LEXINGTON, Massachusetts - Jan 25, 2012 - In its eleventh year conducting the Professional Services Brand Tracking Study, ITSMA sees the strong brands getting even stronger. IBM remains number one for top-of-mind awareness, with more than half the respondents naming IBM as the company that first comes to mind without prompting (unaided awareness) when they think of consulting and technology service providers. This is a significant jump from the 2010 study, where 39% named IBM.
HP was helped by its acquisition of EDS, and has secured its position in the number two spot for unaided awareness after vaulting ahead of Accenture for the first time in the 2010 study.

“Interestingly, EDS has just about fallen off the radar screen as a brand, just one year post acquisition. This, combined with HP’s brand equity improvement, points to a smooth transition,” said Julie Schwartz, ITSMA’s Senior Vice President of Research.

The study also showed that most companies continue to be associated primarily with their traditional roots and less so with their newer services and capabilities. Deloitte, KPMG, PwC, Accenture, and Capgemini are strongly perceived as consulting providers; Wipro, TCS, HCL, CSC, and Cognizant are perceived mainly as outsourcers; and HP, IBM, and Infosys are seen as technology services providers. Infosys stands alone as the only global India-based company not seen primarily as an outsourcer.

Brand Growth Opportunities Abound

The market remains fragmented as “other” companies, or those named only once, commanded 35% of the unaided awareness, more than any single company, except IBM.

“In a market as uneven as this, less well-known players have an opportunity to gain mindshare,” Schwartz observed. “However, brand equity cannot be built overnight. It takes consistent and persistent marketing. This includes activities like conducting research to find out what’s most important to your target market, promoting your strengths, highlighting your thought leadership, and substantiating your brand and differentiation with proof points.”

Consulting and Outsourcing Seen as Important Investments During Economic Fluctuations

Other areas of opportunity include outsourcing and consulting, as one-third of respondents plan to increase spending on outsourcing and more than half think that investing more in technology or business process outsourcing and consulting better prepares organizations for economic fluctuations.

Brand Equity Index Score

ITSMA determines brand leadership by assigning each company an ITSMA Brand Equity Index (BEI) score, a composite index based on individual firms’ ratings for unaided awareness, aided awareness, top-of-mind recall, familiarity, and favorability. The index allows companies to track changes in brand strength over time in addition to making competitive comparisons.

Based on its BEI, IBM emerges with the highest brand equity for the examined professional services firms. Other top achievers include HP and Accenture. The next tier of BEI ranked companies includes PwC, Deloitte, KPMG, and Capgemini. The top five Indian-heritage companies tracked in the study include Infosys, Cognizant, TCS, Wipro, and HCL.

Methodology

ITSMA interviewed 460 senior IT and business decision makers based in the US, UK, France, Germany, Brazil, and Australia. Study respondents all held director, vice president, or C-level positions and represented organizations with revenue or operating budgets ranging from $100 million to over $20 billion in seven major industries:

• Communications
• Energy/Utilities
• Financial Services
• Healthcare
• Life Sciences
• Manufacturing
• Public Sector

Respondents qualified for inclusion based on their involvement in purchasing professional services and solutions, defined as “technology and/or related business services (such as consulting, systems integration or implementation, or outsourcing) applied to address customer business objectives and valued at $100,000 or more.” The report examined 15 professional services and solutions firms, including Accenture, Atos, Capgemini, Cognizant, CSC, Deloitte, HCL, HP, IBM Global Services, Infosys, KPMG, Logica, PwC, TCS, and Wipro.

For more information on the study, please see http://www.itsma.com/research/professional-services-and- … or contact Julie Schwartz at +1-781-862-8500, Ext. 112, or at jschwartz@itsma.com.

LEXINGTON, Massachusetts—January 04, 2012—ITSMA recently published a white paper, Four Stages to Full Account Based Marketing Adoption, which details ITSMA’s Account Based Marketing (ABM) Adoption Model. The white paper will be helpful to B2B marketers who are trying to increase revenues and build deeper relationships with their top accounts. The white paper is based on ITSMA research and consulting experience on ABM, as well as from input and wisdom of ITSMA’s ABM Council, a best practice peer group of top ABM practitioner companies that ITSMA formed in 2006.

