STA Can Help Improve Outcomes in 2012 with Courtesy Strategy Briefings January 23, 2012, by Peter Mirus in Marketing, Internal Communications

STA is helping professional services businesses and non-profit organizations start the year right. How? With free, engaging communications strategy briefings to get your best minds thinking in new ways about old challenges—and possibly help take the organization to the next level.

Briefings are available around the following subjects:

  • Brand strategy
  • Marketing strategy
  • Customer/constituent research
  • Internal communications
  • Marketing and technology use

Additional topics may be covered upon request. Continue reading for more information. Contact us to request a briefing.

» STA builds awareness of these briefings through referrals. Do you have a relationship with a business principal, executive, board member, or adviser whose organization might enjoy receiving a strategy briefing? Please consider how you can help STA extend this courtesy as widely as possible.

STA’s CEO Peter Mirus has presented strategy briefings to businesses ranging in size from start-up to the large enterprise in the United States, Canada, and Europe. Briefings can be conducted in person or through virtual environments (such as GoToMeeting or Skype).

Examples of organizations that have benefited from these presentations:

  • Professional services firms (such as information technology, business consulting, marketing, architecture/engineering/construction, accounting, law firms, etc.)
  • Non-profit member associations
  • Non-profit charitable organizations

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Competitive Knowledge: Critical for the Successful IT Company January 05, 2012, by Peter Mirus in Marketing

This article by STA CEO Peter Mirus appeared on the IT Marketing World website in December. An excerpt is provided, and then you can read the full article on the IT Marketing World website.

Most information technology product and service companies claim to know who their competitors are. In some cases this perception matches reality—but not in many instances. Throughout 15 years of marketing information technology, I have often encountered significant inability to identify competitors.

Why IT Companies Don’t Know the Competition

There are numerous reasons why an IT provider might be unable to name its competitors. Here are four primary reasons...

Read the entire article!

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Three Ways that Technology Companies Can Improve in 2012 January 05, 2012, by Peter Mirus in Marketing, Internal Communications

During my recent vacation, I spent some time reflecting on how to create fundamental improvements in the technology companies that I have encountered over the past several years. Here are three key ways in which I would like to see technology companies improve in 2012.

1. Internal Communication

Many companies do a poor job of establishing internal communication channels, and technology companies are no exception. In 2010 and 2011 I found this problem in several good companies that could become great by improving communication up and down the ranks. The problem manifested itself in various ways, including:

  • Lack of understanding of corporate vision and cultural values
  • Poor implementation of new processes and systems
  • Misunderstanding between the company and its key partners
  • Inadequate knowledge transfer between account executives and project managers

Many company executives think that these frustrating problems are only felt internally. On the contrary, the problems are often evident to customers—and this has a detrimental effect on the company’s ability to attract and retain profitable relationships. Better internal communication should be a strong priority for businesses that want to make the next step to greatness in 2012. Executives, Communications, and Information Technology need to develop and nurture the necessary channels.

2. Grasp of Employee Knowledge and Capability

In many technology companies the knowledge and capabilities of employees are carefully vetted during the hiring process, but portions of that record become lost in subsequent months and years.

Most companies that I speak with simply do not know the capabilities of their employees.

  • There is no talent database
  • Regular talent audits are not conducted
  • Managers do a poor job of regularly reviewing their teams

Correspondingly, employees at all levels let me know that their companies are missing new business opportunities due to poor knowledge of on-staff expertise. Also, some employees commented that their companies’ seeming lack of interest in knowing and leveraging available skillsets was contradictory to the cultural message expressed by the executive team and HR—contributing to some problems with job satisfaction among talented employees.

Missed business opportunities that would have fit within the strategic development plan are always a bad thing. Also, I expect that retention of skilled employees will become a larger issue for businesses in 2012 and 2013. So companies that want to maintain or grow both market share and internal excellence will improve their grasp of employee knowledge and capability.

3. Customer Knowledge of Services or Products

It is typical for customers to be unaware of the full range of products or services offered by technology companies. This lack of awareness represents many missed opportunities to grow business both within the existing customer base and through referrals from that base. Moreover, customers often indicate that they would like the companies with which they do business to provide products or services that are already provided, or could easily be provided, by those companies.

