Steve Hurley interviews Nina Hargus, VP of Global Services at EMC Corporation on some of the difficulties in enabling the channel to sell solutions
A friend recently had the good fortune not only to take over marketing for a successful B2B firm, but to do so with a mandate to build a new strategy that ensures a much greater impact on the business.
He's a bit like a kid in a candy store. He's got budget to spend, executive support for more ambitious marketing, and a relatively clean slate upon which to draw the new strategy.
IBM's hot-off-the-press 2010 CEO Study confirms again what solutions marketers already know: getting closer to customers is a strategic priority. An overwhelming 88% of large enterprise CEOs told IBM that getting closer to customers is a top business strategy for the next five years, placing it at the top of the list. An even higher number of the best performing CEOs, 95%, stressed the point.
We're thrilled that Tom Sadtler, a veteran marketer with deep experience in solutions marketing at HP, CA, and other industry leaders, has joined the fold at Solutions Insights as one of our trusted associates. Tom is particularly interested in organizational change for solutions, and agreed to follow Steve's recent post on organizational models with some suggestions on how companies can actually get moving on the necessary transformation.
Here are Tom's thoughts:
Most B2B IT companies these days understand the benefits of selling integrated solutions: improved customer satisfaction and the potential to sell bigger offerings with higher revenue and margin.
As B2B marketers invest more money and time in both thought leadership and social media, they risk missing a great deal of potential benefit they can achieve by bringing the two together in a holistic way.
All too often, at least in my experience in the tech sector, marketers investing in thought leadership view social media primarily as a channel for disseminating content.
B2B marketers know that thought leadership is essential, especially when selling high-value solutions. Business buyers tune out most traditional marketing, but they are always looking for new ideas. If we can produce interesting and useful content, and use social media and other platforms to spread the good word, we at least have a chance of getting into the conversations that our customers and prospects actually want to have.
I'm pleased to announce the launch our new Point of View series.
Over the next several months, we'll release a series of short, research-based perspectives on how companies can improve performance in their solutions businesses.
Our first Point of View, Adjusting to the New Reality: Four Steps to Solutions Growth, is available now. It outlines four initiatives companies can take to accelerate solutions growth through the rest of 2009 while also repositioning their organizations for longer-term success.
Based on new research with our partner ITSMA, the Point of View highlights findings from a survey with more than 30 B2B solutions providers on four critical initiatives:
Solutions Insights