The ABM Adoption model draws on the work ITSMA has conducted with a wide range of B2B technology, professional services, and telecom marketers. ITSMA began working with companies on Account Based Marketing in 2002, and since then has published numerous white papers, developed and enhanced a formal ABM Framework, trained hundreds of marketers on ABM practices and principles, and has helped dozens of companies pilot, build, and grow their ABM programs, to build stronger long-term relationships with their most important customers.

“ABM is a powerful client-centric marketing strategy, but it takes planning and resources to get it right,” said Jeff Sands, Vice President and ABM Lead of ITSMA. “Our goal for the model and the white paper is to help marketers plan the steps they need to take to develop a successful Account Based Marketing program that has the full support and participation of both marketing and sales.”

In this white paper, ITSMA outlines the four distinct stages to ABM adoption, which need to be followed in order, starting with piloting the ABM program before moving on to building, standardizing, and scaling it.

The white paper gives details on the important activities and metrics for each stage of the model, as well as information on the drivers that tell a marketer when he or she is ready to move to the next stage. It also lists the prerequisites for ABM, so a company can determine whether it is ready to adopt this one-to-one marketing model, and highlights the key skills a marketer should have to be successful at ABM marketing.

For more information on ITSMA’s Account Based Marketing Adoption Model go to http://www.itsma.com/research/four-stages-to-full-abm-adoption/ or contact Jeff Sands at jsands@itsma.com.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

LEXINGTON, Massachusetts—December 8, 2011—The new ITSMA study “How Buyers Consume Information” revealed significant shifts in behavior among purchasers of large B2B technology solutions. Specifically, the study introduces the rise of the B2B Social Buyer, who consumes information voraciously and from a variety of sources during the purchase process. The B2B Social Buyer is very different from the Traditional Buyer, who still prefers research reports, in-person seminars, print collateral, sales calls, or private briefings.

At the same time, the data shows a dramatic change in the role of peer influence in the decision-making process. Peers, while still important as a source of referrals, recommendations, and references, are no longer the best source of information. Industry analysts and technology provider contacts are now seen as equally credible—or even more credible—sources of information than peers. The study also found that buyers gain access to their peers via social media and online communities.

“We haven’t seen a change in buyer behavior like this since we introduced the idea of the new buyer reality almost a decade ago,” said Dave Munn, President and CEO of ITSMA. “At that time, Internet use exploded, which created a fundamental shift in power from the seller to the buyer. Technology is also the catalyst for the current shift in buyer behavior, but this time, social media is driving the change.”

ITSMA data shows that 91% of B2B buyers who were surveyed are using social media during the purchase process, which Munn sees as both a challenge and an opportunity for B2B marketers. “Most solution providers are behind the curve when it comes to fully embracing social media. Those that are out ahead of competitors have the potential to expand their mind share,” Munn explained.

The survey data also shows that 96% of B2B social buyers rate thought leadership content, such as the research, analysis, and advice often found in reports, white papers, Webcasts, and articles, as important or critical in choosing a provider.

“These findings are significant to marketers because the B2B social buyers are the ones who are investing more aggressively in technology,” said Julie Schwartz, Senior Vice President, Research and Thought Leadership of ITSMA. “If B2B solution providers want to reach this audience, they will have to revolutionize the way they market and sell to buyers.”

ITSMA has published the results of the survey, along with analysis and insights, in The Rise of the B2B Social Buyer: Results from the ITSMA How Buyers Consume Information Survey, 2011 report. The report highlights the best ways for B2B marketers to target social buyers, as well as traditional buyers, so they can develop an integrated customer engagement program that is tied to the business strategy. The report can be found at: www.itsma.com/research/how-b2b-buyers-consume-information-2011.

