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Q1 2019 | Vol. 24 No. 1

BRAND BUILDERS AC3: Why marketing matters

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Contents 20

Q1 2019

VOLUME 24_ISSUE 1

Interviews 10

Inside a marketing tool bag Kate Massey — CMO of JCurve Solutions — details the provider’s game-changing rebrand and her go-to marketing tools.

16

Customer first, brand second The buyout of Bulletproof by AC3 was no ordinary acquisition — Stephanie Challinor, head of marketing and communications at AC3, explains the process.

Analysis 4

24

30

Marketing masterplan: how can partners engage customers?

20 50

businesses joined forces to create a

As the channel balances emerging

technology powerhouse in Australia,

and established technologies,

under the banner of GrowthOps.

Australian customers are

Engagement Study outlines key

aggressively moving in the direction

technology buyer trends.

of the Internet of Things.

54

In the space of 12 months, nine

Life in the IoT fast lane

IDG’s sixth annual Customer

Marketing: the soft underbelly of the Australian channel

Nine brands, one vision

10

It’s time to think differently about marketing

Partners realise the value of building

Partners remain pessimistic and

out specific marketing strategies to

discouraged by a function they

find new customers in new markets,

know little about, yet a creative

but the channel remains challenged.

agency in Surry Hills is working hard to change such misconceptions.

Finding your (digital) voice Partner marketing has been one of the most talked about subjects in the channel over the last few years – Mark Iles of Tech Research Asia draws on EDGE Research to outline the next

34

sidewalks of New York, LiveTiles is

steps in 2019.

44

Style and substance From the streets of Melbourne, to the lighting up the world through design.

Inside the experience economy: what’s the partner play?

40

Analyse this: data in the enterprise

This exclusive ARN Roundtable

Timothy Mannah, partner of Servian,

assessed the rise of the Experience

outlines the role of data and analytics

Economy in Australia.

in redefining enterprise transformation agendas.

arnnet.com.au Q1 2019

02 Editorial

MARKETING MATTERS

PRESIDENT AND PUBLISHER susan searle

susan_searle@idg.com.au

EDITORIAL editorial director: james henderson james_henderson@idg.com.au

T

he decision to kick-start 2019, and our new quarterly edition calendar, with a blanket focus on marketing was a calculated one.

Marketing, for a long time, was public enemy number one in the channel.

A dark art that no technically-driven business could master, a function incapable of delivering return on investment and simply put, a practice out of sync with the psyche of a reseller.

But after more than 30 years of resistance, a penny is slowly dropping — marketing matters.

New buyers have created a ripple effect, consuming new technologies in new ways through new competitors, helping create a new ecosystem in which traditional rules do not apply.

With customer acquisition top of the agenda, partners now realise that building a brand is no longer an expensive luxury, rather a business necessity.

Hence Brand Builders, our opening issue of the year, designed to deep-dive into all aspects of marketing in the channel, assessing both the potential and pitfalls.

Our cover story this issue features Stephanie Challinor, head of marketing and communications at AC3, who outlined the step-by-step integration of recently acquired Bulletproof from a business and branding perspective.

“Marketing wasn’t just tapped in at the last minute after all of the decisions had been made to update the logos,” clarified Challinor, who spearheaded the integration from the outset.

At AC3, marketing has a seat at the table, likewise at JCurve Solutions, GrowthOps and LiveTiles, in addition to Servian, Somerville Group and Insentra.

Q1 2019 arnnet.com.au

We also take a deeper dive into EDGE Research, outlining the anatomy of a partner alongside the most effective methods to attract the attention of prospective buyers, spanning content, digital and social.

Did you know? 77 per cent of decisionmakers are more likely to consider doing business with a partner who provides education resources than those who don’t.

In leveraging wider IDG findings, we also model the buyer journey to outline the importance of website professionalism, trusted brands and the difference between SMB and enterprise purchasing patterns.

Did you know? SMBs show a higher interest in product tests and reviews than enterprise buyers, who prefer presentations and analyst research.

As buyers engage on social networks, we compare LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook, while investigating the rise of podcasts as a corporate collaboration tool.

Did you know? Buyers researched an average of seven vendors when considering the purchase of Internet of Things products but only four when buying desktop or laptop computers.

Collectively, this issue will peel back the layers of ambiguity and complexity to draw up a viable strategy for success, as partners enter the unknown territory of marketing en masse.

JAMES HENDERSON EDITORIAL DIRECTOR – ARN

head of news: samira sarraf

samira_sarraf@idg.com.au

journalist: julia talevski

julia_talevski@idg.com.au

journalist: eleanor dickinson

eleanor_dickinson@idg.com.au

graphic designer: liam sargent liamsargent@hotmail.com

photographer: christine wong

info@christinewongphotography.com

ADVERTISING account director: cherry yumul cherry_yumul@idg.com.au (02) 9902 2756

account director: eduardo silva eduardo_silva@idg.com.au (02) 9902 2769

account manager: blayne reilly-sealy blayne_reilly-sealy@idg.com.au (02) 9902 2753

account manager: jackson raddysh jackson_raddysh@idg.com.au (02) 9902 2778

events manager: amy woodhead amy_woodhead@idg.com.au (02) 9902 2775

data and campaigns manager: nik gorbachev nik_gorbachev@idg.com.au (02) 9902 2784

marketing and events coordinator: christine wong christine_wong@idg.com.au (02) 9902 2737

idg founder: patrick j mcgovern Editorial published in ARN may not be reproduced in any form whatsoever without written permission.

Copyright 2019, IDG Communications ARN is published by IDG Communications Pty Ltd PO Box 1753, North Sydney, NSW, 2059.

Phone: (02) 9902 2700

IDG is the publisher of ARN and its website (www.arnnet.com.au). If you choose to accept offers, enter competitions or complete surveys contained within them you may be required to provide information about yourself to IDG. IDG will use this information to provide you with products or services you have requested, and may supply your information to contractors that help IDG to do this. IDG may also use your information to inform you of other IDG publications, products, services and events, or give your information to organisations that are providing special prizes or offers and that are clearly associated with the offer. Unless you tell us not to, we may give your information to other organisations that may use it to inform you about other products, services or events or to give to other organisations that may use it for this purpose. To gain access to the information IDG holds about you, please contact IDG’s Privacy Officer at IDG Communications Pty Ltd, Level 10, 15 Blue St, North Sydney, NSW, 2060.

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4

IDG Research Marketing

BUYERS TODAY FACE MORE CHOICES THAN EVER IN DECIDING HOW THEIR ASSETS SHOULD BE DEPLOYED, WHO SHOULD MANAGE THEM AND HOW THEY CAN BE LEVERAGED FOR OPERATIONAL EFFICIENCY AND TRANSFORMATIVE CUSTOMER EXPERIENCES. IDG’S SIXTH ANNUAL CUSTOMER ENGAGEMENT STUDY FINDS THAT TECHNOLOGY BUYERS ARE MORE AWARE THAN EVER OF THE IMPACT THEY CAN MAKE ON THEIR ORGANISATIONS, BUT THE WAYS THEY GO ABOUT RESEARCHING THEIR OPTIONS ARE ROOTED IN TRIED-AND-TRUE PRACTICES.

MARKETING MASTERPLAN

Q1 2019 arnnet.com.au

Marketing IDG Research

/ partners could do a better job of providing educational resources for non-technical users. While this represents an opportunity for vendors / partners, the research indicates that many fall short.

Asked how challenging it is to find high quality, trusted information related to enterprise IT products and services, 37 per cent of respondents said either “very challenging” or “extremely challenging”.

Perhaps more concerning for marketers is that ITDMs reported that only 40 per cent of work-related content they have downloaded provides value, meaning that 60 per cent of the time and budget marketers pour into content is effectively wasted.

The top reasons ITDMs dismiss

they aren’t willing to talk to companies that might have a useful solution. The key is constructive outreach at the right time.

The survey found that buyers take, on average, a little less than three days to read a document they’ve downloaded. However, they would prefer to be contacted after six days or more, giving them time to consume and perhaps continue their research if they have found value in that content.

Email is the preferred form of contact with vendors / partners with 42 per cent saying they prefer it, but in-person meetings are also preferred when strategic decisions are involved.

Phone calls and text messages follow far behind at 12 per cent and four per cent, respectively.

One thing that’s clear is that vendors / partners need to move with deliberate speed when prospects fill Sales follow-up should happe out a “contact me” form or request for information. Unlike a registration form, this action signals the need for of work-related downloaded content has follow-up, and respondents said they provided value to tech decision-makers expect it within about 17 hours. in the last 12 months after conte The good news is that the race goes to the swiftest: 31 per cent is consum vendor / partner content include too of overall respondents and 35 per much hype (56 per cent), lack of a cent of IT executives said the first truly independent perspective (46 per person to answer their questions cent) and fear of being contacted by usually gets the business. sales representatives (38 per cent).

Meanwhile, quality content is It’s clear that they believe many an important factor in gaining the of buyers said that known and marketers put delivery of a message buyer’s attention, and the lack of such trusted brands are more likely ahead of the bigger goal of providing content can work the opposite way. to make their list actual short value, which undermines the Asked what would cause them to effectiveness of their messaging. abandon consideration of a vendor / Buyers would rather hear success partner during the purchase process, Peers and familiar the mostcited trust stories from other sources customers thancreate decision-makers promotional or empty claims and buzzwords. self-serving content first followed by Which of the Over following your trust you read online? thefactors years,increase the research has in the information a general lack of content. firmly documented that IT buyers Interestingly, buyers at small object to being called by sales and mid-sized businesses (SMBs) Recommendations by peers 75% representatives after they’ve filled indicated they are more sensitive to outaaknown registration form in order to insufficient or poor-quality content Association with familiar source 66% download an asset. than enterprises: 55 per cent of Quality design and easy-to-navigate website 57% However, thatofdoesn’t them said insufficient content will (overall professionalism site) mean

ONLY

O

rganisations have overwhelmingly bought into the concept of digital transformation, in which data is applied in all parts of the business to streamline processes, better understand customer preferences and accelerate innovation.

According to another of IDG’s studies, the Role & Influence of the Technology Decision-Maker, 93 per cent of IT decision-makers (ITDMs) said their organisations plan to pursue digital business transformation, yet only 28 per cent currently have an active “digital-first” approach.

The responsibility for bridging this chasm falls squarely on the IT organisation, which continues to be the primary driver of technology investments.

Despite the growing involvement of business owners in IT decisions such as the choice of software-as-aservice (SaaS) vendors and mobile devices, the buck still stops with IT. In fact, IDG’s 2019 State of the CIO research found that the percentage of tech investments directly controlled by the IT organisation will actually increase over the next three years.

Those technology leaders face more choices than ever, and the good news for technology marketers is that they are open to being educated by the companies they do business with.

In fact, 77 per cent of ITDMs on both the IT and business side said they are more likely to consider doing business with IT vendors / partners who provide educational resources than those who don’t.

While that number is down from 85 per cent in the 2017 study, it still reflects an overwhelming interest in trusted advice — regardless of the source.

IT leaders understand that their partners on the business side also need help. Nearly 2/3 said vendors

5

40%

6+ days

80%

Coverage of the news event by a variety of organistions Listing on the first page of search results

43% 16%

76%

arnnet.com.au Q1 2019

80% cause them to abandon research, compared to just 43 per cent of buyers at large companies.

Content tailored to specific needs is especially desirable; 93 per cent of buyers prefer it.

Content should be tailored to the buyer’s industry and/or the platforms they already use. Company size, job title and the stage of the buying process were seen as much less relevant.

Modelling the buyer journey

The way buyers research decisions has changed little over the years the study has been conducted. What has changed is their sensitivity to information quality.

Research has long shown that peer recommendations are the most important factor in identifying prospective vendors and our survey found that it’s the number one factor that increases trust in online information.

However, buyers are becoming more selective about taking recommendations at face value, as evidenced by the fact that association with a familiar source such as a media brand or vendor / partner is the second most important factor in establishing trust.

This may be an overhang from the fake news phenomenon and the tendency of people to share information without fully vetting its authenticity. Essentially, buyers are triangulating their decisions.

Interestingly, the professionalism of the website that provides the information is also a major trust factor, as is related coverage from media organisations.

Taken together, these results indicate that buyers are becoming savvier about vetting information sources and less likely to take information at face value just because it appears on a website.

The value they place in a track

Peers and familiar sources create the most trust Which of the following factors increase your trust in the information you read online?

75%

Recommendations by peers

66%

Association with a known familiar source Quality design and easy-to-navigate website (overall professionalism of site)

57%

Coverage of the news event by a variety of organistions Listing on the first page of search results Verified and visible social media icons Large numbers of followes (i.e. Facebook and Twitter)

43%

76%

16% 14%

say the awareness of a source is important for them to click on the link

11%

record is evident inProduct the finding thatinformation consumption to untested companies and most 80 per cent of buyers said that known buyers have probably settled on a andWhen trusted brands morepurchases, likely to which types of information limited set of platforms. making the are following or content tomobility you rely on the most? make their short list.

The typical short list includes Average number Product demos/product literature 56% of assets Executive IT (29 per cent) and three to four prospective candidates. downloaded Product testing/reviews/opinions 55% during the business management (37 per cent) Enterprise shortlists tend to be purchase process Technology 51%longer, while resource-constrained respondents were both more open tonews Software being among the first clients of a new haveEnterprise a smaller field of Vendor presentations 50%SMBs generally Cloud, (SaaS & non-Saas) orAnalyst emerging vendor, far more than candidates. research (e.g. IDC, Gartner, Forrester) 48% Data & Analytics, IoT, IT managers (20 Interviews per cent)with andtech IT experts Buyers research companies IT Services, Mobile Apps, 45% Security, Web Apps professionals (16 per cent). on their short list intensively, Feature article about technologies 43% downloading product information, On a product category basis, Networking, Servers/ Storage, Telecom 42% reviewing testimonials Case studies SaaS and web application start-ups and contacting Feature article about trends, 39% are most likely to getstrategies, a hearing, sales representatives. management Desktops/Laptops presentations while fledgling enterprisePeer software The research documented some 35% and mobility makers have the most interesting in the way Sales variances follow-up should happe difficulty penetrating the executive buyers go about making decisions suite. for different types of products.

This disparity is probably a For example, they researched of work-related downloaded content has function of corporate standards, an average of seven vendors when provided valuesoftware to techisdecision-makers since mission-critical considering the purchase of Internet in theas last months after conte perceived too 12 important to entrust of Things (IoT) products but only four when buying desktop or laptop is consume computers.

This probably reflects the dynamic nature of new markets in which many start-ups compete for attention and few clear leaders have emerged. In contrast, the PC market is mature and of buyers said that known and stable. trusted brands are more likely This new openness to evaluate to make their short list new vendors / partners has probably been influenced by the intense

5

40%

Assets downloaded while researching

IDG Research Marketing

ONLY

6

of buyers said that known and trusted brands are more likely to make their short list

6 5 4 2

6+ days

80%

Peers and familiar sources create the most trust Q1 2019 arnnet.com.au

Which of the following factors increase your trust in the information you read online?

ONLY

40%

40%

entrepreneurial activity of the last few years in areas such as cloud and big data.

Marketing IDG Research

7

Sales follow-up should hap

6+ day

ONLY

of the research process.

This is supported bydownloaded the most Sales of work-related content hasfollow-up should happen popular types of information they provided value to tech decision-makers request, a varied list headed by demos in the last 12 months after con Information and product literature, tests and has of work-related downloaded content is consu consumption reviews, news, vendor provided value totechnology tech decision-makers The volume and variety of in the last presentations, analyst research and 12 months after content advisory content is proliferating, market overviews. is consumed and decision-makers are showing The variety of this content a willingness to use all of it. supports the view that buyers look The type of content they prefer for advisory information about an varies by product category, however, overall market early said in the selection of buyers that known and as does the way they prefer to process and then drill down to more trusted brands are more likely consume it. specific details about specifications of interacting with vendor sales of buyers said that known andlist For marketers seeking leads, asto theymake near a decision. representatives directly or buying their short trusted brands are more likely the good news is that 92 per cent This pattern influences both the syndicated research. of ITDMs say they’ve registered of content they list desire and the While product demos and tests tofor maketype their short tech-related content during the past way they consume it.

