Support Services Marketing: Are You Future Proof?

August 14, 2007
8:00 am Pacific – 11:00 am Eastern – 16:00 London (Duration: One hour)
(Free for ITSMA members)

Registration Closed

Future proofing describes the elusive process of trying to anticipate future developments, so that action can be taken to minimize possible negative consequences, and to seize opportunities. — Wikipedia

Overview

Support services revenue streams are under pressure. Technology is more reliable. Hardware is disposable. IT departments are being told to decrease costs, especially the recurring costs of maintaining their technology assets. Evergreen contracts and automatic renewals are things of the past as each transaction is thoroughly scrutinized and contracts are renegotiated. Disruption is imminent.

As support becomes more automated, more predictable, and less critical, companies are losing their ability to use support to demonstrate value to customers. To provide real value, companies need to reposition support services to go beyond traditional break-fix and help customers deal with their overall business issues—which remain far from automated and predictable.

So what should you be doing to future proof your support services business?

Join Julie Schwartz, senior vice president of research and thought leadership at ITSMA, and Jeff Kaplan, founder and managing director of THINKstrategies, as they examine the disruptive forces impacting the support services market and outline the strategies you need to take to avoid extinction.

The Briefing is complimentary for ITSMA members and $195 for nonmembers.

Presenters	[TOP OF PAGE]

Julie oversees ITSMA’s thought leadership development and custom research. She has authored numerous reports and articles on technology services trends, marketing, branding, and sales topics, and is a frequent speaker at public events and client meetings. Julie created ITSMA’s Solutions Roadmap and Services Competency Assessment, developed a balanced scorecard approach to measuring services marketing performance, and designed ITSMA’s 360° brand assessment research, which helps companies better understand how their brands are perceived by customers, prospects, partners, employees, and influencers.

Prior to joining ITSMA in 1996, Julie was an analyst with State Street Research. Earlier, Julie was the director of professional services research for Dataquest and manager of research for The Ledgeway Group.

Julie holds a Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Pennsylvania, where she graduated summa cum laude and was elected a member of Phi Beta Kappa. She also has a Master of Science in Management from the MIT Sloan School of Management, where she was named a Seley Scholar.

Prior to forming THINKstrategies, Jeff served as vice president of marketing and business development at InterOPS Management Solutions—an Internet Operations Management Services Provider—where he established the company’s corporate marketing and strategic alliance programs, including channel relationships. In this position, Jeff established InterOPS as an important player in the Management Services Provider (MSP) market from a ‘stealth’ mode operation in just three months. His creative marketing and partnership activities helped to double the company’s client base, establish alliance agreements, and win it industry recognition as an innovation leader.

Prior to joining InterOPS, Jeff was Director of Strategic Marketing at Lucent Technologies Worldwide Services. He holds a BA from Rutgers University and a MBA from Boston College.

General Information	[TOP OF PAGE]

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	[TOP OF PAGE]

This briefing will be administered by BT Conferencing. All participants are required to test their browsers 24-48 hours prior to ensure compatibility. This test can be done by clicking here: Check your system. You will receive a pass code and dial in number three business days prior to the briefing.

The technical requirements for this ITSMA online briefing are:

• Direct or dial-up Internet connection of 56Kbps or higher.
• 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 IT technician to reconfigure your connections if necessary to ensure access to the Internet portion of the briefing.
• No plug-ins or software downloads are required.
• System Requirements: Windows 2000 or higher, Internet Explorer 6.x or greater, Netscape 7.2 or later. The following operating systems will work with limitations: Windows 98 SE, NT Server or Workstation 4.0, Mac OSX 10.3 with Safari 1.2; Solaris 9 with Netscape 7.0 or Mozilla 1.4, Sun JVM 1.4.2.

Fees and Registration	[TOP OF PAGE]

Aside from the telephone call, the fee for the presentation is complimentary for active ITSMA members, and $195 per location for non-members.

Note: Registration is on a first-come/first-served basis. You must register by 5:00 pm ET, August 13, 2007.