Study Methodology

In September and October 2011, ITSMA surveyed, via the Web, 465 business and IT executives with purchase authority for business or technology solutions for individual contracts over $500,000. These respondents represented larger enterprises, with 60% having $1 billion or more in annual revenue from seven different countries: US, UK, France, Germany, Australia, Brazil, and India.

Respondents were interviewed in the following vertical markets:

• Manufacturing (Consumer/Industrial, process/discrete)
• Financial Services (Banking, Insurance (except healthcare), and investments)
• Communications (Telecom, media, entertainment)
• Energy/Utilities/Oil/Mining/Gas
• Government/Public Sector (Federal/State; no local or education)
• Healthcare (Payer, provider, and benefits)

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

PRLog (Press Release) - Nov 09, 2011 - A recent ITSMA study shows that demand generation and lead management are top priorities for B2B marketers, but very few companies consider lead management to be a core competence. The B2B Services and Solutions Lead Management Benchmarks survey, published October 5, 2011, showed that most of the companies surveyed are in the early stages of planning and implementing formal lead management processes.

The study also identified four key challenges that B2B Marketers face when trying to improve their lead management practices:

• Process – 36% say that process related issues are their greatest challenge;
• People – 24% say they don’t have sufficient resources or skills;
• Technology – 22% report issues with systems integration, adoption, data quality and availability;
• Content – 18% indicate that having the right content, and/or quantity, is their greatest challenge.

“Despite making progress, even the top practioners in our survey are not far down the path of developing lead management processes,” said Julie Schwartz, Senior Vice President, Research and Thought Leadership, ITSMA. “While the leaders have a leg up when it comes to the infrastructure and processes to track leads from inception to close, they are not mining the data from their systems to optimize marketing’s performance.”

The survey also showed that few companies, whether they are leaders or laggards, are doing enough to align marketing with sales. While many have processes to hand leads to sales, fewer have feedback loops or Service Level Agreements.

ITSMA has published the B2B Services and Solutions Lead Management Benchmarks report, which provides insights into best practices for lead qualification, scoring, routing and nurturing, marketing and sales alignment, performance measurement, and leveraging marketing automation.

In addition, to help B2B Marketers plan their journey to lead management success, ITSMA has created a Lead Management Roadmap as part of the report. The Roadmap offers guidance on the steps B2B marketers can take to develop lead management best practices, focusing on defining the process, building the infrastructure, transforming marketing lead management, and optimizing the lead management process. On December 1, ITSMA will host an online briefing to provide more information on the Lead Management Roadmap and the survey results: http://www.itsma.com/events/navigate-the-four-stages-of-lead-management/.

METHODOLOGY

The B2B Services and Solutions Lead Management Benchmarks survey included responses from 85 representatives from 76 leading technology, communications, and professional services companies.

ITSMA analyzed the data by:

• Company type (Sells products and services or sells primarily services)
• Annual revenue (Less than $100M, $100M–$999M, more than or equal to $1B)
• Lead management performance (Leaders and laggards)

For more information on the study, please see http://www.itsma.com/research/b2b-services-and-solutions-lead-management-benchmarks/ or contact Julie Schwartz at +1-781-862-8500, x112, or at jschwartz@itsma.com.

Application

2011 Award Winners

Winners Press Release |   Project Summaries 2.6Mb PDF

Building Client Loyalty and Trust	Diamond Award: HCL America Gold Award: Cisco
Developing New Markets	Diamond Award: IBM Gold Award: SAP
Driving Business with Thought Leadership	Diamond Award: Deloitte Financial Advisory Services LLP Gold Award: Cognizant Gold Award: IBM
Enabling Sales Channels	Diamond Award: Fujitsu Gold Award: Cisco
Generating and Nurturing Leads	Diamond Award: IBM Gold Award: Microsoft Corporation
Marketing with Social Media	Diamond Award: HP Gold Award: HDS

Building Client Loyalty and Trust

Diamond Award: HCL America HCL’s Customer Advisory Council (CAC) is a collaborative, global forum where 80 of HCL’s Fortune 500 C-level customers and thought leaders convene biannually to advise HCL on industry trends, changing business priorities and its strategic direction. The CAC also serves as a platform for HCL’s customers and their peers to exchange ideas, best practices and network. HCL is successfully running three CAC Chapters, (two US, one European) and is set to launch its APAC council next month. Tangible outcomes of the CAC include: higher customer retention, satisfaction and revenue growth.

