Pacifica Group

Managed Services Provider (MSP) Benchmark Study

by Sridhar Ramanathan

We are conducting research in conjunction with Untangle, an open source network gateway company and partner to MSPs nationwide, and welcome you to join in on the survey we're fielding. We're conducting this independent market research study to help new and existing MSPs learn from their peers.

Subject: Learn how Managed Services Providers (MSPs) stack up on services and pricing

Purpose: Helping new and existing MSPs learn from their peers

Topics:

Comparison of MSP service offerings

Benchmark on how these services are priced

Insight into the next big offering in managed services

To find out more or to begin the survey, click here to get started:

Respondents who complete the entire survey by May 9, 2008, will receive a detailed report of the study results – valuable and strategic data to help guide and keep your MSP business on track!

About Us:
Pacifica Group, founded in 2001, is an independent consulting firm that provides a range of business strategy and marketing services including market research, market assessments, product planning and launch, channel development, and interim executive/management roles.

Posted April 24, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0)
Posted to Leadership , Marketing , Other , Technology

Part II: How to Select and Optimize Outsourced Teleprospecting

by Sridhar Ramanathan

My last blog entry featured a podcast with Brian Carroll, CEO of InTouch, on the topic of selecting and optimizing your outsourced telesales relationship. But if you’d rather just read my talking points than listen to the podcast, then continue here.

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Posted April 18, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (2)
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Podcast: How to Select and Optimize Outsourced Teleprospecting

by Sridhar Ramanathan

This week I had the great honor and pleasure of being interviewed by Brian Carroll, author of Lead Generation for the Complex Sale and CEO of InTouch, a top notch lead generation firm. The topic was how to select and optimize outsourced teleprospecting. What prompted the podcast was a conversation earlier with Brian in which I'd shared some insights that we'd gleaned after having screened, hired and managed a number of telesales/teleprospecting firms for our clients this last year. I hope you find the podcast informative. Click here to check it out. Your comments are most welcome.

Posted April 16, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0)
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Successfully Implementing Positioning in Organizations

by Reena Kapoor

I’ve now worked on several strategic positioning projects for clients and have come to the realization that the harder part is not developing strong positioning for companies or their products. The greater challenge actually lies in implementing it successfully. Don’t get me wrong. Developing strong, distinctive and meaningful positioning is crucial. And – contrary to popular belief – it actually takes effort and skill to create it. Sridhar Ramanathan my partner here at Pacifica Group (a Conifer alliance) actually wrote a blog entry describing the characteristics of good positioning. He’s right on.

But I am sure you’ve heard the countless stories where a lot of time was spent and a fancy positioning was created only to gather dust. While positioning can be targeted at any stakeholder, for the purpose of this article, I am going to focus on positioning targeted at customers. I want to talk about how and what determines that a positioning will be successfully implemented. Some of it has to do with the development process, some with characteristics of the output and some with your internal company workflows. Here are some of the factors I have found to be crucial:

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Posted April 3, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (2)
Posted to Marketing , Marketing Management

Turning Anxiety Into Advantage

by Sridhar Ramanathan

My fellow consulting firm owners and corporate exec buddies often ask me, “Aren’t you nervous about being self-employed and supporting a family of six on an unpredictable salary?” The answer is “yes.”

In the early days of my practice, I found myself very worried about the up and down nature of consulting after I’d grown so accustomed to the steady paychecks over my twelve year tenure at HP. Now after being in business for seven years, I actually find anxiety to be a very useful leadership tool.

This isn’t entirely an original insight. Andy Grove warned us long ago with his book Only The Paranoid Survive. My point is that it doesn’t have to be scary and painful if you embrace anxiety as another useful emotion like anger, frustration, etc and put it to good work such as in driving change in an organization. Here are just a few thoughts on how anxiety has worked for me and how it could work for you as well.

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Posted March 23, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (2)
Posted to Leadership , Marketing Management , Sales Effectiveness

Corporate Integrity and the Role of Marketing

by Sridhar Ramanathan

Corporate%20integrity.JPG One of the bright spots in IT spending today is enterprise software and services that support the alphabet soup of compliance regulations (SEC, SOX, PCI, HIPAA, FISMA, OSHA, etc.). One of our clients, SAP, is doing a great job capturing share as the market for governance, risk, and compliance (GRC) software is expanding rapidly. Perhaps one of the key motivators for this growth is fear: fear of facing stiff financial penalties and/or even prison sentences for non-compliance. Examples in the business software industry alone include: Computer Associates’s execs being jailed for SEC violations and McAfee facing a $50M penalty for accounting trickery. But compliance is actually further down the Maslow hierarchy of needs. Corporate integrity would be a higher rung which calls corporate managers to “do the right thing” and elevate the organizations’ contribution beyond its immediate stakeholders.

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Posted March 19, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (2)
Posted to Leadership , Marketing , Marketing Management

BusinessLaunch Partnership Deepens

by Sridhar Ramanathan

I'm pleased to announce that Pacifica Group is deepening its relationship with BusinessLaunch by offering an even more seamless solution to our high tech client base. We've already partnered to deliver greater client value at SAP, Symantec, Postini, and many more. I am also pleased to team up with Intelligent Partner Solutions as part of this alliance. Below is the full press release. We look forward to a bright 2008.

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Posted March 11, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0)
Posted to Announcements