This imperfect situation should be perfected through a variety of means. Among them:

  • Acquire a better understanding of customer business priorities, challenges, and needs
  • Regularly brief customers on the full range of services and products offered
  • Tell stories: let your customers know how others in analogous situations benefitted from your products or services

As a further aspect of achieving excellence in this area, I would also like technology companies to take greater advantage of customer research. When properly performed, customer research fuels a number of marketing and business development efforts—and in the process can identify customer segments that have an imperfect understanding of your brand and an insufficient knowledge of your offerings. Customer research should be given serious consideration, particularly by small/midsize businesses that are not already engaged in such activity and want to increase revenue and profit in 2012 and beyond.

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Case Story: Brand Strategy for an Enterprise Communications and Workflow Company December 17, 2011, by Peter Mirus in Marketing, Case Stories - Tech

A solid brand strategy can be very helpful when attempting to create a position shift and influence outside perception of your company. In this case, an enterprise communications and workflow management firm—known primarily as a solution provider—wanted to be also perceived as a services firm with valuable strategic insight.

This effort also marked the client’s first foray into developing a comprehensive brand strategy. As such, it was an exciting opportunity to tell the story of the firm’s unique value as had never been told before. During STA’s relationship with the client we provided:

  • Strategic orientation to the purpose and function of a brand, particularly in regards to marketing services and methodologies
  • Team discovery sessions to identify and prioritize company differentiators
  • Development of a brand position statement that expresses the promise and essence of the brand
  • Development of a brand messaging architecture, including primary messages directed to current/prospective clients, employees, and partners. The architecture also anticipates objections that might be raised by each audience and provides responses with proof points.

The result of these initiatives is a durable brand strategy that enables the client to tell its story in a clear, compelling, and consistent manner. It will also serve to shape outside perception of the firm as a strategic-minded service provider.

The client will use the brand strategy to revitalize its business development and marketing efforts. For example, the brand strategy will guide the development of valuable web content and presentations to improve lead generation and support/shorten the sales cycle.

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Reflections on STA’s Current IT Brand Strategy Work December 07, 2011, by Peter Mirus in Marketing

STA’s current work includes brand strategy development for two information technology firms. The firms have different areas of expertise and are at different stages of development. However, there are some notable similarities. First, both firms are talented, focused, and determined. Second, they both face the challenge of identifying, honing, and messaging a strong differentiator that will help take them to the next level.

The information technology landscape is very competitive. In order to grow revenue, profit, and value, the ideal position is to couple a well-defined niche with a strong differentiator. Placing a company in this position is a constant process of improvement—so a brand strategy reflects both the company as it currently stands and the company as it aspires to be.

Keeping those considerations in mind, you can see how there is a strong relationship between the brand of a business and its operations. In order for the aspirational part of the brand strategy to become a reality, there has to be changes at the operational level. Perhaps products or services need to be fine-tuned to better address customer needs. Perhaps the company needs to make better use of research to anticipate emerging market trends. Perhaps customer relationship management needs to be restructured and reinvigorated.

Embracing the relationship between brand strategy and operations is an important challenge. The strategy work, with its accompanying discovery process and resulting insights, should be viewed as an opportunity. Information technology companies that understand this have the best chance of success. STA’s aforementioned brand strategy clients have this viewpoint, which is great for both us and them—the result is a more effective brand strategy that costs less to develop.

It is also exciting to perform work for companies that want to BE better, not just APPEAR TO BE better!

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Demystifying Marketing December 01, 2011, by Peter Mirus in Marketing

"Demystifying Marketing" is also available as an STA Tech Marketing Minute podcast.

Throughout my career, I have encountered business principals who view marketing as a “mystical” or “mysterious” process. Some marketers, over the history of the profession, have encouraged this perception because it can lead to big paydays with little accountability. “If you really want to grow, hand over your checkbook and then wait while Marketing delivers the results. (Don’t look behind the curtain.)”

That era of marketing is largely (but by no means completely) behind us, with many companies demanding better accountability from their marketers. The increased demand for transparency and measurability has improved and also broadened the field of marketing.