Gold Award: Cisco The Cisco Services Partner Advisory Board Program tackles major challenges facing Cisco and services partners: simplifying complex operational and economic models, and reducing overhead and administrative costs of doing business with Cisco.  Focused on sweeping transformation of service delivery, the program drives deep partner loyalty. Engaged as co-creators, partners help Cisco build win-win-win relationships for themselves, our customers, and our bottom line. Participants are strong advocates willing to invest with Cisco, and in turn experience best-in-class bookings and return on investment. The program sets the cornerstone to partner loyalty: a differentiated value proposition that competes on value rather than price.

Developing New Markets

Diamond Award: IBM In March, IBM launched Smarter Commerce to help clients capitalize on the digital, social and mobile reshaping of “commerce” and increase the value that they generate for their customers in a rapidly-changing, digital world. In developing this new market, IBM employed a three–pronged, integrated marketing and sales approach to “plant the seed”, “set the vision” and “make it real”. The response surpassed objectives – with the influencer communities not only embracing this new market, but anticipating significant “first mover advantage” for IBM. Smarter Commerce generated over $200 million in pipeline and over $100 million in signings revenue for consulting services.

Gold Award: SAP SAP Rapid Deployment solutions represent an innovative new offering type and brand.  Consisting of preconfigured software, predefined services, content and user enablement, these solutions provide customers with unprecedented predictability, integration and choice.  In order for SAP to successfully bring these solutions to market, all of its organizational units – from development to consulting, delivery, marketing, and sales – had to change the way they approach solutions in order to create a complete, integrated process.  SAP formally launched five SAP Rapid Deployment solutions in September 2010, and the response from analysts, industry influencers, bloggers, and most importantly, customers, has been overwhelmingly positive. The combination of game-changing solution offerings, comprehensive program management, and innovative marketing and sales-enablement strategies has resulted in wins across all regions and a rapidly expanding portfolio.  Learn more at www.sap.com/rapid-deployment.

Driving Business with Thought Leadership

Diamond Award: Deloitte Financial Advisory Services LLP Deloitte Discovery, a practice within Deloitte Financial Advisory Services LLP, wanted to raise its awareness and credibility among corporate legal departments and law firms. In response, the marketing team designed a thought leadership program using idea marketing, in which we provide valuable content instead of content on our services. This started the movement to position Deloitte as a leader in e-discovery, both from a consultancy and a service delivery perspective. Idea marketing included conducting research, building an idea network, distributing content via a non-commercial website, and tracking return. Idea marketing has led to an increase in revenue and industry recognition.

Gold Award: Cognizant The Cognizant “Future is now. Let’s put it to work” thought leadership program is about a new, 21st century approach to productivity and competitiveness. It is a message to forward-thinkers, change agents and C-suite catalysts. A first for Cognizant, the integrated marketing campaign has been adopted as the organization’s unified thought leadership platform.  The galvanizing message is used across all communication channels inside and outside the company. It is clearly an approach that resonates with the company’s global marketplace and clients resulting in increased awareness, elevated brand perception, driven social media engagement, and resulted in greater, more meaningful client conversations. Visit www.cognizant.com/futureofwork to experience the Future of Work.

Gold Award: IBM Last February, an IBM computer named Watson made history when it defeated Jeopardy!’s two greatest champions. But for IBM the real victory would be educating decision makers on Watson’s enormous potential to solve tough business challenges. One of the company’s most successful integrated campaigns, the IBM Watson program used thought leadership to build understanding of Watson-like technologies and their implications on business, key industries such as healthcare, and society. The campaign captured the world’s imagination, generating 1.3 billion impressions, awareness among 70% of the general US population, double-digit millions in related revenue, and increased interest in IBM as an employer – all within the campaign’s first three months.

