Accelerating the Solutions Business

The weather was beautiful, the view of San Francisco was stunning, and the level of participation from the attendees of ITSMAs recent Marketing Leadership Forum was perhaps the best we’ve ever seen. Titled Accelerating the Solutions Business, the Forum provided an in-depth look at the innovative ways that companies today are developing, marketing, and selling solutions.

John Hagel, a global strategist who’s just joined Deloitte to found and serve as co-chairman of a major new Silicon Valley-based research center, pointed out in his keynote speech that, although “solutions” is often a code name for bundling, “successful solutions are not products writ large… They are a platform for collaborating with customers to meet their specific needs.” Companies that share this view of solutions, said Hagel, recognize that a successful solutions business is based on trust-based relationships with customers and partners, since providers need to work collaboratively with both groups to develop truly innovative solutions. He suggested that virtual communities are an excellent—but underused—tool for building the trust-based relationships that are required for the solutions business to flourish.

Mark Yolton, vice president of SAP’s community network, has seen first-hand how effectively online communities foster co-innovation and collaboration. Yolton oversees the SAP Developer Network and the company’s Business Process Expert Community, which, together, have over 800,000 members. During his presentation, he explained that the communities give customers the opportunity to “collaborate with SAP and third-party vendors to share best practices and encourage these providers to build the products and features they need most. The community engagement leads customers to solutions that are right for their business.”

Alcatel-Lucent, meanwhile, recognizes that it’s not only its own customers it needs to focus on. According to Karl Bream, vice president of corporate strategic marketing, the more knowledgeable the company becomes about its customers’ customers, the more valuable the solutions it can develop and sell. Alcatel-Lucent has substantially increased its investment in end-user research and, as a result, is now better able to articulate the value of its solutions to its customers—telecommunications service providers.

Over the last two years, IBM’s solutions marketing team has looked to improve the customer experience by integrating and coordinating its solutions marketing programs. In 2006, the team executed a pilot focused on one solutions area, reducing overlap by consolidating thirteen separate marketing programs into one, which ensured coordination around messaging and the number of customer touches. The company then designed a client-focused framework for integration and moved the resources and funding for solutions from the silos into a solutions marketing pool. According to Joann Duguid, IBM’s vice president of solutions and sector marketing in the Americas, “Pooling the solutions resources has been a critical success factor. We now have dedicated funding for our overall company priorities for solutions instead of having each business unit off doing its own thing.”

Tata Consultancy Services is also working hard to ensure alignment within the company, especially among sales, marketing, delivery, and the practices. As chief transformation officer, Vish Viswanathan is at the center of Tata’s “Perfect Storm”—the code name senior management has given to the change program. First, the company made a blueprint of processes, metrics, service levels, ownership, responsibility, and accountability, to increase collaboration and alignment within the organization. Now it’s in the midst of institutionalizing the blueprint, training functional owners, and doing road shows to build internal awareness of the changes.

Steve Garrou, director of global outsourcing and infrastructure services at Unisys, is literally focused on “accelerating” the solutions business by speeding up the solutions development process. Whereas the company used to conduct the four steps of its development process—market assessment, technical and operational validation, offering development, and life-cycle management—in sequence, it now assesses the market and does the technical and operational validation in parallel. Thanks to the changes, Unisys is now able to develop new solutions significantly faster, with more intensive focus from the development teams.

When Terry Gebert, vice president and general manager of Rockwell Automation’s manufacturing and process solutions, first arrived at Rockwell, the company was pushing to “productize” its solutions, hoping to create and sell more packaged, off-the-shelf solutions. But Gebert knew this wasn’t the way to improve the company’s solutions business. “Customers don’t want generic solutions,” he said. “At too many companies, the solutions business is the black hole for bundled products. That’s not what we needed.” Instead of focusing on providing predefined offerings with little ability for customization, Gebert has been focused on creating repeatable solutions development processes and methods. By giving the delivery teams standardized processes, Rockwell is able to ensure efficient development and delivery, while allowing for true tailoring and customizing based upon the customer’s unique challenges and business model. The other lever that Terry has pulled to improve their solutions business has been to better arm the sales force to sell true solutions by providing them with new skills and tools that allow them to talk about value rather than features and benefits.

Pitney Bowes is also focused on making sure its sales reps are fully trained. Bob Mattis, vice president of managed services, said that his division requires extensive training for everyone in the field who is involved with solutions, including sales, operations, and consulting. The training includes eight hours of online coursework, a three-day, in-person training class, and in-the-field training that must be completed before the participants receive their final certification. (Compensation is tied to certification.) Mattis said that 70% of the sales force for the division has turned over since the company implemented the new training program, but he also said that the results for Pitney Bowes’ solutions have improved substantially: Written business, average order size, and cross-selling are all up significantly.

All in all, it was a fascinating event with a number of extremely interesting takeaways. If you’re involved with solutions and are kicking yourself for not making it to the Forum, please consider attending our upcoming Solutions Workshop, which will take place in mid-July at Babson’s Executive Conference Center in Wellesley, MA.

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ITSMA specializes in helping companies market and sell services and solutions more effectively. We work with the world's leading technology, communications, and professional services providers to generate increased demand, strengthen customer relationships, and improve brand differentiation. ITSMA annual program clients include business leaders such as Avaya, BT, Cisco, Deloitte, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Microsoft, and Tata Consultancy Services, among others. Our comprehensive research, consulting, and training on topics including ITSMA Account-Based Marketing℠, Brand Positioning, and Solutions Development provide the insight and experience companies need to improve business results. ITSMA is based near Boston, and has offices in London and Tokyo. Learn more at www.itsma.com.