For example, are top of nearly every Peers and familiar sources create near thethemost trust six months, trading information previous surveys have found that decision-maker’s list, some significant and familiar sources about themselves for something Peersvideo case studies are widely used bycreate the most trust differences are apparent between Which of the following factors increase your trust in the information you read online? they deem valuable. lower-funnel buyers whereas those people on the business side and those Respondents showed a greater justofbeginning research in the IT trenches.

Which the followingtheir factors increaseprefer your trust in the information you read online? appetite for information about areas white papers and market overviews. by peers For example, 56 per cent of Recommendations 75% that are new, rapidly changing or that Some interesting distinctions business managers said they value Recommendations by peers 75% Association with a known familiar source 66% address risk. arise when these numbers are broken vendor presentations compared Not surprisingly, security tops Association down by region and company size. to just 32 per cent of IT professionals. with a known familiar source Quality design and easy-to-navigate website 66% 57% (overall professionalism of site) the list, with two-thirds of decisionSMBs show a higher interest Specific to analyst research, the Quality design and easy-to-navigate website 57% difference is even more stark, with professionalism of site) than makers saying they’ve registered for in(overall product tests andCoverage reviews of the news event 43% a variety of organistions content related to that topic. Among Coverage of the news enterprise buyers by by a event 59 per cent 54 per cent of business decision43% by a variety of organistions IT executives, that number climbed to 53 perListing cent margin.

Conversely, 16% makers finding those assets valuable on the first page of search results 16% Listing on the first page of search results to 72 per cent. enterprise buyers have a stronger compared to just 23 per cent of say the awareness Verified andpresentations visible social media icons 14% Security is followed closely by proclivity for vendor IT pros. of a source is say the awareness Verified and visible social media icons 14% important for of a source is cloud computing at 63 per cent, with and analyst research. Large numbers of followes This trend hasthem been consistent to click important for on the link them to click 11% on thethroughout Large numbers ofafollowes (i.e. Facebook and Twitter) IT services, SaaS and data analytics This is probably function of the the six years the survey link 11% (i.e. Facebook and Twitter) in a virtual tie for third at just over 50 nature of the business, since many has been conducted: Business leaders per cent. small businesses don’t have the luxury want context while front-line IT At the bottom of the list are mature technologies like PCs and Product information consumption Product information consumption telecommunications. IoT devices making the following purchases, which or types of information orthe content When making theWhen following purchases, which types of information content to you rely on most?to you rely on the most? also ranked low, but that’s probably a function of their limited penetration Average number Average number Product demos/product literature Product demos/product literature 56% 56% of assets of assets in the market. downloaded downloaded Product testing/reviews/opinions during the Product testing/reviews/opinions55% 55% during the The same pattern is evident in the purchase process purchase process Technology news 51% Technology news 51% number of assets buyers download Cloud, Enterprise Software Vendor presentations 50% Cloud, Enterprise Software Vendor presentations during the purchase process. For (SaaS & non-Saas) 50% (SaaS & non-Saas) Analyst research (e.g. IDC, Gartner, Forrester) 48% example, they download an average Analyst research (e.g. IDC, Gartner, Forrester) 48% Data & Analytics, IoT, IT Services, Mobile Apps, Data & Analytics, IoT, Interviews with tech experts 45% of six assets about the topics of cloud Security, Web Apps IT Services, Mobile Apps, Interviews with tech experts 45% Security, Web Apps Feature article about technologies 43% computing, SaaS and enterprise Networking, Servers/ Feature article about technologies 43% Storage, Telecom Networking, Servers/ 42% software, but only two about PCs. Case studies Storage, Telecom 42% Feature article about trends, Case studies The buying decision takes a little 39% strategies, management Desktops/Laptops Feature article about trends, 39% Peer presentations less than five months to complete, strategies, management 35% Desktops/Laptops Peer presentations on average, which implies that buyers 35% seek different assets at different stages

6+ days

80% 80%

76%

76%

6 5 4 2

5 Assets downloaded while researching

Assets downloaded while researching

5

6 5 4 2

arnnet.com.au Q1 2019

8

IDG Research Marketing

workers want details. Preferences also vary by the type of product being researched.

While product tests are near the top of the list for nearly every product category, the value of analyst research is especially high for buyers researching cloud computing and analytics products.

In contrast, analyst research doesn’t even make the top-five list in servers, storage, networking, telecom and PC decisions.

Buyers clearly lean more heavily upon expert advice when evaluating new markets than they do for mature ones.

Events evolve

The days of giant IT trade shows are long gone, but events continue to enjoy a special place in the minds of buyers on both the technology and business sides.

For ITDMs they are all but essential, as evidenced by the 90 per cent who told us they have attended at least one industry-related event during the past 12 months.

Some important distinctions are apparent between the interests of business and IT leaders, however.

While buyers prefer technologyspecific event topics such as “cloud computing” to broad themes like “digital transformation,” business managers show a significantly higher interest in those big themes, probably reflecting the nature of their jobs.

For marketers who seek to attract buyers across the spectrum, choosing a mix of technology and business focused events is a good strategy.

Among the most popular event topics respondents cited are security (60 per cent) and cloud computing (55 per cent). Both are of higher interest to IT executives than to the overall respondent base.

Other high-performing topics include IT services, data/analytics and SaaS. At the bottom of list is desktops and laptops, cited by just 18 per cent of respondents.

Q1 2019 arnnet.com.au

with their customers, whose information needs have never been greater. However, the bar to success is high.

Buyers want timely information that’s customised to their needs and is free of hype and buzzwords. They interact through more channels than ever before, and their needs differ by role, geography and industry.

Savvy marketers will learn which stage of a digital-first business their customers and prospects are in to get a better grasp on the technologies they are purchasing.

They’ll understand the focus and roles in which customers are operating and how content impacts their decisions. And they’ll engage with decision-makers through valuable content and follow-up tailored to timing and messaging preferences.

By aligning marketing activities with the ways customers want to interact, marketers can become trusted sources who outclass their competitors by being the first to deliver useful information.

Evaluate every possible channel and narrow choices to those that influence prospects at key stages of the buying process.

Finally, educate the sales team to focus on delivering value, not just closing the deal.

More than ever, buyers want to do business with brands they trust.

The challenge — and the opportunity — for marketers is to become an ally in their success.

The fact that PCs once supported massive trade shows like Comdex and PC Expo should dramatise to marketers how changeable the event space can be.

Not surprisingly, decision-makers attend conferences to connect with others. This is consistent with the finding that 54 per cent of respondents prefer face-to-face contact when making strategic decisions, well ahead of email at 33 per cent.

The top benefits of attending events are to meet with industry experts (cited by 57 per cent); see new products (also 57 per cent); learn about new vendors and offerings (53 per cent); bring value back to the business (50 per cent) and meet with current vendors (49 per cent).

Business managers have a much stronger interest in learning about new vendors and technologies to spark ideas for future business projects more so than people on the IT side.

Bottom line: know your customers

Digital transformation is an opportunity for forward-thinking organisations to establish new bonds

Executive IT is attending more events Have you attended any of the following types of industry or job-related events in the past 12 months?

EXEC IT Events where I have the opportunity to interact with the vendors

71%

IT MGMT

IT PROS

BIZ MGMT

73% 71% 52% 65%

Vendor-run roadshows/events

57%

60% 54% 47% 54%

Trade shows

56%

58% 54% 51% 54%

Regional events

55%

59% 44% 41% 56%

Events produced by an independant third-party

54%

57% 41% 41% 50%

National events

47%

52% 31% 29% 38%

Vendor user group conferences

46%

50% 38% 32% 35%

43%

Events hosted by venture capitalists Roundtable style events

21%

48% 33% 17% 31% 25% 9% 13% 21%

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10 Interview JCurve Solutions

INSIDE A MARKETING TOOL BAG KATE MASSEY — CMO OF JCURVE SOLUTIONS — SITS DOWN WITH ELEANOR DICKINSON TO DETAIL A GAME-CHANGING REBRAND, GO-TO MARKETING TOOLS AND EXPANSION INTO ASIA.

CHRISTINE WONG

Q1 2019 arnnet.com.au

JCurve Solutions Interview

When Kate Massey became the first marketer at Stratatel almost 10 years ago, she was primarily tasked with supporting the sales team.

At the time, the role, the company — which acquired JCurve Solutions in 2013 — and the wider marketing industry were on the brink of significant change.

In the space of a decade, Massey has overseen a business rebrand, a digital revolution and now sits at the forefront of JCurve Solutions’ “aggressive” growth plans as CMO. “When I first joined, marketing was a sales support function as opposed to a driving force for the growth behind the company,” said Massey, who was recognised as a CMO50 in 2018. “But over the years, we’ve evolved it to be a key player of the business and to keep driving things forward.”

Today, Massey leads a teamof-five, plus a small coalition of agencies and freelancers, who are responsible for raising brand awareness and generating multiple leads for JCurve Solutions’ products across enterprise resource planning (ERP), primarily as a partner of NetSuite, plus travel and expense management systems (TEMS).

“What’s important for us is to always see what’s working,” she said.

“We’re relatively small but a very resourceful team and we have big growth ambitions and an everincreasing portfolio of solutions and geographies we reach.

“So, we need to be really strategic with our time and focus on activities that will give us results. We track everything that we do.

“All of the leads that we generate are down to a granular lead-source, so we know what’s working. And one thing that works today, doesn’t always work tomorrow.”

Although her role requires balancing a lot of plates, luckily for Massey, marketing technology has

evolved enough to help her track everything from leads, purchase journeys and eventual conversion.

And being a NetSuite partner helps too.

“We use NetSuite to run our business, so that is our source of CRM and some of our email marketing,” she explained. “I can log in anywhere and see where our lead generation is going, our pipeline number, where leads are progressing and how far down the sales funnel we are.

“It really allows us to make sure nothing is falling through the cracks, so when we provide a qualified lead to the sales team, we know exactly what stage it’s at.

“We’re small, but we have big ambitions” “We know when the deal is likely to close. It’s helped us close our conversion rates. It also provides a dashboard of information — snapshots of it — which allow us to look at them quickly and make snap decisions.”

With time of the essence, Massey also relies on HubSpot for JCurve’s social and digital marketing automation, plus SEMrush for intelligence and analytics.

“With technology, it’s much easier now to see what stage of the customer journey your leads are at so you aren’t just treating them all as the same,” she said.

Specific to future investments, rather than simply chasing the next shiny new toy as many marketers are apt to do, Massey is focused on getting more from the technology she has.

“We are reviewing Hubspot to see what else we can get out of it,”

11

she said. “We’re always looking at optimising the conversion rates of our website.”

The tools today are a far cry from Massey’s early days with Stratatel.

Having graduated from Auckland University of Technology with a degree in marketing and management a few years prior to joining the company, much of her day-to-day work was centred on simple email marketing, events and supplying the sales team with brochures.

Yet just over four years later, Massey found herself facing one of the biggest tasks of her career so-far as Stratatel acquired JCurve Solutions.

In particular, what to do with the 15-year-old Stratatel brand.

“We knew the Stratatel was dated,” Massey explained. “It wasn’t a brand we felt had equity in the market.

So, when we were going around to JCurve Solutions we spent a lot of time going: ‘Do we adopt a new brand?’

“With the JCurve brand, we felt it was one we could do a lot with.

It took a little bit of work to align what that brand meant and really understanding its components not just a logo.

“We needed a new website, new content and we changed our ASX sticker. But we decided it was best to move forward with one consistent brand.

“JCurve Solutions was the most scalable. We’re able to future-proof our strategy against that brand.”

Building presence

Today business-to-business marketers are fortunate to have more than enough channels to build brand awareness.

No longer confined to merely the traditional methods of brochures and PowerPoint presentations, they have an array of social media and video platforms to get the key messages across.

arnnet.com.au Q1 2019

12 Interview JCurve Solutions

The dilemma now for marketers is: which ones do you pick?

“We tried several things over the years,” said Massey. “That’s the beauty of digital marketing: you can try lots of things without investing too much money and resource.

“The greatest success for us comes from LinkedIn, in terms of a company perspective and raising the profiles of those in the business.

“It’s a great solution for that as well as a great source for finding new businesses in areas where we had similar success previously. We do also use Facebook and Twitter, but usually we create the content for LinkedIn and then we repurpose it and amplify it across the channels.”

In terms of content, Massey is particularly fond of sharing stories from JCurve’s team and from customer success stories, something both LinkedIn and YouTube have proved handy for.

“YouTube gives us a good place to host videos and a point of traffic,” she said. “That’s increased for us.

We share those on LinkedIn and on our website.

“We’ve spent some time raising the profile of key people in the business. We have a lot of very talented people who are specialised in key parts of the business.

“It’s great to have them to tap into to share not only what the company is doing, but their contribution.

We’ve built a strong culture and

“You can’t have a marketing team that’s not working with sales and driving towards an end result” we’re passionate about sharing that company journey, achieving good growth and acquisitions.

“Plus, a lot of our customers have really fascinating stories and I love bringing those to life. A lot of our NetSuite customers are going through some great growth, and that’s always exciting.”

However, in addition to brand building, keeping an eye on the end goal is equally important to Massey.

“You can’t have a marketing team that’s not working with sales and driving towards a result, which is ultimately the sales number,” she said.

“It’s about building initiatives that will contribute to that pipeline and having solid lead-generation. If it’s not converting into pipeline, it won’t convert to new business customers.”

Next steps

As 2019 gets into full swing, the JCurve marketing team will face a whole host of new challenges following the company’s acquisitions of Riyo Business in Australia and Spectrum Group in Singapore.

The former company, which offers on-demand or scheduled booking, dispatch and payment (BDP) services to businesses, gives Massey an entirely new solution to integrate, and share to JCurve’s existing and potential customers. The latter takes

Q1 2019 arnnet.com.au

them into new territory altogether.

“Asia is going to be a big part of our strategy; taking the frameworks from Australia while localising them,” Massey explained. “We know what works here and we should be able to hit the ground running with replicating that in Singapore. We have already started generating leads from there for Australia.”

Meanwhile on home turf, the NetSuite ERP business still presents an array of opportunities for the business.

Its latest update to Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) shareholders detailed plans to target larger deal size and more complex NetSuite solutions that fall over longer sales and delivery cycles.

With so much on the marketing team’s plate, Massey knows they’re “never going to get through the whole to-do list”. Keeping on track though means being disciplined with time and priorities.

“Because we’re growing and often setting quite vicious growth plans, there’s always so much to do,” Massey said. “We’re growing both organically and through acquisition; getting the mix right of priorities and what’s going to have the biggest impact is crucial.

“We have to make sure we’re really strict with our time. It does mean everything keeps you on your toes.”

Nevertheless, despite the challenges, nothing will undermine Massey’s positivity both in the JCurve brand and her marketing quintet: indeed, the team remains her proudest achievement.

“Having a team that is focused has been a big factor,” she said. “The alignment and engagement from the marketing team is what I’m most proud of.

“They are really committed not just to their personal development, but the company goals and really supporting the business. That has been key to our success.”

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SECURE

14 Analysis Gartner

Marketing to must have requirements HANK BARNES IS A DISTINGUISHED ANALYST AT GARTNER, PROVIDING RESEARCH AND ADVISORY SERVICES ON GO-TO-MARKET STRATEGIES FOR TECHNOLOGY PROVIDERS.

I was reading some articles that I had tagged and saved over the holidays. Several of them were case studies that went into some detail on successful implementations.

What struck me, and maybe it is not new news, was how every one of the customers talked about some key technical capabilities that made the difference for them, both in selection and implementation.

Sure, these customers cared about outcomes, but the technology mattered.

Yes, features matter. You can’t just promise increased revenues or reduced costs or any other business outcome.

You must connect it to how those outcomes are achieved. You need to talk about your capabilities.

But is there a better way to talk about them than just to, err, talk about them.

I think so.

Q1 2019 arnnet.com.au

Here is the path:

Use competitive analysis and customer interviews to understand unique, or important, capabilities Explore the customer situations where those capabilities are most important Present the capabilities by starting with those situations and then leading to the capabilities that address the needs

For example, you may determine that one of your unique capabilities is the ability to easily exchange data between multiple sites.

In looking at your customers, you recognise that the ones that care about that capability are those that have multiple manufacturing plants.

