A guest post by Eric Hoffert | CEO of Share Methods
2008 was a tough year. 2009 looks like it will be even tougher. Every day you open the newspaper and read the news online, there seems to be more bad news on the economy, but not everyone is focusing on the down economy. Some companies are using this period of economic uncertainty and business challenge as a time to gain market share and mind share. As Sir Winston Churchill once said “A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.” Sir Winston was prescient and wise with this quote. We need to see the opportunities when many aspects of the economy look bleak. We need to find the light in the darkness. As hard as it may seem to follow this advice, now is the time to go for it. Carpe Diem as they say, “seize the day.”
We encourage everyone to keep their focus on their core business and their core value proposition to the fullest extent possible. Keep your focus on customer satisfaction, innovation, and rapid response to customer need. And see if you can go beyond survival mode, see if you can excel. Yes, even now, when times are hard. This effort will require firing on many cylinders. And one of those cylinders should relate to using technology as a competitive weapon, to help grow mind share and market share in down times. And the best technology to do that with today is software-as-a-service (SaaS). There are little or no upfront costs, financial commitments are modest, deployments can grow as needed, and user licenses can be adjusted as required. It’s a flexible and agile model well suited to a down (or up) economy. So that’s the delivery model of choice when times are tough.
How about capturing mind share and market share? Aberdeen Research recently developed a report titled “Democratizing Access to Sales and Marketing Content: Best-In-Class Insights to Maximizing Sales Effectiveness.” This report explores the many benefits associated with deployment of an on-demand sales and partner portal. Aberdeen’s customer research found that deployment of a sales and partner portal resulted in productivity boosts and financial rewards, This is especially critical when economic pressures demand doing more with less. Sales staff spends less time locating and transferring content, experience higher overall productivity, and make better use of existing content for business objectives. It’s hard to argue with benefits that increase revenue, cut costs, and improve productivity, especially when times are tough.
In summary, now is the time to seek opportunities, with goals to grow mind share and market share; leverage the SaaS model to minimize costs, speed time to deployment, focus on your core business, and scale usage as required; and roll out a sales and partner portal to achieve significant productivity and financial benefits . Indeed, in this slow economy, the foundation is there to grow sales, it might be hard to see with such a focus on cutbacks and survival, but if you look closely, you will see the light and the opportunities that are right in front of you to excel and leap ahead of the competition…
Eric Hoffert is CEO of ShareMethods and has delivered collaborative enterprise software for Fortune 500 clients, and launched digital media products at AT&T, Apple Computer, Inc., and new ventures. Previously, he was Chairman of the Board and CTO of Magnifi. At Apple Computer, he played a key role in the development of QuickTime software and holds patents for QuickTime video technology now on more than 500 million computers.
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