Technology

A New Paradigm for Telesales – Introducing Myndnet

by Sridhar Ramanathan

I’ve written a lot about lead generation harping on the issue of poor lead quality and disappointing lead handoffs between marketing and sales. One of the solutions to this “alignment” problem is hiring a good telesales or inside sales firm that can do the job of filtering “raw” leads generated from marketing efforts and delivering only well qualified leads to the sales organization. And usually these “brick and mortar” firms are well worth the money costing about $2000-$3000 per sales opportunity they deliver assuming an average initial selling price of at least $50K. The only challenge is that these firms have downsides—ramp up can take six months or more, fees are too often not tied to performance, retainer contracts lock clients in for at least one year, and employees of these firms are cold calling experts rather than warm introduction producers who are one or two degrees of freedom away from your target decision-maker.

Enter Myndnet. Rather than hire telesales employees, they post client requests for quality leads (or business opportunities) on their website and to their membership of hundreds of individuals in the marketplace who signup to be Myndnet Pros. These “Pro” individuals that Myndnet screens rigorously might be freelance HR recruiters, sales/marketing professionals, IT employees, consultants, editors, analysts, etc who want to make a little extra money by providing introductions to people they know who might be actively looking for the client’s product or service. Think of this as the “open source approach” to telesales, a truly different paradigm than the call center model.

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Posted May 29, 2008 | Permalink

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 23, 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

Why Software-as-a-Service is Growing

by Sridhar Ramanathan

If you're hearing more and more about the emerging Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) business model, check out Axel Schultze's blog where he does a nice job articulating the benefits of Software-as-a-Service over traditional enterprise software. Axel Schultze is CEO of Tanooma, a Software as a Service provider, and his partner is Dr. Timothy Chou, former executive of Oracle On Demand. Here are his top ten reasons for the emergence of SaaS:

• Time to value
• Perpetual service model
• Major transformation in usability and support structure
• Financial predictability
• Leveraged Administration, reduced cost
• Data security and reliability
• Meta Data - Business Benchmarks
• Technology Free Information Management
• User Integration
Explosive Growth

Check out his blog for the full description. We welcome your own impressions of this emerging business model.

Posted February 12, 2006 | Permalink

Open Source: Unleveling the Playing Field

by Sridhar Ramanathan

In Thomas Friedman’s hot seller, “The World is Flat,” he writes about open-source software calling it a movement that “involves thousands of people around the world coming together online to collaborate in writing everything from their own software to their own operating systems to their own dictionary…” One of the most famous examples of open software is Linux. Some have seen Linux as a lower cost alternative to Microsoft Windows but other real advantages are emerging such as greater flexibility, quality (because more people can debug than handful of employees), scalability and performance. There are drawbacks too. Linda Sonne does a very nice job of presenting a balanced view on open source and its implications to enterprise software vendors in her paper “Open Source: How Will it Reshape the Enterprise Applications World”. I encourage you to give this a careful read. And we welcome your own views and experiences on open source software.

Posted December 13, 2005 | Permalink

The Outsourcing Business - Is It Right For You?

by Sridhar Ramanathan

If you run a channel business, you're probably asking yourself, "should we get into the outsourcing business?" Gartner Group estimates that midsize business spending on IT management services will exceed $15 billion by 2006. Some of the hottest segments include: call center operations, software development and QA, manufacturing, product design, and telesales. If you're responsible for top line growth, you can't afford not to take a hard look.

As the former Marketing exec for HP's Outsourcing Services business unit, I have a few lessons to pass on to you from my tenure. The first point is to understand why companies outsource. The principal drivers for the mid-market are to: focus on core competency, gain time-to-market by buying rather than building wherever possible, to reduce cost, and to increase operational efficiency. Chances are that your own customers are asking you for an outsourced option. Some of you are already down this path. But are you chasing a deal or entering a business? This article offers some criteria for proactively assessing the business opportunity.

Let's also distinguish outsourcing from support services. Outsourcing is typically a long term business relationship with a company that handles a business process or function. Outsourcers provide ongoing operational responsibility not just the design/build phase arising from a software purchase. Outsourcing is the most intimate business relationship imaginable. There is a true sense of shared success and failure. Here's a quick overview of outsourcing pros and cons from both sides of the relationship.

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Posted November 25, 2004 | Permalink