With that info, you don’t simply say “Feature: Data Exchange.” Instead, you present the scenario: For customers with multiple plants that need to exchange

data to improve quality, we offer “an easily configurable data exchange mechanism that can be tuned by plant managers without IT involvement.”

Sure, it is more wordy. And this is just one feature example (you could describe a situation and then several features that are designed to support it).

But it puts the capability in context.

It provides clarity over the best fit situations. And it is more engaging than a feature list, that looks like everyone else. Best of all, you can back it up with customer stories.

Let’s be clear. Outcomes matter.

But outcomes are only achieved with technical capabilities that make that possible.

Customers care about features, they care about capabilities. Be sure your messaging creates stories that covers both sides of the coin (outcomes and capabilities).

Marketo Channel Chat From a channel perspective, what are Marketo’s top priorities during the next 12 months in Australia?

Activation and execution. Channel enablement can be a catch 22 for partners — invest billable resources upfront before working an opportunity. We pivoted our partner model to account for consulting resource and developed a partner services framework to address this. Customer success is at the heart of everything we do, and this drives our focus of continuous education and its application in the field beyond the technology.

2018 was a year of redefining our partner and go-to-market strategies in A/NZ. We now have a great cross-section of partners in our ecosystem and a clear vision for growth. We need to balance resources to ensure we have the capacity to invest back into those partners and ensure we can drive new business and deliver successful projects for the benefit of our mutual customers.

What are the major trends currently impacting the marketing market?

The nature of marketing is changing vastly as it continues to expand in scope and scale and is now so closely entwined with sales, customer success and service.

Technology advancements have created a shift in marketing strategy and execution resulting in a greater level of useable data.

How are the changing demands of the customer impacting the channel?

Buyers expect a consistent brand experience across every channel personalised to them and marketers are now expected to deliver on those expectations, while also driving business impact. With the shorter and simpler buying journeys, B2C marketers have led the charge in this aspect. We are seeing B2B organisations adopting the mindset and approach of their B2C counterparts. It is fast becoming a competitive differentiator when B2B marketers leverage a wealth of data to deliver a personalised customer experience to organisations of any size across channels.

What can the channel expect from Marketo in 2019?

Relevant product integration with Adobe will leverage the power and scale of Adobe to deliver transformational innovation. We also expect to see continued innovation in the user interface and greater value from artificial intelligence and machine learning within the Adobe Experience Cloud Platform.

We will leverage our own technology to deliver enablement nurture streams for our partners, based on their engagement with content. This will also help inform future investments by listening to and learning from our partners.

Channel Chat with Marketo JAMES HENDERSON CHATTED WITH GEORGINA DALTON, DIRECTOR OF ALLIANCES AND CHANNELS ACROSS AUSTRALIA AND NEW ZEALAND AT MARKETO.

15

What are the key marketing challenges for partners to overcome in the year ahead?

For marketers, without measuring the impact of every marketing activity on revenue, it is difficult to prove impact on the business, obtain cross-functional buy-in, and optimise marketing spend.

This is challenging as many touchpoints happen outside of a single marketing campaign, which occur when the prospect is anonymous.

In attempting to track these touchpoints, organisations find themselves using a variety of homegrown, error-prone and resource-intensive systems. By adopting multi-touch attribution, organisations will be able to track and report on every marketing and sales interaction, providing them visibility to make informed decisions and drive greater ROI. Where do you see the marketing opportunity for partners in 2019?

Building excellence in personalised one-to-one customer engagement driven by data and insights presents the richest opportunity to differentiate in a crowded marketplace, expose partners to new revenue streams, and create a clearer view between sales and marketing activity and revenue.

What offerings can Marketo provide to help partners deliver on the potential of marketing?

Our engagement solution enables every marketer to map the customer lifecycle, identify key touchpoints, and drive seamless, end-to-end experiences that positively impact revenue.

Engaging with customers at each stage in the lifecycle not only fosters customer centricity but drives higher lifetime value.

The focus shifts from pure acquisition and single purchase to a lifelong relationship.

We have a strategic distribution partnership with Synnex Australia and Resolution Marketing to provide three bundled solutions based on core requirements we see in the channel — Lead Management and Acquisition; Sales and Marketing Partnership; and Extending Your Marketing Lifecycle.

arnnet.com.au Q1 2019

16 Interview AC3

THE BUYOUT OF BULLETPROOF BY AC3 WAS NO ORDINARY ACQUISITION, AS TWO STRONG MARKET BRANDS AND MORE THAN 1000 CUSTOMERS CAME TOGETHER AS ONE STEPHANIE CHALLINOR, HEAD OF MARKETING AND COMMUNICATIONS AT AC3, EXPLAINS THE PROCESS WITH JAMES HENDERSON.

CUSTOMER FIRST,

BRAND SECOND

CHRISTINE WONG

Q1 2019 arnnet.com.au

Kate Massey (JCurve Solutions)

AC3 Interview

THE BUYOUT OF BULLETPROOF BY AC3 WAS NO ORDINARY ACQUISITION, AS TWO STRONG MARKET BRANDS AND MORE THAN 1000 CUSTOMERS CAME TOGETHER AS ONE — STEPHANIE CHALLINOR HEAD OF MARKETING AND COMMUNICATIONS AT AC3, EXPLAINS THE PROCESS WITH JAMES HENDERSON.

In laying $24.7 million on the table, and in kick-starting a six-month public bidding war through the Australian Securities Exchange, AC3 sent a statement of intent to the Australian market.

Driven by a desire to become a leading hybrid cloud provider, the acquisition of Bulletproof — over a defeated Macquarie Telecom — triggered a process of selfassessment and re-evaluation for the Sydney-based business.

Because as the contract ink dried, the delisting commenced and the celebratory champagne fizzled out, a key branding decision had to be made.

“We had every option on the table,” explained Stephanie Challinor, head of marketing and communications at AC3. “We had AC3, Bulletproof, a brand-new name or even a house of brands.

We wanted to get as much feedback as we possibly could for this stage.

“We stitched together research from a few different sources, including independent analyst data, Gartner, internal intelligence, key vendor interviews and first-party data via a market research survey to customers and prospects.”

The objective, according to Challinor, was to uncover the strengths and weaknesses of each brand, through the lens of the customer.

“AC3 was all about the human touch in a technical world - a safe pair of hands as a managed service provider, primarily in private data centres,” Challinor said. “Bulletproof was all about mission-critical cloud — the original early adopter of the managed public cloud model.”

In recalling the early phases of the post-acquisition strategy, Challinor said findings from more than 100 pages of research were “clear” in that both AC3 or Bulletproof could work.

But once overlaid with key business objectives, AC3 emerged as the brand

17

of choice going forward.

“The new AC3 is the leader in secure multi-cloud solutions,” Challinor added. “Our purpose is to make technology real, so we’re all about delivering tangible results.

“This purpose was probably the most debated aspect of the branding, we had so many iterations and I think we were just trying to fit too much in.”

With brevity lacking, the business was trying to use one sentence to say an “entire paragraph worth” of purposes — the square peg of a mission statement simply couldn’t fit into the round hole of the brand.

“We finally got to the almost over-simple ‘to make technology real’ quite late in the piece when I was trying to get to the crux of what wasn’t working with our CEO, Simon Xistouris,” Challinor said.

“I think I actually shouted — as frustration and cabin fever set in after about two hours of debating - that it just means that we make tech real and we get things done for our customers.

That was a bit of a lightbulb moment for us, sometimes simplicity is better.”

The notion of merged messaging is not uncommon for the leadership team however, with the transaction coming five years since Klikon Solutions acquired all the shares in then NSW government-owned AC3, for an undisclosed sum in December 2013.

Fast forward to 2019 and AC3’s new tagline is ‘clarity in the cloud’, designed to speak to the provider’s key technology areas, including new software and data integration.

“It also speaks directly to what our customers told us they wanted from an MSP, and what they believe AC3 deliver – transparency, clear value and accountability,” Challinor added.

“It’s common to approach projects like this with the goal of determining your brand equity, but that information is only useful if you tie your value to what your customers actually want.”

arnnet.com.au Q1 2019

18 Interview AC3

Phase one

The combined entity, confirmed to the market in June 2018, now serves over 1000 customers, with plans in place to offer cross and up-sell services across an expansive portfolio.

Born with different purposes, driven by different technologies and motivated by different markets, phase one of the integration process involved clearly articulating a new value proposition ahead.

Because according to Challinor, the official branding project could only commence once a defined go-to-market strategy was in place.

“I’m a firm believer that you need to understand what you’re selling and who you’re selling it to before you can decide the most effective way to position it,” said Challinor, who joined AC3 in October 2016. “The first step after the acquisition was closed was to determine our go-to-market strategy.

“Branding is important, but you can’t build your brand until you know what you’re selling, who you’re selling it to and how you’re going to reach them.”

Such an exercise was triggered by a market research project, as well as combing through internal data to extract the nuggets of information required to remodel the business’ strategy.

“With complementary services delivered by each business, and a combined service catalogue that was hundreds of items long, our first step was to get a good grasp on what we wanted to deliver to our customers

now, as well as in the next few years,” Challinor explained.

“We work on a two-year planning cycle, so we also used this process to build out our goals for the next horizon. It was only after we had defined our go to market strategy and had buy in from the business, that we started to focus on our brand.”

On reflection, Challinor acknowledged that building a brand which reflected both businesses — and subsequently both cultures — as they came together represented a “challenging” undertaking.

“We have such a strong history as being the safest pair of hands in state government, but we really wanted to pair this with the innovative hallmark of Bulletproof,” Challinor added. “Again, the branding process had so many inputs and the internal engagement was crucial.

“The entire integration project was built with a bedrock of culture initiatives. We needed to start with a clear culture strategy as the base — it’s the most important piece, especially as every one of our people are brand ambassadors.

“Engaging their hearts and minds in our brand, what we stand for and how we do things is so much more effective than any advertising campaign.”

Consequently, Challinor said refreshing creative was the last piece of the puzzle.

“The look and feel of the brand has to reflect what the brand stands for, while also being engaging and unique,”

“Branding is important, but you can’t build your brand until you know what you’re selling” Q1 2019 arnnet.com.au

Challinor qualified. “I really wanted to keep the bones of what we already had in market, but modernise it and walk the fine line between ‘human’ and professional.

“We’re a regular, relatable brand, but what we do is incredibly serious and important for so many government agencies and enterprise customers, so there is a fine line to balance on.”

With the entire process a “marketing led integration”, AC3 bucks the common trend of channel partners, partners more favouring of style over substance.

“Marketing wasn’t just tapped in at the last minute after all of the decisions had been made to update the logos, which is such a common misconception,” Challinor said. “My team has been involved from the very beginning, leading the project to build our combined go-to-market strategy, through to brand strategy and creative execution.”

Integration

In housing two reputable market brands, two extensive teams of experts and two technology portfolios, AC3 approached integration with the wider Bulletproof business delicately, in recognition of the size and scale of each party.

Acquiring and then absorbing, was not an option.

“This type of acquisition is not particularly common, we were two similar sized businesses with complementary services and skills,” Challinor said. “It hasn’t just been a matter of AC3 swallowing up Bulletproof — and we never wanted to run it that way.

“We wanted to approach the project as a blank canvas and we literally knocked down the blocks and rebuilt with the best from both businesses.

“I definitely wouldn’t call it simple — it’s been full of challenges and it’s been tough, but it we ended up with

AC3 Interview

a great result and that’s the most important thing.”

Collectively, key customers include UrbanGrowth NSW, Atlassian and the NSW Department of Justice, in addition to Big W, Crestone and Nova Entertainment — to name but a few.

Upon closing of the transaction, both customer bases required communication and guidance as to the direction of the new-look operation, and crucially, its new value proposition.

“We did this through our go-tomarket strategy project,” Challinor explained. “We used external research, had analyst input, market forecasts and internal intelligence.

A SEAT AT THE TABLE

19

“We ran about four workshops to go through the data and get consensus on where we were heading as a combined business. We didn’t choose one over the other, it was about integrating our complementary solutions to deliver a more comprehensive service to the market.”

Internally, Challinor said AC3 kept communication constant “every step of the way”, in a bid to keep staff informed and motivated during the process.

“We actually involved the entire business in various ways throughout the process, including surveys, workshops, fireside chat sessions, etc,” Challinor said. “We shared the

decision around moving forward with the AC3 brand with the team immediately after the decision was made.

“There’s a great emotional connection with both our brands, so we wanted to be upfront with the team as soon as we could. It was also the most common question we were asked. We shared the final output of the branding project with a presentation to the team followed by a celebration.

“We have a more intensive communications plan which is about to kick off with our customers as we plan to officially launch the new brand in early April.”

Marketing absolutely has a seat at the table at AC3, I sit on the executive leadership team. Marketing is usually the last function to get a seat at the table, yet everyone wants to deliver a great customer experience – having a strategic marketer at the table will help you get there.

Boardroom buy-in for marketing is so important. To effect real change, you need buy in at the executive level.

It’s not just about securing budget, although that is an important factor, it’s also about being involved in the big decisions and setting strategy.

Most people are surprised to hear that I led the project to determine what products and services we were going to deliver post acquisition, they expect that marketing just gets involved at the tail end to work on the creative.

This is the biggest stereotype, especially in the channel. While operational marketing has its place and I’m still tasked with lead generation, the marketing function should be doing a lot more than running digital campaigns and events.

For marketers who don’t have

boardroom buy-in, my advice is to take it slow. Don’t rush in looking for a big budget, because you won’t get fast enough results to justify ROI. Our industry has a relatively long sales cycle, it takes time for a campaign to deliver a sale, so set that expectation with your executives from the outset.

Choose one or two strategic initiatives to focus on setting clear expectations, then choose some low hanging fruit where you can make some immediate impact. Proving the worth of marketing and the value we can generate is so important to get boardroom buy in.

In 2019, our focus is centred on embedding our brand and doing an amazing job of engaging with our existing customers. We service over 1000 customers and given the opportunity, we could add more value to every single one of them, so that’s definitely our key priority for the coming year.

— Stephanie Challinor, head of marketing and communications at AC3

arnnet.com.au Q1 2019

20 Interview GrowthOps

NINE BRANDS,

ONE VISION IN THE SPACE OF 12 MONTHS, NINE BUSINESSES JOINED FORCES TO CREATE A TECH POWERHOUSE IN AUSTRALIA, UNDER THE BANNER OF GROWTHOPS — CEO PAUL MANSFIELD AND CMO ANDY FYFFE SHARE INSIGHTS INTO THE MEGA-MERGER WITH JAMES HENDERSON.

Q1 2019 arnnet.com.au

T

he fight for differentiation in an overcrowded market is an ongoing battle for many technology specialists in Australia, with customers overwhelmed by choice.

Perhaps such a statement is nothing new, in an industry housing thousands, upon thousands, of digital experts, boutique consultancies and solution providers.

Through an initial public offering - amounting to $70 million - 15 entrepreneurs merged eight businesses in a move designed to solidify market presence.

Almost 365 days since launching, in March 2018, the combined entity includes enterprise cloud and software solutions provider, 3wks; mobile applications developer, Jtribe and enterprise IT consulting, cloud and software solutions provider, Digital Moshi.

Other companies include digital marketing and technology player, KDIS; creative agency, AJF Partnership; content producer, Khemistry; branding and graphic design firm, Voodoo Creative and the Institute of Executive Coaching and Leadership (IECL).

Three months later, in June 2018, Asia Pacific Digital was added to the group following a $20 million takeover bid.

As a result, nine independent technology specialists now form GrowthOps. But in housing a wide range of skill-sets, spanning the entire technology spectrum, what does the new business stand for?

“In a word, opportunity,” said Andy Fyffe, CMO of GrowthOps. “You can classify at least 95 per cent of the issues on a leader’s plate at any time as problems.

“Problems always bubble to the top of the agenda. They always dominate. But we’re here for the other five per cent.”

According to Fyffe, that includes

GrowthOps Interview

helping organisations realise strategic growth opportunities, acquiring new customers and launching new products.

While in the same instance, also leveraging emerging tech for market advantage, or scaling up operations.

“We’re designed and built from the ground up specifically for this purpose,” Fyffe added. “We all accept intuitively that if you’re not growing, you’re going backwards. Especially in today’s hyper-competitive environment.”