Enabling Sales Channels

Diamond Award: Fujitsu The Fujitsu ‘Enabling Field Sales to deliver Business Results’ programme is an innovative, industrialised targeting process designed to help the organisation win high-value managed IT service contracts within the private sector. Within a five month period, the programme has delivered real business results including a 21.6% increase in new opportunities within the pipeline. “The Marketing Team have really stepped up to the mark and I was blown away by the tools they have developed. I see Sales and Marketing as one team achieving together rather than one of a supply and demand model.” (Duncan Tait, CEO, Fujitsu UK & Ireland)

Gold Award: Cisco Cisco Collaborative Services is changing the relationship between Cisco and our partners. Collaborative Services helps partners use Cisco’s Smart Services, intellectual capital, and global service infrastructure as assets to combine with their own capabilities. Interactive sales tools help Cisco sales personnel qualify partners, gather information about business goals, assess risk, and enable discussions about business benefits. Hundreds of partners are actively engaged in selling Collaborative Services. Our interactive sales tools help target the right partners for the right collaborative offers. These tools are crucial in helping our partners transform their business, mitigate their risk, and in expanding Cisco sales channels. URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=auD29GulYDg

Generating and Nurturing Leads

Diamond Award: IBM IBM uses predictive analytics to optimize marketing strategy and execution – few match IBM’s global scale in terms of tactics executed, audiences nurtured, and offerings.  The Target—Marketing Analytics Platform (Target-MAP) is central to IBM’s global strategy to deliver country-specific analytic models to drive demand generation activities.  As marketing databases expand – and offerings diversify – how do we optimize alignment between clients and product offerings?  Target-MAP incorporates cutting-edge analytic automation that embeds analytic modeling into demand programs.  Target-MAP generates analytic insights that optimize marketing results – yielding a higher quality pipeline and optimized won revenue.

Gold Award: Microsoft Corporation While Microsoft customers demonstrated interest by engaging with Microsoft, if they were not “lead-ready” for sales or partner hand-off, they fell off Marketing’s radar. Approximately 80 percent of customers engaging with Microsoft received no follow-up. The Marketing team created an innovative engine leveraging behavioral insights from online and in-person engagements to deliver the most relevant information to the correct customer contacts. In addition to transforming the go-to-market approach, results include more successful, integrated and lower-cost campaigns; increased customer satisfaction; greater scale; an unprecedented level of cross-marketing collaboration; and significant improvements in customer responses. Read more

Marketing with Social Media

Diamond Award: HP HP Technology Services implemented a brand awareness program, utilizing a multi-faceted social media component for the first time. This innovative use of social media, focusing on the “human factor”, resulted in: SOV increasing 146% q/q; LinkedIn ads had 4.5million+ impressions, driving traffic to FB quiz, with 10,000+ tab views, increasing fans by 149%; YouTube videos doubled q/q, and 52,000+ visited our Meet the Experts site: www.hp.com/go/tsconnect. A USA Today article drove traffic to our Sweepstakes, helping us reach our $100K contribution to CARE in just 9 days.

Gold Award: HDS Hitachi Data Systems (HDS) was embarking on its biggest product launch in recent history.  With a huge awareness and lead generation challenge, yet a small budget and a limited share of voice, HDS needed to be creative in extending the message through new channels and new voices. HDS selected a services offer – a Storage Economics assessment – as the lead promotion and developed a “treasure hunt” contest, sponsored a bloggers day, and integrated social media into the global mix.   The campaign exceeded its goals, delivering a20% uplift in engagements, 600 new leads, 6000 views and a resulting stellar product launch.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

LEXINGTON, Massachusetts—October 26, 2011—ITSMA, the leading marketing association for technology, communications, and professional services providers, celebrated the winners of its 2011 Marketing Excellence Awards during its 18^th Annual Marketing Conference today in Cambridge, MA.

