing framework for strategy, planning, budgeting, and evaluation. As part of its research, education, and advisory work on measurement and accountability, ITSMA is developing a balanced scorecard specifically for IT services marketing. Following Kaplan and Norton's lead, ITSMA is now using the template below as the foundation for building more sophisticated measurement systems for IT services. The template generally needs to be adapted for any individual firm's strategy, but it provides a good illustration of the range of metrics necessary for a holistic assessment of services marketing performance. Services Marketing Balanced Scorecard: Selected Metrics [TOP OF PAGE]
For more information on balanced scorecards, contact Julie Schwartz at +1-781-862-8500, ext. 12, or jschwartz@itsma.com. Building the Masterbrand [TOP OF PAGE] Just when IT services marketers are getting the hang of brand building and brand management, along come Lynn Upshaw and Earl Taylor, a pair of brand and corporate consultants, to raise the stakes. Their new book, The Masterbrand Mandate, posits that traditional branding strategies often fail to galvanize the company-wide focus required for success in the Internet economy. A masterbrand, in contrast, provides a strategic focus for all employees, customers, and other stakeholders. In a time of "continuous evolution," note Upshaw and Taylor, "the faster that companies learn to move, the greater the risk that they will lose their strategic focus, and with it, their value proposition." An overarching masterbrand provides companies with an anchor amid the swirling sea of change. A lot of this sounds like the new conventional wisdom, and hopefully it is. But the idea of managing the entire company as a brand is a powerful one indeed, and one that few IT services firms have yet taken fully to heart. Along with fleshing out the concept, The Masterbrand Mandate provides a number of immediately useful ideas for IT services marketers, including methods to build a brand community with customers and partners, tips for extending your brand online, and internal brand-building techniques. Case studies on brand leaders such as Sun Microsystems, America Online, and Charles Schwab yield additional suggestions on masterbrand management. For more information on The Masterbrand Mandate, contact Earl Taylor at e.taylor@research-int.com, or visit www.brandbuilding.com. Earl Taylor is leading a day-long workshop on The Next Wave in Services Branding at ITSMA's Annual Conference this month. E-ZINE Survey: Whaddya Think? [TOP OF PAGE] Has the ITSMA E-ZINE changed your life? Inspired you to take a course that made you rethink your whole strategy? Handed you the research nugget that convinced the boss to give you a 20% budget increase? Inquiring ITSMA minds want to know. Six months ago, we redesigned the E-ZINE to add more valuable content, and, via HTML design, make it easier to read. We've gotten good anecdotal feedback, but we haven't yet done a formal survey. Now's the time. Please take two minutes to respond to our short survey on the value of the ITSMA E-ZINE and let us know how we can make it more useful. Click here for our online survey. *Oh yeah, all participants will automatically be entered into a drawing for a fabulous ITSMA fleece pullover, just in time for winter. Not that you need any incentive, right? ***Reproduction or disclosure in whole or in part to other parties shall be made according to the ITSMA Citation Policy. Reproduction prohibited.
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