The business was started by Phillip Kingston, a figure steeped in the new models of growth being refined in start-ups and big tech.

“And he wondered,” explained Fyffe, “what if we deployed those models for the incumbent organisations in our finance, energy, retail, education, health, and other sectors?

“Not in some mercenary, entrepreneurial-gun-for-hire way.

But in an accountable, risk-andreward-sharing partnership model.

What value could we help unlock?

“So, we stand for solving problems, getting things done. It’s only smart if it works. It’s a bit like being anti-

consultants. We’re all action, no talk.”

In being a “brand new brand”, Fyffe said creating a market reputation is a “daily endeavour”, built around defining and refining company goals.

Leveraging the heritage of businesses such as AJF Partnership, 3wks and the Institute for Executive Coaching and Leadership for example, also helps.

“They are some of the most credentialed, certified, and awarded operators in their respective industries,” Fyffe said. “And that carries over to the combined entity.

“The people, methods, and philosophies that made those businesses so successful remain deeply embedded in GrowthOps.” Because for Fyffe, in rebranding every business into a single unified platform, a balancing act is required to ensure equity isn’t discarded during the process.

“There’s a calculated element of ‘creative destruction’ in what we’re doing here,” Fyffe clarified. “We’re convinced that our component parts become vastly more powerful and valuable when reconfigured into a new, integrated, multi-discipline model.”

21

As the dust settles on the coming together of business minds, solutions and markets, Fyffe reflected that pulling off such a feat carries a “famously high degree of difficulty”.

Even more so when merging nine separate businesses. At the same time.

“We expected that, we even sought it out,” he acknowledged. “The more difficult something is to do, the rarer it is. And the rarer it is, the more valuable.

“But that’s one of the reasons why we were determined to include a change leadership practice like IECL in the GrowthOps mix. We knew that M&A – in fact growth initiatives in general – often come unstuck through neglect of the human factor.”

Gunning for growth

Andy Fyffe and Paul Mansfield (GrowthOps)

In looking ahead to 2019, Paul Mansfield - CEO of GrowthOps - said the business is focused on executing three core objectives, centred around “people, collaboration and Asia”.

“The attraction and retention of the best possible team of people, particularly through the culture we’re establishing, is critical,” Mansfield said. “An ingredient of our culture at GrowthOps is collaboration.

“It underpins how we built the business, run the business, work together, deliver for our clients, and how we will grow in the future.

“And we’ve brought together such a diverse group of people that span technology, creative and management consulting. It’s pure magic to see them working together, and that collaboration is already starting to deliver great results for our clients.”

Specific to the Asian market, Mansfield said the business is leveraging a broad footprint across the region as global cloud infrastructure providers expand in parallel, creating demand for technology services from “mid-cap clients” in the process.

arnnet.com.au Q1 2019

22 Interview GrowthOps

“Technology is so embedded in our lives and businesses today that you really can’t get away with not understanding the business context,” Mansfield added. “That’s the people, culture, markets and processes etc.

“Our clients’ biggest advantage is the combination of real business experience and insight with a deep understanding of the technologies that are driving change.

“Without this attribute, most technology providers are doomed to be a solution in search of a problem.”

Mansfield acknowledged that transformation today - in the eyes of the customer - is merely “incremental tweaking”, an approach which is

“nibbling share” in established markets, or adapting and extending existing products.

“And that’s because real growth is really difficult,” he outlined. “So that’s where we come in. GrowthOps partners with leading companies and government organisations to overcome these obstacles and realise strategic growth opportunities.

“We do it by fusing world-class creative, technology, and people expertise within a unique operating model. It’s agile, entrepreneurial, integrated, and delivers growth outcomes 10x industry benchmarks.”

For Mansfield, customer motivations differ depending on the

business objectives; some want to acquire new customers, others want to launch transformational products, leverage emerging tech for market advantage, or scale up operations.

“We combine the expertise to build it, take it to market, and scale it,” Mansfield added. “We’ve been ahead of the curve in fields like augmented reality, virtual reality, blockchain, artificial intelligence and serverless.

“Our job is to help connect our clients to practical opportunities that exploit these new technologies – to accelerate their businesses – while helping navigate the change this inevitably creates within their organisation.”

MAKING MARKETING COUNT On the importance of marketing…

On striking a balance between sales and marketing…

On making marketing investments…

If we’re using marketing as shorthand for traditional paid advertising, then it is not particularly important to our organisation.

It has a role in the mix, but as full-service growth specialists we’re operating virtually in a category of one, and we tend to acquire customers directly.

We have a very specific profile for the kind of organisation that needs what we deliver, and we seek them out. Often, we find they’re seeking us out at the same time.

But if we mean marketing in the broadest sense, of systematically designing and iterating our business model to create maximum value for our customers, then it’s absolutely central to this enterprise.

It’s everybody’s responsibility, and we work at it constantly.

Rather than trading off sales and marketing investments against each other, we work to integrate them. Our chief sales officer, Grant Thomson and I are joined at the hip.

He calls us Country & Western. Our brand strategists call it ‘bretail’ – the optimal blend of brand and retail.

In our first meeting Grant eyeballed me and said, ‘you’d better not be another bloody back office CMO’. We both make it a priority to get out of the building.

We spend a lot of time together with customers. That’s the real world.

Our focus is more on listening than pushing a message.

You know, it’s funny. On the one hand marketing is constantly evolving, but on the other hand it’s rooted in timeless principles. The trick is knowing which is which.

The GrowthOps model brings this into clear focus. It combines timeless behavioural strategies (think psychology PhDs) with the possibilities afforded by the latest technologies and deft execution employing the best of agile.

So, you get the situation where one of my go-to marketing resources was written in the 80s. It’s still incredibly relevant.

But at the same time, we work hard to be early to new channels and platforms so we can enjoy a disproportionate share of voice and ROI. The beauty of growth marketing is that it’s ruthlessly empirical. You can afford to run lots of small stake experiments, and scale up or down based on the results.

Andy Fyffe — CMO, GrowthOps

Q1 2019 arnnet.com.au

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24 ARN Marketing Workshop

Marketing: the soft underbelly of the Australian channel PARTNERS REALISE THE VALUE OF BUILDING OUT SPECIFIC MARKETING STRATEGIES AND CAMPAIGNS TO FIND NEW CUSTOMERS IN NEW MARKETS, BUT THE CHANNEL REMAINS CHALLENGED — JAMES HENDERSON REPORTS.

Q1 2019 arnnet.com.au

As the Australian channel wakes up to the year ahead, refreshed and revitalised, creating customer value will once again be central to success in 2019.

Today, customers look, think and buy differently, consuming technology in different ways through different providers.

No longer can partners live on reputation, with new competitors removing a previous right to exist, expand and excel.

During the next 12 months, customer acquisition will dominate the agenda as the leading priority for management teams across the country, as the channel pursues aggressive growth plans.

But recruiting new business requires new approaches, underpinned by a need to transform.

Driving such growth will be marketing, arguably the most contentious word in the channel.

Historically under-utilised and under-valued, the traditional reseller

Marketing Workshop ARN

has seldom appreciated the art of marketing.

Driven by either a lack of understanding or appreciation, the concept of communicating with the customer, has for a long time, challenged a market built off referrals and word of mouth.

But as the buyer becomes more informed, more digitally savvy and more aware of the options available, partners are recognising the need to prioritise and modernise enduser engagement to drive new revenue streams.

Overall, the consensus points to partners open to change.

Yet marketing, and all it encompasses, remains the soft underbelly of the Australian channel.

In a healthy market buoyed by end-user investment and access to emerging technologies, marketing remains an Achilles’ heel, a weak spot born out of inadequacy and inefficacy, fuelled by a scepticism stretching decades.

Defining success

For an industry forever nestled on the edge of the technological curve, marketing has seldom enjoyed such rapid levels of adoption in the channel.

Representing an area of the market that fosters mistrust for a many a technology provider in Australia, marketing knowledge in the channel varies from partner to partner.

But while partners acknowledge change is required, challenges remain around defining clear metrics for success, metrics that are specified, agreed upon, and then made highly visible.

Because one crucial question remains, what constitutes as a successful marketing campaign?

“There’s several factors but it’s also about remembering the adage of, ‘we know 50 per cent of our marketing works, we just don’t know

Above: Stephanie Gray (InfoTrust) Left: Rebecca Ney (The Missing Link)

which 50’,” AC3 head of marketing and communications, Stephanie Challinor, observed.

“Measurement and return on investment (ROI) is crucial, especially when trying to justify costs and to position marketing as a profit centre, but a successful campaign in our industry won’t convert to sales immediately.”

In driving the marketing initiatives of a leading managed service provider (MSP) in Australia, Challinor acknowledged that sales cycles are often “years in length”, creating subsequent challenges around measurement.

“Digital allows us to be more accurate in reporting,” Challinor added. “But this can also skew reporting because while someone may contact us online, say because of a Google AdWords campaign, they may have only clicked through because they spoke to us at an event the week before.

“It depends on the campaign but if we’re talking pure campaigns, the most accurate measure has to be conversions, whether they be contact enquiries, content downloads or follows etc.”

In general, a well mapped marketing strategy can help expose partners to new revenue streams, creating new conversations as a result.

25

“Growing brand awareness, increasing wallet share within existing clients and acquiring net new clients are key,” The Missing Link marketing manager, Rebecca Ney, added. “Creating high engagement for content and events is also crucial, as well as testing new marketing channels. But as a marketer, it’s a constant challenge to cut through all the noise.

“Customers are more purchase savvy and are researching far more for themselves so the focus for marketing has shifted from educational pieces to ‘who we are’ and why they should work with us.”

According to Fujitsu digital marketing specialist Karina Aguilera, expected outcomes from marketing campaigns centre around the creation of leads.

“Not just the number of leads, but the quality of the leads is also key,” Aguilera explained. “There is also a piece about branding as well, in terms of working towards becoming a thought leader in the IT space.”

As an expanding security focused start-up, evolving into a specialist provider, InfoTrust measures marketing across three key areas; creation of leads, enhancement of customer relationships and customer support.

“All these goals work towards

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26 ARN Marketing Workshop

the objective of increasing brand awareness within the market,” InfoTrust digital marketing executive, Stephanie Gray, explained. “Some of our campaigns may be specific to one of these goals but often they span at least two of them, the easiest measure of success being the number of leads and lead conversion.”

In the context of customer retention, Gray said there are a “number of other factors” that come into play such as sales and delivery experience, again creating difficulties around measuring the impact of marketing.

“In these cases, I would constitute the measure of success by the engagement with a campaign,” Gray added. “This could be through open and click through rates, the number of subscribers to our content and amplification through social media, which in turn is a success in terms of increasing our brand awareness.”

Overcoming challenges Today, partners are struggling to shed archaic marketing tactics in favour of more dynamic ways to communicate with potential customers, restricting growth

Q1 2019 arnnet.com.au

opportunities as a result.

Marketing — or a distinct lack of — is a problem often swept under the carpet by providers, providers relying heavily on technical expertise and experience.

And while such in-depth capabilities combine to create enviable reputations locally, partners are failing to expand outside of the referral zone, with messaging trapped in a concentrated pool of current customers.

“Reaching the profiled customer and targeting a specific industry remains a constant challenge,” NTT Data Business Solutions marketing manager, Margaret Welna, said. “The channel in Australia houses a rich capability over a range of industries built on leading global vendor products.

“As we develop our own IP for specific industries, targeting a range of buyers from C-level to team managers becomes integral in promoting digital solutions for company/team/role based success.”

In response to new buying behaviours, partners recognise the value of differentiation, yet face roadblocks in an industry comprising of more than 10,000

Najah Ayoub (LiveTiles)

competitors across Australia.

“Establishing point of difference in a same-same industry is a constant challenge,” LiveTiles North America marketing lead, Najah Ayoub, acknowledged. “Partners can also face difficulties around implementing new marketing technologies and generating quality leads.

“Our aim is to create qualified leads and grow our brand equity and presence with a defined target market and audience. To achieve this, we drive cut through content and campaigns.”

As agents of change within an organisation, marketers are progressing to the boardroom en masse, creating viable business paths from CMO to CEO. Such progression remains sluggish in technology however, restricted by management teams unwilling to sanction fundamental make-over projects.

“Getting management buy-in on campaigns and on outsourcing marketing related activities such as content creation and graphic design is difficult,” Outcomex channel manager, Sharlie Raymond, added.

“Due to the nature of our organisation as a system integrator, most of our projects involve multiple vendors. Vendors then come to us to create campaigns or events and ask us to push their campaign to our customers.

“The fact is that we have a limited number of customers, and around 10 vendors trying to get the attention of the same customers.”

From a marketing standpoint, Raymond said the business can’t host more than five events per year, for running the risk of losing customer interest and attention.

“We have to say no to a lot of vendors,” Raymond added. “This results in our vendors being upset not to be part of our strategic vision and our management being upset that we ‘lost’ some ‘free money’ by

Marketing Workshop ARN

Left: Margaret Welna (NTT Data Business Solutions) Below: Sharlie Raymond (Outcomex)

not using the MDF [market development funds].

“Having vendors push their agenda on us in exchange for MDF remains a constant challenge to our business.”

In spearheading marketing initiatives within an expanding organisation, Gray cited a lack of resources as a constant hurdle to overcome, a hurdle facing partners of all sizes across Australia.

“We are still a fairly small company so of course budgets play a big part in our capabilities for marketing campaigns,” Gray added.

“But also, the number of people we have to execute and help give input into campaigns is comparably less than some of our competitors.

“Although we have a great sales team who have fostered brilliant relationships with customers we are still faced with having a smaller sphere of influence when compared to some of the other bigger players within the market.”

and become national players, new marketing methods must be utilised to attract new customers.

“We have all of the same challenges as any business,” Challinor added. “Of course, we find challenges in juggling the vendors and creating some kind of rhythm and sense to the MDF available and executing it within our strategy to meet both our needs and the needs of the vendor.

“MDF is a wonderful resource, but as an MSP, it can be more difficult to use than it’s worth sometimes. We’re marketing and selling the services that we wrap around the hardware, not the hardware itself.

“While procurement still has an important place in our business, we’re just not the type of business that runs campaigns around specific products anymore. This can make using MDF challenging as the audience switches off when it’s a story wrapped around a vendor.”

Within the security market, Seccom Global is recognised as one of the fastest growing specialists in Australia, with expertise in managed firewall and wireless solutions.

27

Yet despite such a strong standing within the market, gaining traction with vendors to utilise support remains fraught with complexities.

“Overall, Seccom is good with content and we are not interested in product driven campaigns,” Seccom Global sales director, Anita Sheridan-Roddick, said. “We want to build brand identity and longterm relationships which means that educational and awareness campaigns work best.”

Despite outlining a clear go-tomarket strategy, Sheridan-Roddick acknowledged that the provider is “time poor”, with vendors failing to address resource challenges associated with initiating full campaigns.

“Most vendors simply want to co-fund an event and then want the ROI on a spreadsheet the next day,” Sheridan-Roddick said. “But this is not feasible when most clients and potential clients have a multi-step and/or a long sales cycle for managed services.

“As a security provider, it can take time to move clients across to us or away from existing relationships. But

Maximising MDF

Partners today have a very strong story to tell however, because a solid reputation counts for the customer.

But the informed technology buyer today requires more than carbon copy websites, vendorcentric pitches and out-dated marketing techniques.

In an ecosystem spanning thousands of technology specialists, differentiation is difficult in a market crammed with competition.

And for partners seeking to expand

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28 ARN Marketing Workshop

vendors are so driven by the quarterly number they do not always see the value in a long-term partnership.”

With a desire for greater levels of transparency across the process, the onus is on vendors to set clear MDF policies and guidelines in advance, in a bid to avoid ongoing channel conflict.

Yet such guidelines, when wrapped around strict product driven campaigns, continue to offer little value to forwardthinking partners.

“We’re challenged by strict guidelines around approved activities and strict ROI within 30 days of the campaign execution deadline,” Ney added. “But our sales cycles are typically up to 12 months or more.

Also, issues arise when multiple partners run the same campaigns with the same vendors.”

Seeking improvements

In looking ahead, Gray believes value can be found through vendors outlining funding plans at the start of each financial year, allowing marketing departments to think long-term, rather than ad-hoc campaigns.