“All of the entries this year were exceptionally strong in a very competitive field. What made the winners stand out was the way they married innovation with great planning and execution,” said Dave Munn, president and CEO of ITSMA. “The best programs were ambitious and creative, and in many cases, were groundbreaking within their company or industry.

“They also showed how important it is for marketing programs to be based on research, executed flawlessly, and measured rigorously,” Munn added. “Most importantly, they demonstrated their impact on business metrics, such as revenue. The winners should all be commended for their hard work and for raising the professionalism for B2B marketing. These programs are a model of what all marketing programs ought to be.”

The 2011 Marketing Excellence Awards focused on six critical areas of B2B marketing:

• Building Client Loyalty and Trust
• Developing New Markets
• Driving Business with Thought Leadership
• Enabling Sales Channels
• Generating and Nurturing Leads
• Marketing with Social Media

An international jury of marketing executives and experts selected the winners based on excellence in situation analysis, innovation, program execution, and business results. The awards honor excellence at two levels: diamond and gold.

2011 Winners

Building Client Loyalty and Trust

• Diamond Award: HCL America
• Gold Award: Cisco

Developing New Markets

• Diamond Award: IBM
• Gold Award: SAP

Driving Business with Thought Leadership

• Diamond Award: Deloitte Financial Advisory Services LLP
• Gold Award: Cognizant
• Gold Award: IBM

Enabling Sales Channels

• Diamond Award: Fujitsu
• Gold Award: Cisco

Generating and Nurturing Leads

• Diamond Award: IBM
• Gold Award: Microsoft Corporation

Marketing with Social Media

• Diamond Award: HP
• Gold Award: HDS

For detailed information about the award winners, visit http://www.itsma.com/news/11-mea-winners/.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

PRLog (Press Release) – Sep 08, 2011 – ITSMA, the leading marketing association for technology, communications, and professional services firms, today announced the finalists in its fourteenth annual Marketing Excellence Awards (MEA) program.

The program honors the marketing strategies, programs, and campaigns that have achieved excellence worldwide. The awards put special emphasis on marketing innovation, program execution, and measurable business results.

“Congratulations to all the finalists—their work this year was outstanding,” said Dave Munn, President and CEO of ITSMA.

ITSMA received the second most submissions since the awards program began in 1998, including many in the new categories, Building Client Loyalty and Trust and Developing New Markets. “It’s not just the number of entries that’s impressive, it’s the quality,” Munn said. “These entries show us how B2B marketing is maturing. Marketers are using data and analytics more to drive growth and client loyalty.”

An international panel of marketing executives and experts will select the winners, who will be announced at a special awards ceremony during ITSMA’s 2011 Annual Marketing Conference, Getting Passionate About Customer Intimacy, on October 26 at The Charles Hotel in Cambridge, MA.

The 2011 ITSMA Marketing Excellence Award categories and finalists are:

• Building Client Loyalty and Trust: BT, Cisco, HCL America, Lawson Software, Microsoft
• Developing New Markets: CGI, IBM, Infosys, SAP
• Driving Business with Thought Leadership: Cognizant, Deloitte LLP, IBM, Northrop Grumman, Unisys
• Enabling Sales Channels: Cisco, Capgemini, Fujitsu, Infosys
• Generating and Nurturing Leads: Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Microsoft, Babcock & Jenkins for Qwest
• Marketing with Social Media: Cisco, Hewlett-Packard, Hitachi Data Systems, Informatica

Select winners will speak at ITSMA’s Annual Marketing Conference, along with industry leaders from Capgemini, Digital Influence Group, Geehan Group, HCL, Tata Consultancy Services, Trompenaars Hampden-Turner, Zipcar, and more.

For more information about the Marketing Excellence Awards and ITSMA’s 2011 Annual Marketing Conference, visit: http://www.itsma.com/events/marketing-conference-2011/.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

PRLog (Press Release) – May 10, 2011 – Data-savvy marketing organizations have shorter sales cycles, lower sales costs, and greater improvements in market share. These are the findings of a joint ITSMA and Patricia Seybold Group survey to understand how B2B marketers in professional services, technology, and telecommunications companies are using marketing data to make marketing and business decisions.