In fact, marketing is not particularly mysterious. It can be perceived as mysterious when complexities in both the market and in the company itself are poorly understood. However, good marketing gathers information about these complexities, feeding important data into business decisions.

This part of the marketing process—which helps to provide the “reason why” for brand awareness and lead-generating campaigns—doesn’t receive the awareness it deserves. And if you don’t know the reasons why marketing campaigns should be performed, of course you might believe that marketing is mystical, to the extent that its methods seem arbitrary.

Moreover, if you don’t have the “reason why,” all campaign recommendations seem unnecessarily risky. A standoff may occur in which Marketing blames the principals for being highly risk averse, while the principals blame Marketing for courting risk without good reason, and then close the checkbook.

So, marketers have a responsibility to not only use a good process, but also find ways to articulate the process in a manner that resonates with business principals—producing a “demystifying” effect. Of course, there’s a shared responsibility: while marketers need to be able to demystify their process, principals need to demand this information and have an appetite for consuming it.

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From One Non-Profit to Another: Sustainable IT Solutions November 30, 2011, by Peter Mirus in Other

I recently became acquainted with the work of Sector Three Services (S3S), which provides “sustainable nonprofit IT solutions.” S3S has only been around for about a year, but in that short time is gaining momentum both in number of clients served and in the benefit it provides to those clients.

In my view, there are two primary things that separate S3S from similar competitors. First, it has a strong strategic vision that places its primary emphasis on using technology to strengthen and accomplish mission-related goals for the client.

Second, though it has not yet received official non-profit status, S3S has established itself as a non-profit and operates from that mindset. S3S would be legitimately pleased if every client swiftly outgrew the need for its capabilities—though its strategic viewpoint is so valuable I doubt that would ever entirely be the case.

S3S’s target market is the Washington DC/National Capital Region, but it is worth pointing out that many national non-profits of various sizes are headquartered in the area. It is doubly worth pointing out that S3S need not be on site to provide a broad technology strategy survey and assessment that would be valuable to any non-profit and provides multiple discussion points for internal strategy reflection.

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What is a marketing strategy, and how is it built? November 01, 2011, by Peter Mirus in Marketing, Strategy Models

Building a marketing strategy involves identifying objectives that will create a competitive advantage, then outlining strategies that will be used to meet those objectives.

The “deliverable” for marketing strategy is defined in many different ways by experts. A basic marketing strategy deliverable from STA incorporates the following elements:

  • Research, to build an accurate picture of the market and competitive landscape
  • SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats) analysis
  • Objectives that will create a competitive advantage
  • Strategies that will support the achievement of the objectives

STA’s basic marketing strategy deliverable outlines but does not provide detail for initiatives or tactics that support the strategies. Additional work may be performed to develop a marketing plan and/or go-to-market strategy—these provide granular-level detail, an action program, budgeting and/or financial forecasts, etc. The extent of the work performed is custom-devised for the client’s needs and budget.

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See. Transform. Act. October 20, 2011, by Peter Mirus in Strategy Models

STA helps technology clients to SEE the market through the eyes of their customers, TRANSFORM themselves to approach the market, and then ACT to engage the market using sustainable and measurable means.

See the graphic at right. This approach becomes the center of STA's Process (see below).

All parts of the SEE. TRANSFORM. ACT. approach create valuable knowledge that enables principled, informed decisions at every stage of development. This leads to a strengthened corporate identity that facilitates growth.

STA's Process Is Consistent With Its Approach

STA's process for client engagements is consistent with its SEE. TRANSFORM. ACT approach. The process is a repeatable cycle that uncovers ever more accurate information about both the market and your organization with each revolution.

See the graphic at right. The process starts at the top and moves counterclockwise.

  1. First, we begin by helping clients to understand the market in which they operate. This understanding leads to a strong strategic approach to branding and marketing.
  2. Second, we help clients to review their own internal capabilities/resources and build the marketing plan.
  3. In the third phase, marketing tactics are executed.
  4. Fourth, post-op analysis is conducted to gather knowledge and assess results. Acquired knowledge feeds the creation of a more accurate view of both the marketplace and internal performance, and the cycle restarts.

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