“This will help formulate a precise plan of how this funding will be used in campaigns throughout the rest of the year,” Gray explained. “This would be of benefit, not only to partners but also the vendors themselves.

“Additionally, some vendors are really good at going through what proof of performance is required for MDF so you are fully aware before going ahead with the campaigns the expected results. But this is not the case for all and I think there are still some who could make improvements in this area.”

Delving deeper, Raymond said vendors can improve MDF processes by localising claims, allowing initiatives to be approved in Australia, rather than in region.

Q1 2019 arnnet.com.au

“There’s value in having flexible category options on MDF portals,” Raymond added. “Currently, the activities we are running don’t fit in any of the allocated categories – and it usually leads to our claims being automatically denied and having to go back and forth to fix it.

“Also, vendors providing approval for marketing activities quicker will allow us to submit our claims as soon as we have our proof of performance.

“And finally, partners value receiving the money back from the claims quicker because some vendors take about three months to reimburse.”

Holding the belief that “nothing happens in a quarter”, Welna said vendors must recognise the value of building 12–18 month plans, boosting collaboration within the channel in the process.

“Buyers are smarter, and customers don’t jump when you say how high,” Welna added.

Such sentiment is endorsed by Ayoub, who believes that “unrealistic timeframes” for ROI, coupled with limited support on media and content funding, continues to hinder marketing progress for partners.

“Vendors must support partners with their strategy,” Ayoub added.

“It’s time to stop pushing products, hardware and tin, rather providing market insights and leads that vendor budgets have access to.”

Stemmed from listening, and crucially acting on, market feedback, modern-day vendors are moving away from product driven messaging, instead focusing on outcome driven content in the age of the more informed customer.

In observing past and present behaviours, Sheridan-Roddick acknowledged that some vendors have been open to “creative, partner led campaigns”, which in turn has helped drive business and build customer loyalty.

“Some have been transparent, and

Karina Aguilera (Fujitsu)

again this has driven open, honest communication and created loyalty,” Sheridan-Roddick added. “Those who are not open to ideas, remain product driven and lack transparency will not thrive with MSPs or indeed at all as customers often do not discuss product until they have chosen a provider.

“This weakens the vendors position if they are not working closely with us.”

In terms of customer value, marketers and vendors appear to be on the same page however, with a desire to focus on enhancing user experience.

“I would love to see vendors relax rules around the execution so we can use the funds to provide more value back to the customer, which in turn leads to sales for us and our vendors,” Challinor added.

“I know they need to ensure their funds are being spent properly, but as an MSP, any sales we make in the managed services space translates to revenue for the vendor.”

Advancing the conversation, Ney also outlined the benefits of relaxing MDF rules, in a move designed to position the partner centre stage in the conversation.

“There needs to be more leniency on activities,” Ney advised. “This will allow the partner to be the hero piece in a campaign and mean that the vendor takes the backseat.”

Photos by Christine Wong.

29 ARN Marketing Workshop

Marketing Workshop ARN

29

Flexibility key to achieving management buy-in

Marketing, and everything it encompasses, is viewed with suspicion and caution in equal measure within the channel, as business leaders struggle to adapt to new methods and approaches.

As one CEO of a prominent Melbournebased partner outlined on the condition of anonymity; “we did have a marketing manager yes, but we sacked him after nine months. He was too creative.”

On the surface, such a statement appears discouraging and disheartening for the industry’s high-flying marketers, summarising the channel’s greatest weakness in a few off-the-cuff comments.

Underneath however, it paints a much darker picture, as partners struggle to place trust in an expertise deemed by many to be incalculable and measureless.

“We’ve tried it all before,” outlined the managing director of a Brisbane-based provider, “we’ve spent a fortune on agencies, LinkedIn campaigns, demand generation and everything under the sun yet nothing came of it. We got burned.”

For the channel is adopting a once bitten, twice shy mentality to marketing, refusing to embrace new ideas in favour of outdated approaches.

Are marketing managers being too ambitious? Are they running before they can walk? Are they sidestepping an issue now ingrained in the psyche of the channel?

Because in assessing the channel objectively, creative heads are attempting something outlandish and difficult before business leaders have grasped the basic skills.

“We’re a team of engineers and architects, we don’t know the first thing about marketing,” the CEO of a Sydney-based managed services provider acknowledged.

“We know we need to invest, but we come from a technical background that is incredibly black and white in how we think.”

Therefore, marketers must recognise the need to adapt and be flexible, acknowledging and addressing boardroom scepticism through concepts that are quantifiable and easily understandable for the organisation, before progressing to the next level.

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30 Analysis Tech Research Asia

Finding your [digital] voice

I

PARTNER MARKETING HAS BEEN ONE OF THE MOST TALKED ABOUT SUBJECTS IN THE CHANNEL OVER THE LAST FEW YEARS — MARK ILES OF TECH RESEARCH ASIA DRAWS ON EDGE RESEARCH TO OUTLINE THE NEXT STEPS IN 2019.

n Australia, the landscape has shifted with a few key drivers impacting how partners will need to think about marketing moving forward.

The customer is (very) well informed: You can’t simply invite customers to an event and talk about technology anymore. If they can read it online, they will. Customers are looking for insights into how they can more effectively utilise technology in the context of specific business initiatives they are undertaking.

The rise of as-a-service solutions: As partners started to build out their portfolio of managed services, they have realised that the brand of the underlying technology provider(s) was becoming secondary to their own brand in the eyes of the customer. If the partner is on point for meeting the service levels and expectations of the client, it is their brand which takes now precedent.

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Cost of acquisition: The downside of delivering managed services is the loss of strong upfront revenues and the knock-on effect of this is stress on cash flow and the need to control costs including acquisition. It’s very difficult to keep hiring sales people in a market where skills are scarce and wage expectations keep growing (and are arguably unsustainable) when quotas have gone from $500,000 to $2 million per sales person to deals worth <$10,000 per month. Some simple math indicates all partners will need to look more closely at their cost of acquisition and reallocating funding from sales to marketing will be key.

Across Australia, we are starting to see partners recognise these underlying changes. EDGE Research showed that nearly half of partners are looking to invest more in marketing this year.

Figure 1: (Partners) Which statement about your planned sales and marketing investment is closest to your organisation’s approach?

This raises the question, what is the right amount of marketing investment? For a company whose primary focus is delivering B2B products and services, where most partners operate, marketing spend averages around 10 per cent of total company revenues.

If your turnover is $5 million, this means you would be spending a total of $500,000 on marketing (I can feel your eyebrows raising). Don’t panic if you’re not at this level – I know few partners that are, and it may not be needed for your particular business.

As a more direct comparison our survey showed that on average Australian partners have six per cent of their headcount focused on marketing today.

Reduce marketing investment to invest more in sales

Invest more in marketing by leveraging joint vendor activities

1% 33% 47%

Invest more in our own marketing

No major change

Web search/word of mouth/ peer referral

19%

24%

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1%

to invest more in sales

33%

Invest more in marketing by leveraging joint vendor activities

32 Analysis Tech Research Asia

Figure 2: (Partners) What is the breakdown of your current headcount by function?

For most partners this will represent most investment, with vendor MDF often making up the main source of funding for specific marketing initiatives, campaigns and events etc.

The more important point is whether you know your current marketing spend and is this figure deliberate or simply a result of determining what you can afford once all other costs are accounted for?

The next question to consider is what are the right areas to be investing in? The best place to start with this is by asking customers how they look for partners when they have a project they need assistance with.

19%

No major change 10%

9%

8%

Business Operations (HR, finance, admin)

Senior Management

Technical

Web(software search/word of mouth/ development) peer referral

24% 27% 25%

They contact us pro-actively They are referred by one of our other partners

Sales 21% (inc. telesales)

We see content or marketing from them regarding...

13%

We run our own events 42% and invite them Technical

Attending (pre-sales,industry forums, roundtables and... consulting and support and support)

Other

7% 6%

6%

Marketing

1%

Referrals from existing customers Our own website/SEO/ SEM/content marketing Direct sales Our own events (e.g. seminars, roundtables Leads from your key vendors Referrals from other partners

If you’re not sure where to start below is a quick checklist that might help but marketing is one discipline all partners will need to become more adept at in the new world.

Work out how much you spend on marketing and the per cent of revenue it represents, you should know this number and understand what you want it to be.

Finding your USP. If you’re not sure you need to crack this. In a crowded market, it’s imperative to understand what makes you different and you don’t need an agency and a mood board to do this. Spend some time with your team (at all levels) and

March 2019 arnnet.com.au Q1 2019 arnnet.com.au

47%

Invest more in our own marketing

Vendor events, industry conferences, trade shows Telesales

1st priority 2nd priority

your customers and figure out what is the essence of what you do and why. Everything starts from here.

Walk in your customer’s shoes.

Does your website and your content talk about what you do or what you can do for your customer? The two are a world apart and hopefully you know which one represents the right answer in 2019.

Finding your own voice.

Ensure your marketing efforts represent what you do and help to position your unique value, which needs careful management when leveraging vendor MDF. Engage agencies carefully.

For most partners, there is usually some benefit to developing a relationship

Figure 3: (Customers) How do you go about finding partners to help you deliver a solution?

Peer and partner referral, direct reach and SEO search remain key but are now very closely followed by targeted content developed by partners and in our experience, this is becoming a critical area. Looking to EDGE Research, we can see that partners are reasonably well aligned to customer behaviour with a focus on referrals, digital content and SEO/SEM as a core component of their acquisition strategy.

Mark Iles is an executive consultant with advisory and consulting organisation Tech Research Asia.

with a marketing agency.

Where I have seen this work most effectively is where the partner is clear on what they want – too many proposals focus on brand and positioning.

If you just need someone to help with campaigns and website development be clear on that. A brand book isn’t for everyone.

It’s not just acquisition.

The role of marketing is critical in customer engagement and lifecycle management not just acquisition. Ensure you are setting aside budget for ongoing engagement to drive satisfaction, engagement and maximise long term value.

Too often marketing funds are allocated to acquisition whilst current customers are unhappy and disengaged.

34 Interview LiveTiles

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LiveTiles Interview

T

Style & Substance FROM THE STREETS OF MELBOURNE, TO THE SIDEWALKS OF NEW YORK, LIVETILES IS LIGHTING UP THE WORLD THROUGH DESIGN AND CREATIVITY — CMO NICK RAMEKA CHARTED THE RISE WITH JULIA TALEVSKI.

he world is a better place when humans are free to do their best work; the mantra that represents everything LiveTiles strives for.

“We have always been driven by a vision that technology shouldn’t distract people from getting their work done,” said Nick Rameka, speaking as CMO of LiveTiles.

“My core role and responsibility within the business is to ensure our brand is consistent across all departments, that it is isn’t just a shiny thing at the start of the customer journey, but infiltrates every touch point, and that every touch point reflects our brand promise.”

The Australian-born, now global, software specialist was founded in 2014 by Melbourne pair Karl Redenbach and Peter NguyenBrown.

The two have been in business together since the age of 25, and were also the duo behind Microsoft cloudbased services provider, nSynergy, which was purchased by cloud services distributor Rhipe in 2014.

As of last year, LiveTiles secured more than $50 million in funding and is continuing its growth journey.

Since launch, the business has set up a foothold in the US and Europe, eventually moving its headquarters to New York, and listing on the Australian Securities Exchange in 2015, attracting an evaluation of $33.75 million.

From a technology standpoint, the company creates software tools for dashboards, employee portals and corporate intranets featuring artificial intelligence and analytics capabilities.

35

Since its inception, the LiveTiles team has grown from eight to almost 200 people, racking up a couple of acquisitions along the way through Hyperfish and Wizdom.

And in the face of its growth ambition to reach $100 million in annual recurring revenue by 2021, what constantly remains top of mind, doesn’t change.

The voice of the customer and customer experience are a top point of focus for LiveTiles, when it comes to establishing their branding in the market, but what is as equally important is the employee experience — ensuring they understand the journey the company is undertaking and most importantly, why.

“We started this journey with 10 people back in late 2014,” Rameka said. “By necessity the marketing function had to transcend our twoperson department. Sales, product and marketing have always worked closely together as a result.

“Even today, everyone in our organisation, no matter what team they sit in, has a passion for how we present ourselves in the market, and our message.”

Hiring the right people is also an important factor when it comes to the company’s culture, considering the fast pace of the technology landscape.

“You need to have the right people and culture to understand the fast pace of the industry, because not everyone wants to be a part of that,” he said.

“Over the years, we have understood the type of people that are needed for this journey, and as a result our recruitment process has become much

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36 Interview LiveTiles

tighter and thorough.”

Rameka, who is based in Melbourne, counts himself in a fortunate position of being part of the start-up’s journey from the first day and discovered he wore multiple hats — part sales person, part product developer and demonstrator.

“That first year was probably the hardest that I’ve ever been involved within a company,” he added. “The amount of work we put in, just to keep afloat and keep chasing that dream was incredible.

“In our first year, I didn’t think about the brand, I was more focused on ‘what’ we do, to really start to consider the ‘why’ element.

I was always searching for the ‘why’ and that’s still evolving.

“It’s a once in a lifetime opportunity to build a brand right from the grassroots-level and up.

Other start-ups that I’ve known haven’t had that luxury, usually marketing comes down the track or it’s outsourced.”

A critical function of the LiveTiles marketing strategy is collaboration, with Rameka stating the marketing and sales functions work better together, rather than separately.

“The kind of synergies we get from having that strategy have been key to our ability to pivot quickly and powerfully,” he said.

Rameka explains communication is a key factor when it comes to embracing new markets and facing new challenges. Particularly since its recent, $48 million acquisition of Danish company, Wizdom.

“With the Wizdom acquisition we have an enormous opportunity to increase our footprint in Europe, which is a notoriously tricky landscape to navigate,” he said.

Customer comes first - always

To understand LiveTiles’ positioning in the market, it’s important to look back at where it all started, Rameka

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said. The LiveTiles journey stemmed from customer frustration around not being able to manipulate the Microsoft SharePoint user interface.

“We knew then that if we could create a piece of software that would give them some sort of a design canvas where they could drag elements on a page, and design what they want that SharePoint page to look like, we were on to something good,” he said.

As LiveTiles paved its brand into the software market, looking into helping organisations create a user interface layer over Microsoft SharePoint platform, it attracted the attention of early adopters such as PepsiCo. “As PepsiCo took our software and rolled it out at such a scale, we were compelled to evolve it to new levels of capability and ensure we were constantly innovating in the market,” Rameka said.

“Our journey has seen us introduce the ability for organisations to add bot assistants to their employee experiences platform; analytics to understand adoption; integrations with other technologies such as SAP; and a bot that works in the background to keep your active directory up to date, ensuring your people data is clean and able to be leveraged for smarter solutions.”

Since then, the business has attracted a string of Microsoft partners and customers across finance, real estate, government, education and retail sectors.

Recently, LiveTiles specifically mentioned that its high impact co-marketing initiatives with Microsoft and growing brand awareness, contributed to the increase in the volume of enterprise customers in its scope.

Some of these co-marketing initiatives with Microsoft involve digital marketing campaigns; global customer and partner events such

LiveTiles Interview

as Ignite and Inspire; early access to the Microsoft product roadmap; customer references and regular account planning sessions.

LiveTiles counts more than 500 customers, involving entities such as Michael Hill, NBH Bank, Belle Property, UK Ministry of Defence, SA Department for Child Protection and University of Canberra.

The customer experience continues to play a crucial role in the way LiveTiles develops and enhances its suite of products, which include LiveTiles Design, Bots, Intelligent Workplace and Hyperfish.

The LiveTiles Bot can be used by partners to build on, co-brand or white label.

“We also incorporate customer ideas and feedback into our product releases, which has been noted as a vital part of their confidence in us,” Rameka said.

“Overall, our growth as a company has made the biggest headlines, which is great news for investors and would-be investors — but there is a lot of industry that goes into that growth: from the passion we put into our technology, improving customer experiences, aligning ourselves with the right partners, ensuring we nurture a thriving employee culture, and having the courage to try new things, are what fuel that growth.”

Tackling the global scene

To overcome the unique challenges in each region, LiveTiles has designed a model it calls the Fusion Functional Org that identifies and divides teams into regional and specialist roles.