ITSMA defines data-savvy organizations as those who share three important characteristics:

• A culture that places importance on making decisions based on data and analysis,
• Formalized data collection processes and clear expectations, and
• Leading edge or above average data usage to support marketing activities.

The survey showed that while B2B services marketers recognized that data-driven marketing is important, very few considered themselves as leading-edge users of marketing data. Furthermore, only a handful of senior executives are relying on marketing data to make decisions.

“If you have a data-driven marketing organization, you will see business benefits,” says Julie Schwartz, senior vice president of research and thought leadership for ITSMA. “But becoming data driven isn’t easy and it takes time.”

The key traits differentiating data-savvy marketing organizations from other organizations are:

• Time and experience with data collection and analysis,
• A marketing technology strategy,
• Data governance,
• Dedicated analytics resources, and
• Organizational outreach, resulting in non-marketing executives having greater confidence in the data.

The survey respondents—107 marketers at 71 companies—were asked questions about how they use data to report performance, inform decisions, predict buyer behavior, and forecast trends.

Schwartz and Sue McKittrick, Analyst and Principal Consultant at Patricia Seybold Group, will be presenting highlights from the survey during ITSMA’s Online Member Briefing, Marketing Metrics to Business Metrics: Taking the Leap, May 17, 2011, at 8:00 a.m. PT, 11:00 a.m. ET, 16:00 London time. Visit http://www.itsma.com/events/marketing-metrics-to-busines … for information on this briefing.

In addition, Schwartz will talk about the Data Driven Organization at ITSMA’s 10th Marketing Leadership Forum in Chicago on May 24, 2011. Visit http://www.itsma.com/events/marketing-leadership-forum-2011/ for details on this event.

Methodology
ITSMA conducted an online Web-based survey with 107 representatives from 71 companies, and 17 follow-up 30-minute qualitative phone interviews. ITSMA analyzed the data by company type, annual revenue, and degree of data usage and maturity. The majority of respondents were from five industries:

• Telecommunications Services,
• Network Systems and Solutions,
• Computer Systems and Solutions,
• Software Solutions, and
• Professional Services.

For more information on the survey, please see http://www.itsma.com/research/data-driven-survey-2011/ or contact Julie Schwartz at jschwartz@itsma.com, or at +1-781-862-8500, Ext. 112.

At the Forum, attendees will be challenged, through research, case studies, and interaction with high-level marketing peers, to look both inside and outside their organizations to focus on increasing their relevance and intimacy with prospects and customers throughout every stage of the buying process.

A True Leadership Event

ITSMA’s Marketing Leadership Forum is the only event designed specifically for B2B marketing executives, director level and above, at technology, communications, and professional services companies.

“The Marketing Leadership Forum is always one of our highest rated events,” said Dave Munn, President and CEO. “It is truly tailored to senior marketers and offers them a great opportunity to hear directly from their peers about the challenges that are unique to services marketers, as well the innovative ways that marketers are delivering value to their organizations.”

Compelling Content

The agenda covers issues that are top of mind for senior B2B marketers. There will be sessions on:

• Aligning Corporate and Field Marketing
• Customer Loyalty & Intimacy
• Data Driven Marketing
• Helping Customers Adopt Game-changing Technology
• Improving the Relevance of Thought Leadership
• Integrating Social Media into the Marketing Mix
• Key Account Marketing
• Sales Excellence
• Total Marketing Measurability

In addition, Chicago’s own Second City Communications will facilitate an interactive session on change and adaptability to help senior marketing leaders demonstrate the business value of marketing in the ever-shifting corporate environment.

