Online Survey: Anatomy of a Solutions Marketer
| Author: |
Julie Schwartz, Steve Hurley |
| Published: |
May 23, 2012 |
| Ref. Number: |
SV4583 |
| Pages: |
104 |
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Today, regardless of a company’s size, solutions marketing is viewed as very important to the business. Unfortunately, the role of marketing solutions is not well understood outside of the marketing function.
In this study of solutions marketers, nearly two-thirds of survey respondents view solutions marketing as more difficult than product marketing. B2B solutions marketers face a number of challenges, including:
- Internal struggles
- Shifting the culture from products/services to solutions
- Enabling the sales force to sell solutions
- Working across organizational silos
- Need for business oriented value propositions
- Divided responsibilities—solutions marketers are also responsible for marketing products and/or services
Furthermore, few solutions marketers are dedicated solely to solutions marketing—they have other responsibilities as well.
Successful solutions marketers are not born—they are made. It takes experience, knowledge, and ability to foster relationships across the organization. To be successful, solutions marketers have to:
- Foster communication across organizational silos
- Be catalysts for change
- Ensure that the entire company understands the importance of solutions
Download an Abbreviated Summary
Study Methodology
- Online Web-based survey
- Survey invitations were emailed during January and February 2012 to contacts from the databases of the following organizations:
- ITSMA
- Solutions Insights
- ISA (International Society of Automation)
- ISBM (Institute for the Study of Business Management at Penn State University)
- CSL (Center for Services Leadership at Arizona State University)
- 133 representatives from 92 companies responded to the Web survey
- The results were analyzed by:
- Percentage of revenue from solutions (Less than 40%; 40–79%; 80% or more)
- Type of company (sell primarily services vs. sell both products and services)
- Size of company (annual revenue: Less than $1B; $1–4.9B; $5–49B; more than $49B)
- Title (“solutions marketing” included in the respondent’s title vs. do marketing in a solutions organizational unit)
- Primary business (technology company vs. non-technology company)
This report is available free of charge to current ITSMA members that responded to this survey. Companies that responded but are not members of ITSMA will receive an Executive Summary.
If your company is on the list below, please send us an email (using your company email) and request your free report. Orders will be processed the next business day.
- Abacus International Pte Ltd
- Alcatel-Lucent
- AMD/Hult MBA
- Ariba
- Autodesk
- Avanade
- Avaya
- BMC Software
- Brink’s Incorporated
- Business Information Solutions, Inc.
- Capco
- Capgemini
- Cardinal Health
- CCS
- CompuCom
- ControlSoft, Inc.
- Cox Business
- CSC
- Dell
- Deloitte
- Demandware
- Diebold, Inc.
- Dimension Data
- Dixons Retail trading as Equanet
- Dow Corning
- Eaton Corporation
- Eltronic
- EMC
- Emerson Process Management
- Endress+Hauser
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- Farient Advisors LLC
- Forbo Siegling China
- Forsythe
- GE Healthcare
- HCL Technologies
- Heartland IT Consulting
- Hewlett-Packard
- Honeywell
- IBM
- Invensys
- Jacobs Engineering
- Kaman Industrial Technologies
- Kendall Electric
- Kennametal
- Koso America
- Kronos Incorporated
- Lean Manufacturing Research
- Level 3
- LifeYield
- Logica
- Masso Analitica
- Metrohm USA
- Nalco, an Ecolab Company
- Nemsys
- Ness Technologies
- Northrop Grumman
- NW Analytics
- Orange Business Services
- OSF Global Services
- Philips
- PMSI, Inc.
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- Point of Reference
- PolyOne corporation
- Primary Systems, Inc.
- ProSys
- PTC
- Rally
- Real Time Automation
- River Heights Consulting
- Rockwell Automation
- SAP
- Service Performance Insight
- Siemens
- Siemens Enterprise Communications
- Sourcing Change
- Stratus Technology
- SunGard Availability Services
- Sysmex America, Inc.
- Tata Consultancy Services
- TCS Ltd
- Telesian
- TELUS
- Vaisala
- VDC Research Group
- VEM
- Verizon
- Vertex, Inc.
- VMware
- WCG
- Westinghouse Electric Company
- Yokogawa Electric Corporation
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