Part of the remit involves seeking out what works well in other regions and aiming to replicate that success across other areas.

With regional marketing leads in the Americas, Europe and Asia Pacific, they touchdown on the nuances of each region.

“It enables us to work smarter with scarcity and make decisions with greater reach,” he said.

“Those three marketing leads work very closely together, along with the senior vice presidents, so that we can work efficiently from a global perspective, but with a local mindset.”

LiveTiles’ extensive partner channel reach also provides insights into each region, alongside adding an extra 27 transacting partners to its pipeline during the past 12 months, including PwC, Deloitte, Velrada and South African-based Bytes Technology Group.

In turn, channel partners gain benefits from the software company’s marketing sales engine and access to marketing resources for events, and digital or social media reach.

“Our partner strategy has evolved a lot since 2015, and we’re now going for quality relationships so we can focus and offer more to our partners,” he said. “We’ve worked very hard to build the brand to where it is today.

And according to our partners, our brand helps them to get into the door of a lot of customer opportunities.”

Key differentiator

Acknowledging the competitiveness of the software market place, there are some factors that set LiveTiles apart from the rest of the pack.

“An intranet that simply serves up the standard set of corporate comms, information links, and team sites isn’t going to cut it,” he said.

“We have deliberately added capabilities to our platform such as bot assistants for every employee; analytics; people directory data collection and artificial intelligence that actively captures employee skills.

“What we offer is a journey of augmented intelligence and have a platform that caters to a customer’s journey at whatever stage they’re at — from intranet right through to a fully functioning intelligent

37

layer that propels their business into extreme levels of productivity and innovation, gets all their technology syncing, and frees employees to do their best work.”

A stronger focus on its alliance with Microsoft, the partner channel community and its digital footprint is what Rameka will be concentrating on in the year ahead. To help increase the adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies, LiveTiles released its new AI Spark Partner Program, which aims to help Australian partners lift their AI capabilities and deployment opportunities.

Specifically, it opens access for partners to Azure-based AI and cognitive services to develop intelligent solutions.

Learnings and lessons

Recognising that a project is failing, often derives some of the greatest lessons learnt in business. But Rameka stresses that recognising that failure early is a key aspect, rather than dragging on a project for even longer, hurting the company in the process.

“Key lessons that we’ve learnt is when we’ve failed at certain tasks or projects, and some staff took it to heart, but if you’re not prepared to fail, then you’re never going to discover anything of any great value,” he said.

“We realised that if you’re going to fail, try to do it quickly, there’s no point in dragging it out at a massive cost to the company. There’s nothing wrong with a bit of failure.”

Another key takeaway Rameka has learnt is to not always consider your brand as the greatest in the market.

“The feedback we get from some companies is that our brand is intimidating,” he said. “But we operate as if we’re second on the ladder because if you get caught up in your own bull-dust, you lose your edge in the market.”

arnnet.com.au Q1 2019

38 Analysis Somerville

Lessons in building a brand that connects

strategy without buy-in from the executive team is futile. At Somerville, the executive team have made digital marketing a top business priority and their passion has permeated through all areas of the business.

As a result of Somerville’s ongoing investment in digital marketing, we’ve seen our digital footprint mature and grow, with web traffic significantly increasing, a vast improvement in lead generation and conversion rates, as well as increased brand awareness into new markets.

Needless to say, there were a few high fives around the office when Hewlett Packard Enterprise singled us out at the recent HPE Marketing Pro Academy for leading the digital marketing pack across Asia Pacific.

Cut the jargon to connect with customers

MARKETING IS ALL ABOUT COLLABORATION AND CONNECTING WITH CUSTOMERS, ACCORDING TO LISA PAPLI, MARKETING MANAGER AT SOMERVILLE. As a marketer, I’m always looking for innovative ways to connect with customers. Working for a business that has a 35-year track record of providing outstanding service and value certainly helps build brand awareness and credibility.

At the same time, thousands of service providers enter the Australian market each year, all vying for the attention of our prospective and current customers.

And with the growing needs of the tech world, customer expectations are at an alltime high.

In a crowded marketplace, standing out and establishing a loyal customer base can be challenging.

At Somerville, we focus on creating a community around our brand — both internally by working cohesively across teams, and externally by collaborating with our partners and listening to our customers.

Q1 2019 arnnet.com.au

Creative campaigns start with collaboration

Nothing sensational happens in a silo.

Each department at Somerville has an important part to play in developing our marketing strategy and we’re all heavily invested in the process.

The leadership team ensures our strategy aligns with our business objectives and future direction. Our technical team provides information to help us craft meaningful stories. And our sales team shares vital insights into the challenges our customers are facing.

Alignment between sales and marketing is critical to the success of our campaigns.

We also work with our global partners so we can draw on the latest industry information and insights, because in this game, you never stop learning.

But trying to execute a marketing

One way to get people to lose interest in your offering, is to speak to them in a foreign language. For a lot of decisionmakers, ‘tech speak’ is just that. Around 50 per cent of IT decisions are made by people who don’t work in IT. For Somerville, they could be the principal of a school, the CEO of a superannuation fund or the operations manager of a motor vehicle retailer.

It’s our job to make that information easy to understand. Our technical knowledge is one of our biggest strengths but overly technical information can cause a time poor decision-maker to tune out.

Effective communication is also about timing. At Somerville, we focus on understanding the buying cycle of our target industries and tailoring our campaigns to each stage of the buyer’s journey.

I’m extremely proud of the team at Somerville and the brand we have built, and I’m confident that the future is going to be shaped by innovation and growth as we implement a carefully considered and ambitious marketing strategy.

We’ll be continuing to focus heavily on our partnerships with our key vendors along with our digital marketing strategies, so we can deliver exceptional outcomes for our customers, partners and Somerville.

39 Analysis Insentra

Insentra Analysis

39

Marketing is here to do good, but a new approach is needed NEW AUTOMATION TOOLS, THE USE OF AI AND THE NEED TO CONSTANTLY FIND WAYS TO CUT THROUGH THE NOISE MEANS THE IMPORTANCE OF MARKETING HAS CHANGED — INSENTRA CMO SUSANNE KING OUTLINES WHY.

At Insentra, marketing originally acted to tell people who we were, what we did and how they could engage with us. It was all about us and how loud we could shout the Insentra message.

Unfortunately, this is how a lot of marketing is done and it’s simply no longer working. If you want to be a brand builder, you must look at human behaviour and psychology long before you even think about what type of marketing campaign you run.

Marketing isn’t about telling, it’s about building a personal relationship Sales 101 tells us people like buying and engaging with people (well most people do). Marketing campaigns that are generic and speak only about yourself will never cut through the noise of all the marketing hype in the market today.

People are bored with being marketed to, they want engagement and ultimately to feel a sense of belonging.

If you want to establish and build a strong brand, the focus needs to move

March 2019 arnnet.com.au

away from you, to the person you want to engage with in an organisation.

Unless your marketing activities are getting to know the needs and beliefs of your client with a view to building a relationship and delighting them in ways that really matter then you shouldn’t really bother.

Marketing isn’t there just to achieve sales or generate leads, its purpose is to make the life of your ideal client easy The notion that marketing is only here to either generate leads, improve sales or build a brand is rudimentary in nature.

The real purpose of marketing is to make the life of your ideal client easy.

Its purpose is to demonstrate you understand their needs, to communicate in ways that make it easy for them to understand how you will solve their problem and finally to provide a clear and simple path for them to take the next step.

Marketing isn’t about attracting everyone, it’s about qualifying the people you can help.

Marketing strategies must start with your ideal client in mind (and have something that makes them go wow) When we create and execute a marketing strategy, our first step is to ask three quality questions: Who are we helping? Why would they want to engage with us? What is the result we want to achieve?

Once we are clear on our value proposition, we can then decide the approach to take. And once we have the strategy framework established, then comes the fun part, how do we make the recipients say ‘wow’?

SMARKETING – it’s not about balancing sales and marketing I have always found the concept of balance in life a silly one because ultimately balance likely can’t be achieved and certainly not easily.

Why would you want to waste a bunch of time trying to balance sales and marketing activities when you could be focused on something far more important?

When it comes to sales and marketing, organisations need to be #SMARKETINGOBSESSED. The role of a business isn’t to balance sales and marketing activities, rather the focus is to drive both sales and marketing to work together to solve the pain points of a client.

Smart organisations don’t distinguish between sales and marketing for any other reason than to identify key areas of responsibility.

arnnet.com.au Q1 2019

40 Interview Servian

ANALYSE THIS:

DATA IN THE ENTERPRISE INFORMATION IS A POWERFUL TOOL FOR BUSINESSES TODAY, DRIVEN BY A DESIRE TO INNOVATE AT SPEED AND COMPETE AT SCALE â&#x20AC;&#x201D; TIMOTHY MANNAH, PARTNER OF SPECIALIST CONSULTANCY FIRM SERVIAN, SITS DOWN WITH JAMES HENDERSON TO OUTLINE THE ROLE OF DATA AND ANALYTICS IN REDEFINING ENTERPRISE TRANSFORMATION AGENDAS.

CHRISTINE WONG

Q1 2019 arnnet.com.au

Kate Massey (JCurve Solutions)

Servian Interview

A

lmost two years since The Economist went to press — leading with the front cover tagline of ‘The world’s most valuable resource’ — the debate has yet to settle on the iconic magazine’s bold claims.

In sketching six oil rigs — housing logos of Google, Facebook, Uber, Amazon, Microsoft and Tesla — a statement was made in which data was heralded as the new oil.

Such a statement, of course, has been wildly debated and dismissed with Forbes, World Economic Forum and BBC publicly airing scepticism.

But as the finer details are contested, perhaps the crux of the matter lies in the belief that in some shape or form, data is dominating the business world.

“Customers want to leverage data in near real-time, that is the holy grail,” observed Timothy Mannah, partner at Servian. “Real-time reporting and insights is crucial in a market still carrying out overnight batch-based work, which is not going to suffice in a world now transacting online.”

While the May 2017 edition of The Economist was centred around the establishment of new anti-trust rules to combat a growing data economy, the underlying point that knowledge is power rings true.

In the enterprise, information has always been in abundance and statistics have always proved to be infinite. The knowledge and the power comes from maximising such data through deep analysis, providing actionable insights in response.

Collecting data for data’s sake is not intelligence, however.

“The objective is centred around setting customers up to achieve decision making in real-time, and in parts of a business, that is achievable,” Mannah explained.

“Any digitally native data is in the cloud to begin with, so moving this data from point A to point B — when

both of those points are in the cloud — offers the capability for customers to make decisions quickly.”

In spearheading Servian’s digital practice - tasked with helping customers capitalise on the promise of digital, cloud, artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning - Mannah is attempting to manoeuvre change in a tier-1 market traditionally bound by size and scale.

“In order to move the dial at a bank for example, given the size of the customer base, you need to achieve wins at scale,” explained Mannah, who joined the Sydney-based consultancy firm in 2013.

“If you place yourself within a large tier-1 Titanic-sized enterprise business, there’s value in observing the market in terms of assessing the smaller industry players that can be agile and nimble.

“Banks can watch how blockchain plays out for example, and when they are ready to commit, they can spend big and pick what they want to go after.”

Appetite for change

Founded in 2008, Servian is a data and analytics specialist targeting the enterprise, with key customers across financial services, insurance and telecommunications.

In housing more than 320 consultants, the business offers advice and guidance around five core technology sets, spanning data and analytics; AI; digital; customer engagement and cloud and technology.

Such capabilities are backed up by alliances with Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google Cloud, Microsoft and IBM, alongside Domo, Tableau, Talend and Cloudera among others.

“Our next sector of focus is in government,” Mannah added.

“I’m flawed by the willingness and desire to transform and move quickly in government.

“I find it phenomenal that some

41

of the policies are now moving away from multimillion-dollar projects to short, sharper engagement in which risk is being removed from the profile of every project.

“There’s courage in place to try new things, knowing that the risk appetite is lower which provides opportunity to trial and do more.

Government works with people that are specialists in what they do, and our core focus area is around data and analytics.”

While the appetite for innovation is increasing across Australia, Mannah acknowledged that a shift to the business is also underway across all sectors, as new buyers emerge

“I’m flawed by the willingness and desire to transform and move quickly in government” from within the enterprise shadows.

“Traditionally, IT absolutely held the keys to the kingdom in terms of the technology growth roadmap but now the business wants to move faster than what IT can move,” he said. “Over the years, this dynamic has built up a level of frustration in the boardroom, and the question now is, who’s calling the shots?

“The CMO has the right to call the shots, especially in that data space.

But likewise, the CIO still has a very big role to play.

“Anyone who thinks they are going to bullishly move the enterprise

arnnet.com.au Q1 2019

42 Interview Servian

towards a technology outcome without taking technology and the business along together, is gravely underestimating the longevity of a plan.”

On paper, transformation is the order of the day for customers, motivated by a desire to compete in a crowded market.

“About nine per cent of the workloads that could go to the cloud are in the cloud in Australia, which leaves 91 per cent of growth space,” Mannah observed.

“Growth in Australia is working within the tier-1 space to help enterprise customers migrate work to the cloud, that’s nowhere near mature.

“This is especially the case within the data and analytics market, in which traditionally, most of the behemoths are tied to enterprise systems and services that are still very much on-premises.”

Consequently, Mannah outlined “huge opportunity” to engage in cloud conversations specific to data and analytics, to iron out any market misconceptions.

“When the whole cloud boom began, many just looked at it from a cost saving perspective but I think anyone that continues to look at it from a cost-saving standpoint alone, is going to leave a large percentage of the win on the table,” Mannah added.

“You will save money if you commit to cloud but you can’t half commit, you have to commit to realise the savings. The concept of transformation requires a catalyst for change and that trigger point is migration to the cloud.”

Leading the charge to the cloud is AWS, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud Platform, three environments that from an Australian perspective, tick crucial customer checklists in terms of data sovereignty and security.

“All of the market leaders represent a viable option for customers,” Mannah said. “We weren’t having that

Q1 2019 arnnet.com.au

conversation when we first started talking about cloud, but now we can and customers are picking and choosing capabilities.”

Adhering to a “multi-cloud” strategy, Servian continues to maintain a vendor agnostic heritage, advising on best-fit technologies for specific end-user requirements.

“Each vendor has a claim to fame and they are all different in many ways,” Mannah stated.

“One customer might prefer AI and machine learning expertise, or strong back-up and disaster recovery options, our role is to assess the value-add of each vendor and recommend accordingly.

“It’s refreshing to come across a client base that wants to handpick technologies. Customers are working with vendors based on what they do best, which is a huge shift in thinking.”

“Customers want to leverage data in near real-time, that is the holy grail” Attacking the market

With 2019 now underway, Mannah said Servian — which has presence in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Canberra, Adelaide, Hobart, Auckland and Bengaluru — is aggressively chasing “over-arching” growth.

The business has doubled in size during the past three years, triggering a chain reaction in which overseas

expansion is emerging as a viable progression strategy.

“Australia’s market is finite in two ways,” Mannah explained. “First, you’re trying to grow in a market suffering a skills shortage. We’re a consultancy which means we provide excellence in terms of the talent we’re looking to put forward.

“Secondly, is Australia a big data market? Or is it more, big data ish? I would argue ish. We have a population of around 25 million and compared to other markets across the world, we have limitations imposed on us geographically.

“Therefore, this year is about finding new ways to grow into other regions.”

At this stage, options are still open as to where that new market will be, with the US, UK, New Zealand and Asia all under consideration.

“We’re working through the order in which we want to tackle that growth,” Mannah clarified. “The plan is to maintain the same hiring model and the same way we do business. We want to align to the markets which respond to how we do business.”

When the opportunity arises, and Servian navigates international waters, maintaining the company’s core DNA will be crucial, as the need for specialist capabilities heightens.

“First and foremost, we’re a data analytics consultancy, that’s what we are best known for and we will maintain that narrative,” Mannah said. “That is who we are, what we do and we’re very proud of the way in which we do it.

“The quality of our work and the people we have is what’s important to our success.

“Why would we change that? If you look at the rest of the work that we do, it’s all complementary to our data and analytics capabilities, such as cloud marketing, AI or data-driven digital, customer driven engagement.

Everything links back to data analytics which is the core.”