Outstanding Speakers

The Forum’s outstanding speakers are top marketing and sales leaders from some of the world’s best companies, including:

• BT Global Services—Neil Blakesley, Vice President, Marketing
• Capgemini—John Manos, Chief Marketing Officer, North America Marketing
• Hewlett-Packard—Michelle Weiss, Vice President, Worldwide Marketing, Technology Services
• Hudson—Rick Gray, Senior Vice President, Marketing & Communications
• McKinsey & Company—Sunil Rayan, Associate Principal, and Jon Vander Ark, Principal
• Oracle—Steve Pinedo, Vice President, Customer Services Marketing
• SAP—Brian Ellefritz, Senior Director, Social Media Marketing

In addition, ITSMA’s own Julie Schwartz, Senior Vice President, Research & Thought Leadership, and Chris Koch, Associate Vice President, Research & Thought Leadership, will be presenting highlights from ITSMA’s recent research on Data Driven Marketing and on Thought Leadership.

One-to-one Meetings with ITSMA Subject Matter Experts

Forum attendees can also schedule one-to-one meetings with an ITSMA subject matter expert during the Forum. A sampling of topics for one-to-one meetings includes:

• Account-Based Marketing
• Brand positioning
• Customer Satisfaction and Loyalty Programs
• Internal Communications
• Lead Generation and Nurturing
• Sales enablement
• Social media marketing
• Thought Leadership

Through these one-to-one conversations, attendees can take advantage of the intimate setting of the Forum and gain insight into their toughest marketing challenges.

Registration and Pricing

To register for the Forum, go to http://www.itsma.com/events/marketing-leadership-forum-2011/. The early bird discount of $300 has been extended to May 12, and there is an initial discount if three or more people from an organization attend the Forum. Contact ITSMA at info@itsma.com for details about special discounts.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

PRLog (Press Release) – Mar 8, 2011 – ITSMA, the leading marketing association for technology, communications, and professional services providers, is making some changes in its 2011 Marketing Excellence Awards program to keep pace with marketing’s expanding role.

The awards program, now in its fourteenth year, honors the marketing strategies, programs, and campaigns that have achieved excellence at technology, telecom, communications, consulting, and professional services firms worldwide. The awards put special emphasis on marketing innovation, program execution, and measurable business results. Submission deadline is June 3, 2011.

“This year, our categories show how B2B marketing is maturing,” said Dave Munn, President and CEO. “Each of the categories allows applicants not only to showcase their great marketing strategies and tactics, but also to emphasize how integral marketing is to overall business success.”

Categories for 2011
Entries for the 2011 Marketing Excellence Awards program may be submitted in the following six categories:

• Building Client Loyalty and Trust: Marketing programs designed to deepen the relationship with existing clients, to foster loyalty, and to build a partnership based on mutual trust.
• Developing New Markets: Expanding into new verticals, new categories, or emerging markets, building a presence, and balancing global/corporate and local/field strategies and tactics.
• Driving Business with Thought Leadership: Creating and disseminating high quality thought leadership utilizing new and traditional vehicles to more effectively drive business.
• Enabling Sales Channels: Improving sales effectiveness by enabling sales channels (including field sales, telesales, channel partner sales, and alliance partner sales) to drive business results.
• Generating and Nurturing Leads: Marketing initiatives that create awareness, generate demand, identify leads, and nurture prospective customers at all stages of the buying process.
• Marketing with Social Media: Integrating social media into individual marketing programs, the overall marketing strategy, as well as the business.

Criteria for Judging
Entries for the 2011 Marketing Excellence Awards program are judged on the following criteria:

• Quality of the research and analysis that was done to understand the problem or opportunity
• Level of innovation
• Effectiveness of implementation
• Appropriate metrics
• Measurable impact on the business

Deadline for Submissions
The deadline for submissions is Friday, June 3, 2011. The winners will be announced at a special awards reception at ITSMA’s Annual Marketing Conference in October.

Last year’s winners included: Avaya, BT, Capgemini, Cisco, GE Healthcare, Hewlett-Packard Corporation, IBM, Microsoft, and TELUS.

Submission Guidelines
The awards are open to all companies worldwide that market and sell services and solutions. Visit ITSMA’s Website at http://www.itsma.com/news/mea/ for detailed submission guidelines and the application form.

General inquiries
Contact us at +1-781-862-8500, or info@itsma.com.