Telling the Right Story Vendor Overview 2009

1. Telling the Right Story Vendor Overview 2009

2. Information overload 8% of information retained by the brain 87% of information forgotten in 4 weeks • To stick your story has to be; • Created from the customers perspective • Easy to navigate • Differentiated and in context • Complete and concise • Believable and Consistent

3. Your messaging challenges • Complexity • An ever increasing number of segments and variants to understand and address • Your world is always changing (new products, acquisitions, new people, competition) • Competing business lines • Resource • Staff under-resourced – spread thin • Your team is too close to the story • Almost impossible to have expertise in all areas • Influence • Often seen as biased – not believable • Hard to reach the right people cost effectively

4. Meeting the challenge • What we do: Improve communication between Vendors and their Customers • What do your customers needs/wants • What is value are your providing • What is the European perspective on this • What solutions are available and how do they compare • How we do that: • Create relevant simple, interconnected content to explain how solutions deliver value • Apply our knowledge to improve your marketing strategies and Go-to-market execution • Develop partnerships with audience owners • Interact with customers and articulate your value

5. Telling the story • From the customers perspective • With complete context • Through an evolving map of content • Context • Nomenclature • Business value • Product comparison • Customer perspective • News • Adaptable to the readers needs

6. Setting the context • Where do you fit in the world • What problem are you solving • Who are the customers • How else can the problem be solved • Why should the customer care about your world • Ensuring you have a common language • How: market guides, articles and wiki’s

7. Determine the Hooks • Understanding your customers • What are the business issues that effect them • Justifying the value you can provide • Creating digestible content to communicate this • How: • Spotlights • Articles • Primary Research

8. Position for Strengths • Establishing your sweet spot • What can/is being done to growth it • Positive contextualization against the competition • How can you justify it • Features and functionality • Customer validation • Independent recognition • How; • Product Evaluations • Customer Evaluations • Market Updates

9. Engage the Customer • Communicating your story effectively • How does your customer consume • Where do they congregate • How is this changing • Keeping it relevant • Staying concise and on story • Staying affordably flexible • How; • Blogs • Articles • Podcasts • Microsites

10. How can we help you? CONTEXTUAL MESSAGING FRAMEWORK Establish a independent communications platform to be leveraged across all marketing channels Solidify and consolidate existing domain leadership/position Cross linking of product lines Reposition competitors using your view of the market/segments Value based messaging External Sales Cycle Facilitation of Content leverage (third parties) Pitch to key PR contacts Tie to customer references (what customer wanted, how it fits in to Context) Product and solution guides Competitive vendor comparisons Evaluation criteria setting Accompanying RFP Lead-gen webinars and seminars Community development and engagement Primary research to support the above Internal Awareness/Education Facilitation of Content leverage (staff) New hire sales training Competitive win/loss analysis Internal positioning support/checkpoints Provide a European perspective Assist with message/packaging and pricing testing

11. Bloor at a Glance • Focused on the business value of effective Information Management • Biggest independent analyst in EMEA • All our Analysts are industry veterans • Founder member of the Bullseye Foundation • 1000+ articles, reports & papers published per annum • Our partner program maximises end user reach and influence • 25 million impressions, 1+ million uniques, 300k+ subscribers

12. Research Focus & Coverage • Information Management Philip Howard • Data Security Nigel Stanley • Analysis (Search, BI, ECM) Gerry Brown • Data Storage Peter Williams • Content Management Bharat Mistry • IT Agility Dr Richard Sykes • Infrastructure (SaaS, SOA) Martin Banks • Process Simon Holloway • Collaboration and Communications Carl Potter • Access Control Nigel Stanley • Business Issues • IT Governance David Norfolk • Compliance & Regulation Peter Howe • Accessibility Peter Abrahams + Market driver research on 24 industry domains

13. Customers

14. Archive

15. Services/Artifacts • Spotlight Papers, White Papers • Product Evaluations • InComparison (competitive analysis of multi vendors) • InDetails (Specific product details on single vendor) • Customer Evaluations • InPerspective (end-user views of vendors/products) • Reports • Bullseye (Overview of a full domain) • Market update (Bullseye mini updates) • Surveys (RapidSurvey, Spotlight survey, Emergent Demand) • Analyst time (quotes for press releases, on-site consulting, speaking engagements, customer days, etc.) Available in: • Annual subscription • On-demand • Packages

16. Introducing Bullseye • The first open standard methodology for comparing vendors and products • Governed and maintained by a Non profit body (much like Web or Linux models) • Shows more than a single view of market position • Close to real-time views with frequent updates based on vendor and product evolution

17. How is Bullseye different? Results are published and available to any organization An ‘Open source’ approach increases uptake and intellectual input Assessments are made on an objective basis by trained practitioners Arbitration to ensure fairness, independence and quality The data collected is used to create multi-dimensional views of the products strengths and weaknesses Bullseye can be dynamically configured to highlight whatever attributes the user values Vendors can influence the frame of reference

18. Bullseye Methodology • DOMAIN STRUCTURE • All ICT technologies are grouped, top down, within a decreasing number of primary domains • For each domain there is a list of recognised sub-domains • Each domain has a schema made up of a hierarchy of Master, Generic and Specific attributes • BENCHMARKING • Attribute benchmark is based on what the optimal product could be (the nirvana solution) • The schema explains how each attribute should be measure and its weighting based on degree of importance • Schema’s for sub domains are created by just altering the weightings • A master database of assessments is maintained centrally with a web service interface • Policy, governance and standards • Network and communication infrastructure • Datacenter infrastructure • Personal computing platforms • Collaboration • Telephony • User interface • Integration • Infrastructure Management • Data storage • Data assurance • Data retrieval • Data movement • Application development • Application deployment • User Productivity (office) • Financial Applications • Supply Chain Applications • Customer Applications • Resource Applications • Process Applications • Access Control • Enterprise Data Protection • Threat Management • Services

19. Ranking on Methodology • Top down approach based on ^ primary attributes • Commercial • Technology • Functionality • Ease of Use • Value • Support and coverage • Personalization • Buyers can highlight their own technical or solutions attributes • They can develop comparisons using the graphics that best fit their org • Weightings can be adjusted based on personal priority • Multiple Third parties can support the buyer based on a single frame of reference

20. Ranking is used in multiple ways…