The future of the tech industry rides on the shoulders of our current young leaders. ARN will recognise and celebrate these talented individuals making waves in the tech industry.

Hosted as a half day forum, attendees will hear from industry champions as keynoters and panelists discussing leadership paths and career choices. Hall of Fame members will host small groups of future leaders to mentor and advise.

if this is you, register for the #arnemergingleaders emerging leaders program www.arnnet.com.au/emerging-leaders

Date: Tuesday 7 May Time: 1pm-5pm Where: Ivy Sunroom, The Ivy, 1/330 George Street, Sydney

30 under 30 tech awards As part of the 2019 Emerging Leaders Forum, there will be 30 under 30 Tech Awards to identify and celebrate the tech industry’s future leaders.

This is your chance to boost your profile and be recognised for your career progression. There are six awards. Choose the one that best suits you and nominate URGENTLY!

• SALES • Marketing • Management • Technical • Entrepreneur • Human Resources

44 ARN Roundtable Aruba Networks

Inside the experience economy: whatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s the partner play?

THIS EXCLUSIVE ARN ROUNDTABLE, IN ASSOCIATION WITH ARUBA NETWORKS AND ARROW ECS ANZ, ASSESSED THE RISE OF THE EXPERIENCE ECONOMY IN AUSTRALIA, THE NEW TECHNOLOGIES FLOODING THE MARKET AND HOW PARTNERS CAN CAPITALISE - MATTHEW SAINSBURY REPORTS.

L-R: Briant Kareroa (AC3); Nathan Georges (Outcomex); Mark Verbloot (Aruba); Mark Jackson (CCNA); Daniel Danielli (Arrow ECS ANZ); Sam Sarkis (Accucom Systems); Harshu Deshpande (Accenture); Nick Stranks (Ethan Group); David Okulicz (Kytec); Karl Sice (formerly of ASI Solutions); Josh Watts (Harbour IT); James Henderson (ARN); Kirk Jones (Secure Agility); Alex Gambotto (The Missing Link) and Deke Rayner-Harvey (Aruba)

Q1 2019 arnnet.com.au

Aruba ARN Roundtable

The rise of the Experience Economy, coupled with the redefining of customer expectations, is combining to transform the channel.

Because as digital and physical worlds collide, a one-time concept is now front and centre for end-users, challenging the status quo as a result.

Partners must now leverage new technologies within the network — and beyond — to capitalise, delivering expertise through artificial intelligence (AI), analytics and automation.

In a data-driven market, executing on such potential will form the basis of differentiation for an increasingly competitive channel.

“Take coffee as an example of the experience economy in action,” explained Mark Verbloot, systems engineering director across Asia Pacific and Japan at Aruba. “We pay around $4 or $5 yet the actual cost of the coffee itself is five cents.

“So, what are we paying for?

We’re paying for the barista experience, the coffee taste. We’re paying for the experience rather than the goods itself that produces that coffee. And that’s what we think the experience economy stands for.”

Dating back as far as 1998, the experience economy was a looming disruptive force in business, when, writing for Harvard Business Review, Joseph Pine and James Gilmore described it as “when a company intentionally uses services as the stage, and goods as props, to engage individual customers in a way that creates a memorable event”.

Such experiences were “inherently personal, existing only in the mind of an individual who has been engaged on an emotional, physical, intellectual or even spiritual level”.

Fast forward to 2019 and the experience economy is impacting everything, including the channel.

According to Verbloot, for partners to successfully take

Mark Verbloot (Aruba)

advantage, they must help customers roll out seamless experiences within their own businesses.

“The user experience becomes the most important thing that remains because ultimately the interaction we make with businesses is through end devices, be them smartphones or tablets,” Verbloot said. “Ultimately, the network connectivity needs to be something that’s completely invisible. ”Users don’t even care, they want to turn on their machine, do their work and then go home at the end of the day.

“With that in mind, we’ve been focusing on how we can improve the user experience in these new spaces that we find ourselves in.”

For Josh Watts — COO of Harbour IT — the challenge is no longer centred around how to deliver a solution that fits with the idea of the experience economy.

Rather, it’s about understanding how the new generation of workers, now assuming positions of leadership and influence, perceive the delivery of these solutions.

Because millennials have been singled out as the driving force behind the rise of such an experience.

“It has always been about

45

providing the experience,” Watts said. “It’s just that what the customers are experiencing is different now because they’re seeing less moving parts and more of an outflow.

“Also, they’re trying to buy things as-a-service, rather than understand the nuts and bolts behind the service.

“If you look at the CIO role, they now have a very different background and experience compared to ten years ago. Previously, the top person coming up through the works would have an architecture and hardware perspective.

“Today, they are more focused on business applications, assessing the market from a user perspective.”

The impact that these shifts will have on how channel organisations conduct business is expected to be significant.

According to Karl Sice - formerly head of Commercial and Federal Government at ASI Solutions - the channel is well positioned to make money through the value of insights provided, rather than products sold.

“Think about an organisation like Gartner, and the research they do, and how they actually make their money,” Sice said. “They don’t make

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46 ARN Roundtable Aruba Networks

their money on the big symposium.

“They make their money on the insights and the value that they’re creating, and in some cases, they’re making bets on them. It’s no longer about the plumbing, it’s about what you can do with the resource that you’re providing.”

Importance of flexibility

Often, the experience economy is closely linked to as-a-service models, subscriptions, cloud, and other solutions that are not tied to hardware or ownership.

In assessing the market, Nick Stranks — account director at Ethan Group — said such a viewpoint is limiting for partners.

“Our job is to take what vendors are offering and provide it to the customers in a way that makes them feel comfortable,” Stranks said.

“We’re seeing customers in certain sectors of the market now reinvesting in hardware rather than actually buying through the cloud.

“They’ve done their math, and they’ve worked out it’s cheaper to hold it. Because of that, for a number of our customers we’re now decoupling, and our services are

Q1 2019 arnnet.com.au

now centred around that. You must constantly re-evaluate where you sit.”

The drive to the experience economy is putting a renewed focus on delivering to customers something tailored to specific needs to optimise the experience.

That requirement for flexibility in the solutions that the channel can offer the market means that leading vendors must be flexible themselves, as outlined by Deke Rayner-Harvey, channel sales manager at Aruba.

“It’s one thing to have great technology, but the channel and the customers are constantly transforming and changing, and we need to understand those needs,” he said. “We can’t just go in with just the vendor agenda and dictate what we’re doing.

“We see success as better understanding how partners are changing in how they engage with their customers, and what we need to do to refine our approach.”

Partners must also be flexible because the experience economy isn’t just about pleasing one customer, it’s about providing an experience to both the customer and customer of the customer.

“Our customers have customers

David Okulicz (Kytec)

and that’s where the experience is really starting to get differentiated,” added David Okulicz, managing director of Kytec. “Sometimes you need to protect customers from themselves.

“Customers aren’t always certain of what that next step looks like, and when you’re delivering a solution you need to deliver something that they can then build upon.

“So, when that next trend comes, when they have an innovation officer who says, ‘I want to deliver this,’ you don’t want to tell them you’ve got to reengineer their network, their data centre, and so on.

“You want to simply tell them that sure, that can be plugged in.

Success is about being able to deliver a platform or design that makes customers agile, so they can deliver that experience through to their customers.”

Data delivers customer experience

Daniel Danielli (Arrow ECS ANZ)

In looking ahead, partners must evolve to deliver data-focused solutions to meet customer experience demands, and understand that these mandates aren’t necessarily coming from the CIO or IT department.

“Partners need strong core infrastructure and capabilities, but the big opportunity ahead is in talking to other parts of the organisation inside a customer,” advised Daniel Danielli, group manager of sales at Arrow ECS ANZ.

Aruba ARN Roundtable

Citing a recent example between Arrow ECS ANZ, Aruba and a retail customer, Danielli said the onus is now on partners to expand influence within an organisation.

“We deal with CIOs and IT departments, but also CMOs for example,” he added. “Through the solution, we completely transformed the experience that they offered to their customers.

“The opportunity for partners, once they have acquired that core set of data skills, is around changing the way they attract and interact with customers.”

But as the potential of data grows, challenges for customers remain, creating a need for guidance and insights.

“We’re starting to see people look to combine pieces of data from across their entire organisation to drive new insights; they leverage the ecosystem around them, open up the data, and from that build new offerings,” said Harshu Deshpande, managing director of Liquid Studio at Accenture.

“The flip side to this is the regulations such as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) coming down.

“What happens when it comes to data and location sensitive work?

If you’re looking at data such as people walking through shopping malls, how do you capture specific consent for this, and handle the data securely?”

Lyncoln De Mello (Brennan IT)

Deshpande said customers are trying to grapple with all the data that they’re collecting, or at least trying to collect, versus impending regulation around consumer data and open data.

“The big question is how do I deal with those two sides of the same coin?” he asked. “How do I harness the data but at the same time look at the customer’s right to opt out of sharing data?

“These issues are really hard to grapple with, so in many cases organisations end up standing still, and that’s the worst part of it.”

Another challenge that customers face, which can further inhibit the adoption of effective data solutions, is the competing priorities and understanding of various units within a business.

As a result, Nathan Georges — practice lead of data centre at Outcomex — believes the channel can add significant value to customers through acting as a bridge across business units.

“The departments that are interested in looking at the analytics, and then the departments that actually own or maintain the infrastructure, are disconnected,” Georges said.

“A really good example is when I look at a lot of back-up play vendors out there — they give out great case studies and white papers on how to integrate with all the fancy analytic tools, but every time I see a back-up opportunity I don’t see any part of the requirements covering off how to handle indexing everything.”

What’s missing in most organisations, according to Kirk Jones — director of technology at Secure Agility — is the role of a chief data officer.

“Someone that’s looking at where data is captured, how it has been marshalled across the organisation and then what’s the end use,” he said. “Between CMOs,

47

CIOs, CTOs, CSOs, and so on, there seems to be a lot of confusion around who owns the data.

“Those organisations need to be creating a role in the office that’s looking at data as a central unit, and partners need to be looking to articulate this to their customers.”

Maximising data

According to Lyncoln de Mello — practice director of communications and cloud at Brennan IT — organisations, even those with mature marketing outfits, still look to the channel for advice on how to make best use of data.

“A lot of the customers that we see doing well, with whatever data they have, are the ones that don’t sit back and start asking themselves to answer questions,” he said. “They actually fork out a little bit of cash to use a consultancy in the space.

“There is demand and some people are wise enough to know that someone out there can tell them what they need better than what they could figure out themselves.”

Much of the drive towards data use has been in the application space, Mark Jackson — Network Solutions Specialist Consultant at CCNA — added.

“Take for example contact centres — they’ve always wanted to know how many customers love you and how many don’t like you,” he said. “But now that’s changing to real-time analytics and management, such as how agents are actually speaking to customers.

“They want to know who’s talking over the top of a person, or being aggressive. That type of application, where it’s pulling in multiple different files to link all that information in real-time, is the kind of complexities that customers are looking to deal with.”

What this means for the channel is that organisations need to have a better understanding of their

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48 ARN Roundtable Aruba Networks

customer — and how that customer works — than ever before, Watts of Harbour IT added.

“Traditionally we’ve been very strong on taking on the outsourcing of IT, the ‘plumbing’ as such, and we think the best relationships have worked with the IT departments that built up their expertise around specific applications for their customers and for their end-users,” he said.

“Now, we are seeing more blurring into the application layer.

We are looking more at assisting with applications in a customer environment, reporting and making sure that the right infrastructure is there to support the applications.

“To do this, you do have to have better understanding of the specific applications the customer is running.”

Channel priorities

Such changes in customer behaviour, expectation, and needs, are causing partners to adopt new capabilities of their own, as explained by Briant Kareroa, sales manager of public sector at AC3.

“Two or three years ago we were very vendor reliant, and we had a lot of sell through our strong partners,” Kareroa said.

“But it’s changing now, and we are very much front facing, so we’ve got a team of 25 salespeople. Our approach now is we are going to drive solutions into our clients from the best of breed.”

Other partners have gone as far as to launch entirely new brands to make the expertise in this kind of support explicit, de Mello of Brennan IT added.

“We actually created a separate brand that’s neither service provider nor system integrator,” he said. “It’s in application development and management.

“We realised that particularly in this era of the experience economy

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Deke Rayner-Harvey (Aruba)

it’s also the age of collaboration.

If we can assist with the ease of collaboration, ease of document sharing and ease of gathering insights, we’ve done what the customer wants.”

One other consequence of this new direction and opportunity for the channel is that, to engage more deeply with customers, they also need to engage more deeply with vendors, and become more circumspect about which they partner with, Alex Gambotto, co-owner and CEO of The Missing Link, advised.

“Ten or 15 years ago, we were a jack of all trades,” he said. “Now we’re becoming more specialised and going through the vendor selection process a lot more thoroughly, “We’ve got a process now in which we look for a vendor that is market leading. Because the market is so much more commoditised and mature, we are looking for that market leading product and good

support, to be able to deliver the optimal customer experience.”

By developing deep relationships with vendors, it creates stability within the organisation, and allows a channel to work more deeply in turn with customers — an essential ability at a time where customers themselves need deeper engagement.

“My father used to say that if you don’t give a customer a reason to leave they won’t leave,” added Sam Sarkis, managing director of Accucom. “The only time we’ll switch from a vendor is if they’re doing the wrong thing by us.”

This roundtable was in association with Aruba and Arrow ECS ANZ. Photos by Christine Wong.

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50 Analysis Dicker Data

W

ide-ranging in definition and embryonic in deployment, IoT seemingly offers more in promise than in practice.

Such is the common consensus within the Australian channel, a channel traditionally sceptical of new technologies and wary of moving ‘ahead of the curve’.

Yet in 2019, attitudes and investments are changing, as customers place new IoT demands on partners, triggering a surge in spending and a flurry of active deployments.

In a regional market forecast to invest US$381.8 billion by 2022, Australia is the second highest country across Asia Pacific and Japan in terms of per capita IoT spending.

According to IDC findings, the key drivers of IoT penetration will include proliferation of cloud-based back-end services for data acquisition and analytics, and 5G fixed wireless deployments that are expected in Australia before 2020.

For the channel, a one-time opportunity is fast becoming a market reality.

“The channel is responding to the growth in IoT with enthusiasm coupled with pragmatism,” said Jason Hall, general manager of IoT and services at Dicker Data. “There is a great deal of interest in what vendors are doing, both established vendors such as Microsoft and Cisco, but also the new players such as NNNCo. “However, the channel is pragmatic and are not getting carried away with the latest and greatest technologies.”

In assessing the local market, Hall observed a “strong focus” on business models, emphasising how partners can build profitable IoT practices, build out services capabilities and develop the skills to capitalise on such opportunities.

“Within the services discussion

Q1 2019 arnnet.com.au

LIFE IN THE IOT FAST LANE AS THE CHANNEL BALANCES EMERGING AND ESTABLISHED TECHNOLOGIES, AUSTRALIAN CUSTOMERS ARE AGGRESSIVELY MOVING IN THE DIRECTION OF THE INTERNET OF THINGS — JAMES HENDERSON ASSESSES HOW PARTNERS CAN KEEP PACE.

partners want to understand how they can leverage their existing resources and capability to deliver deployment services, professional services and managed services,” he added. “These are the hot button areas.

“Once partners see the business case stacks up then their focus shifts to how to engage with customers, how to enable their sales teams and which solution areas would have the greatest alignment with their existing customer base.”

In response to increased market investment, Dicker Data is building out a wide-ranging portfolio of solutions and services in Australia, leveraging both established and emerging vendors — spanning platforms, sensors and integrated applications.

“We are building out our portfolio with a couple of key objectives that have been driven by partner feedback,” Hall explained. “Firstly, we are working with vendors whose technology is available today and that can be simply supported.

“Secondly, we are working with vendors whose solutions can deliver

value across a range of different customer use cases. As partners develop internal expertise in IoT and build their IP, they want the solutions to be repeatable, with some customisation, across their breadth of customers.”

To complement such objectives, the distributor is also working with vendors with expertise in specific industry verticals such as healthcare, local government, industrial and logistics, alongside those with channel-centric tendencies.

“Partners are looking for education, support and strategic guidance on how to build or expand their IoT practice,” Hall said. “Dicker Data’s IoT portfolio, coupled with expertise in how to position and deploy repeatable and profitable solutions is an important service we offer to our partners.

“Enablement is a key element in that and we offer workshops for both sales and technical teams to introduce them to the various technologies and position the business value they can provide to their customers.

“Understanding how IoT is being

Dicker Data Interview

consumed by customers is crucial and we can provide valuable insights in this area.”

Embracing opportunity

According to Matt Sinclair — IoT and AI lead at Microsoft — significant opportunity exists for partners to deliver impactful IoT services and create value for customers of all sizes.

“The key to success is solving a business challenge, not just installing IoT technology,” Sinclair said. “If your offering genuinely addresses a market need then the size of the companies engaged won’t matter.

“Smaller organisations can also be more agile in their IoT deployments.

Often, they’re looking to leverage IoT and AI to rapidly grow their businesses and compete with larger enterprises. It’s often the smaller customers who have the biggest aspirations and the greatest appetite to innovate quickly.”

Of note to partners, Sinclair said IoT is impacting every industry in Australia at varying rates.

For example, asset-intensive industries and organisations that

have historically been data-driven (i.e. manufacturing, agriculture) are seeing the most impact.

“They’re unlocking deeper insights from their datasets using cloud and AI technologies, and enriching their operational perspectives through the inclusion of new data, unlocked from IoT sensors,” Sinclair observed.

Typically, Sinclair said organisations are gathering around four uses for IoT — improving internal operations, creating better products and services, empowering employees, and improving overall customer experience.

“These motives lead to significant cost savings that can be re-invested back into the business or entirely new revenue opportunities,” Sinclair added.

From a criteria standpoint, Sinclair said successful partners have built practices around trust and education — IoT isn’t just about connecting devices.

“There are components of business case analysis, change management, security, emerging tech integration and many more areas that lead to effective IoT

Matt Sinclair (Microsoft)

51

deployments,” he said. “The most successful partners are the ones who continue to add value once the box has been plugged in.

“IoT often involves an ecosystem of companies, so it’s critical that partners understand where they can provide the most value in an IoT solution and be willing to work with complementary organisations to fill any gaps and provide a complete solution for customers.”

In a direct address to partners currently operating on the outskirts of the market, still assessing options before committing to new technologies, Sinclair advised that growing an internal understanding of IoT is key to delivering a successful product or service.

“Start hacking with developer kits, connecting devices to the cloud, and experimenting with different devices to understand how customers might use these products in their environments,” he suggested.

“Leverage your existing expertise or industry knowledge to identify the problem you’re intending to solve, then work back to the technology needed. It’s key that partners can

arnnet.com.au Q1 2019

52 Analysis Dicker Data

authentically discuss the business justification for deploying IoT products, otherwise their impact to customers will be limited.

“There are plenty of resources from Microsoft to get started, such as the IoT School and IoT Reference Architecture.”

Creating value

Spanning Australia, IoT continues to grow steadily as government, municipalities, and enterprises move from proof of concept and tests to live deployments.

According to IDC, this is part of a strategy to enhance productivity and efficiency, build Smart City infrastructures, capitalise on new technologies and embrace digital transformation.

“IoT has transitioned from an emerging market into reality and we’re seeing a huge demand for these solutions,” said Rob Zagarella, founder and CEO of National Narrowband Network Communications (NNNCo).

“Partners who don’t have an answer to ‘how can you help me with IoT?’ are missing out, not only on additional revenue but more importantly on delivering a service that increases customer stickiness and improves understanding.”

Zagarella said successful partners

have a deep understanding of their customer’s requirements and can offer tailored, expert advice around optimising the data layer outputs to create tangible results.

“Whilst IoT can give access to vast amounts of data, it’s only the interpretation and outcome based recommendations that make the data valuable,” he added.

Zagarella said the NNNCo business was founded on the premise of removing the complexity of building and deploying loT applications, with the channel a key route to market in 2019 and beyond.

“We deliver the network layer and technology-agnostic data platform that transforms data into knowledge by bridging the gap between loT devices and applications,” he said. “This makes IoT accessible across any industry to enable enterprise-grade solutions for business and government.

“Our product sets have been developed for a wide number of use cases, using a small number of devices that can be easily extended as required using a global ecosystem of device partners.

“This means we have a simple, profitable and repeatable offering that resellers can take to market with confidence.”

Jason Hall (Dicker Data)

Assessing Dicker Data’s IoT value proposition There have been many learnings along the journey so far, and some may seem obvious in hindsight, but they can be summarised as; Partner profitability roadmaps are essential regardless of the “coolness” of the technology Partners want support to develop solutions that will work and deliver customer value Every end-user is different, so having a range of sensors that measure different parameters in different conditions is vital Partners want repeatability so that their IP can be leveraged across multiple customers, building bespoke solutions for every customer is not an option — Jason Hall, general manager of IoT and services at Dicker Data

Rob Zagarella (NNNCo)

Q1 2019 arnnet.com.au

Social IDG Research

53

SOCIAL CONTENT MAKES IMPRESSIVE

GAINS TECHNOLOGY BUYERS ARE NOW ADOPTING SOCIAL NETWORKS AS A CORE PART OF THEIR DECISION-MAKING PROCESS, ACCORDING TO FINDINGS FROM THE IDG CUSTOMER ENGAGEMENT STUDY.

Social media has progressed from curiosity to a mainstream communications medium, with 93 per cent of respondents now using it for business purposes, adopting social networks as a core part of their decision-making process.

While LinkedIn is the most-used social network overall, other channels saw strong growth compared to previous studies.

LinkedIn has established itself as the way to find, follow and validate business contacts, and 78 per cent of respondents overall and 87 per cent of business managers report using it for business purposes.

LinkedIn is also the destination where decision-makers are most likely to post content. Nearly 40 per cent of respondents have posted content to LinkedIn and 43 per cent have shared, far more than have done so on other platforms.

YouTube saw impressive growth over the 2017 survey, with 67 per cent of respondents saying they use it for business purposes, up from 46 per cent last year.

Facebook usage doubled to 52 per cent this year from 26 per cent in 2017 while Twitter usage also jumped to 46 per cent from 26 per cent.

SUPRISE COMEBACK

This year’s study was the first to delve into a content type that is making a bit of a surprise comeback, in the form of podcasts Podcasts have been around for more than a decade, but they were long limited to a niche audience. That has now changed, with thousands of new podcasts emerging in recent years.

IT decision makers currently exhibit a much higher affinity for podcasts than the general population: 74 per cent have listened to one or more and 62 per cent have done so within the past three months.

Adoption is particularly strong among IT executives, who have voracious information needs and little time.

One of the virtues of podcasts is that they can be consumed while commuting, exercising or whenever a few minutes are available. This is supported by the finding that 60 per cent of respondents either download or subscribe to podcasts with the intention of listening to them later.

Many technology companies use podcasts to provide deep insight on their products and introduce the perspective of subject matter experts to their customers.

Decision-makers show interest in podcasts relating to cloud computing

(72 per cent), enterprise SaaS and security (both 66 per cent) and enterprise software (67 per cent).

When considering podcasts as a channel, consider that 48 per cent of decision-makers prefer a discussion panel format, followed by one-on-one interviews at 41 per cent.

While 35 per cent also like solo commentaries, there is a marked preference for programs with an interactive element.

WEBCASTS

Podcasting’s elder sibling — webcasts — continue to show strong performance. An overwhelming 96 per cent of buyers watch them, at the longest average viewing time — 16.5 minutes — of any content type.

Like podcasts, most webcasts are consumed on demand. In fact, 51 per cent of decision-makers said they prefer to watch a recorded version of a webcast compared to just 22 per cent who watch live.

This is an important statistic for marketers to consider, since many place a premium upon live attendance.

In fact, total viewership is likely to be considerably higher over time than upon the day of the event.

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54 Interview Bang

Scott Caulfield and Martin Mason (Bang)

IT’S TIME TO THINK DIFFERENTLY ABOUT MARKETING THE MERE MENTION OF MARKETING IN THE CHANNEL, IN GENERAL, TRIGGERS A RAISE OF THE EYEBROW AND A SHAKE OF THE HEAD. PARTNERS REMAIN PESSIMISTIC AND DISCOURAGED BY A FUNCTION THEY KNOW LITTLE ABOUT, YET A CREATIVE AGENCY IN SURRY HILLS IS WORKING HARD TO CHANGE SUCH MISCONCEPTIONS - JAMES HENDERSON REPORTS.

March 2019 arnnet.com.au

CHRISTINE WONG

For a discipline operating at the cutting-edge of transformation, in an age of the connected customer, marketing has never been more misunderstood.

Deep within the technology channel that is, a channel in which traditional resellers pour scorn on a practice saturated with stereotypes, yet lacking in understanding.

Harsh words perhaps, but for most partners, marketing is a dark art, a cost centre which offers little to nothing in the way of return on investment.

Slowly, but surely, such sentiment is changing as technology providers realise that to act on customer acquisition objectives, marketing must take a central strategic role.

“This brings up a fundamental issue within the channel,” said Martin Mason, managing director of Bang, a digital creative agency nestled in the heart of Surry Hills. “The fact that marketing is still viewed as it was 20 years ago is a problem that partners must overcome.

“The notion that you can run a campaign and at the end of the quarter have some leads coming through just doesn’t work like that anymore. The way individuals and organisations purchase has changed.”

Tapping into a marketing mind housing more than 25 years of experience, Mason accepted that as consumers, buying habits have changed.

“We self-educate and we don’t want to talk to anyone until we are near the point of purchase,” he explained. “Therefore, talking to partners about these outcomes and what they can expect from a program is crucially important, as is those hard conversations with vendors also.

“If any agency touts a silver bullet and believes they can turn things around in a short period of time, they are talking nonsense.”

At 18 years of age, Bang has evolved into an agency with

Bang Interview

specialist channel expertise, built on the foundations of creativity, strategy and technology.

Acquired by Nextgen in July 2017, the business builds digital marketing strategies within the technology sector, backed up by a core team of designers, developers, writers and producers.

For Mason, marketing, when used correctly, is a mechanism to create long-term engagement through an experience that is relevant, authentic and in context.

“We have to shift the mind-sets of more established vendors and partners,” Mason said. “They are expecting customers to go through digital transformation and think differently, but they also must do the same when it comes to marketing.

“The days of 20 leads in a quarter are just gone, it’s almost impossible to achieve that today. The channel must think more long-term.

“Marketing is about initiating conversations and delivering relevant content and touch points, while also working with the sales team and taking them through the whole buying component.

Speaking as COO of Bang and group CMO of Nextgen, Scott Caulfield believes a mentality shift is required to instigate change within the channel.

“If partners want marketing to work, they must treat it accordingly,” Caulfield added. “Partners can’t simply throw a relatively junior person at the role for example, they need to perhaps replace one of their top sales people, put management resources and effort aside, alongside increased investment in technology.

“Quite often, partners agree that change is required but are not committing to the change.”

Channel expertise

Currently, 80 per cent of Bang’s business comes through the technology sector, with the agency

counting partners such as Brennan IT, X Central, Fujitsu, Nexon, Macquarie Telecom and Vocus Communications as customers, alongside Loop Technology, Beyond CRM, Cisco and IBM among others.

“Engagement depends on the brief but we generally work with the vendor and they put forward partners,” explained Mason. “We

“We self-educate and we don’t want to talk to anyone until we are near the point of purchase” run a marketing maturity test because it’s absolutely key that there’s some understanding around what marketing can do for the business of a partner.

“It’s important to establish some level of authority and to assess who the key stakeholders are that will invest in the campaign.”

In assessing a wide-ranging ecosystem of resellers, system integrators and managed service providers, Mason concluded that in general, the channel is experiencing an identity crisis.

“More than 90 per cent of the organisations that we work with cannot articulate what their brand proposition is,” Mason said. “When we ask why a customer would share their wallet with them, the answers are usually based around them having 20 years of experience and being a platinum partner in a specific technology.

55

“It’s exactly the same message that every one of their competitors will say also. We’ve been in forums and asked partners to write down their value proposition and on one occasion, four partners wrote the same.

“There was no difference so we uncover the unique value proposition of the partners we engage with.”

Central to this is intent data, and more specifically Bombora, billed a secret weapon in understanding interest levels of customers.

Operating as the exclusive agency partner across Australia and New Zealand, Bang has access to a Bombora tool which collects data about business web users observed behaviour, specifically web content consumption.

Such information is provided back as insights into their interests and from this, an indication of potential intent to take an action is formed.

“We use sophisticated tools to provide a deeper insight into the market, with that information helping decide our marketing strategy,” Caulfield added.

Citing a recent example with an unnamed vendor, Mason said new tools and techniques allow Bang to identify customers showing intent in the buying cycle, before sharing such data and information with the sales team to create better alignment.

“For example, we are running a campaign with a vendor and used Bombora to run some testing on how many applicable organisations are currently researching what we are trying to sell,” Mason explained.

“The commercial acid test that intent data provides is crucial, and part of our role as advisors is to say, now might not be the right time to execute because market appetite isn’t there.

“We hear in the enterprise space that 5000 opportunities exist but that isn’t the case in Australia and at any one time, only around 15 per cent of enterprise customers are actually in the market for your product.”

arnnet.com.au Q1 2019

56 IDG Podcasts

THE NEXT CORPORATE COLLABORATION TOOL: PODCASTS? While podcasts may be gaining ground in the car or at home, the streaming technology has made only limited inroads at work — so far.

Nevertheless, some companies see new potential for audio streaming as a means of delivering on-demand content to staffers, particularly for firms with a large number of remote and mobile workers.

With that kind of interest in mind, enterprise video streaming provider uStudio last year launched a podcast delivery platform that adds the necessary admin controls, business application integrations, security features and usage analytics expected by business leaders and IT departments (similar solutions are also offered by podcast hosting providers such as Podbean and Blubrry). uStudio CEO Jen Grogono argued that businesses get “better reach, more effective communications” with audio streaming, and cited customers such as Fidelity Investments, Cintas and Salesforce, which have deployed uStudio’s platform for a variety of purposes.

Those uses range from staff onboarding to providing up-to-date product information to frontline sales workers.

“We see a need from companies that are looking to create content that they don’t necessarily want the whole world [to access],” she said.

Salesforce, for example, has a suite of around six podcast “shows” aimed at sales staff, each with its own set of episodes.

“So, they are really taking podcasting to the next level,” said Grogono.

Workplace technology is often influenced by consumer trends, and Grogono said podcasting is no different.

Q1 2019 arnnet.com.au

INTEREST IN PODCASTS HAS GROWN IN RECENT YEARS BUT THE HARD PART OF CREATING CONTENT THAT ENGAGES REMAINS, ACCORDING TO MATTHEW FINNEGAN OF COMPUTERWORLD.

There are two trends driving corporate demand at the moment, she said: “A tipping point/maturity in consumer podcasting and audible books [and] maturity in content creation combined with more accessible and mobile higher quality production tools.”

Grogono said that access to analytics is key for businesses deciding whether to embrace podcasting.

An advantage that podcasts — and other streaming media — hold over other documents is the ability to collect data on the content that staff access.

Integration of podcast usage analytics within a CRM system, for instance, could highlight a correlation between podcast access and new sales reps delivering revenue faster, she said.

“You can also determine whether, after reps watch or listen to one or two particular episodes, or listen to one or two particular podcasts, whether or not they are winning more deals,” Grogono said.

“So, you can begin to understand the value of the content itself, in ways that we have not been able to in the past.”

Enterprise caution

There are signs that interest in the use of podcasts within organisations is increasing, albeit from a modest starting point, said Wayne Kurtzman, research director at IDC. “Corporate podcasts are in their early stage, but have been quietly growing as a market,” he said.

Companies have been slow to embrace the technology so far for a variety of reasons, said Jon Arnold, independent technology analyst and founder of J Arnold & Associates.

While they can be valuable for internal communications, the disadvantages are similar to those of corporate blogs: they require time and resources to create and can quickly slip down the priority list for senior executives.

As with any communications platform, creating content that effectively engages the target audience — even if that audience is a company’s workforce — is a challenge, said Kurtzman.

“In the real world, even good podcasts can take a year to get a regular audience,” he said. “You are competing against every other podcast on the planet for attention.

“Patience with providing the production time, audience-focused content that adds value and that is enjoyable is still going to be the key.”