|
Expressing a New Image
In the midmarket, the world's largest IT company is known for making machines you can't break and for building a durable foundation with its lovable AS/400 systems. But IBM would like small and midsized businesses (SMBs) to consider it more seriously as a full-service provider capable of turning around a hardware lease in 60 minutes or providing fixed-price consulting gigs that run their course in, say, six weeks.
To do so, it has packaged and priced its Express line of hardware, software, hosted services, consulting and financing options with the midmarket in mind.
In 2002, IBM launched the Express product line with DB2 Express software; the portfolio has grown methodically to include offerings from all IBM divisions. In March 2006, IBM announced the Express Advantage label as a way of bringing them all under one roof. At that time, the company also introduced its first consulting services aimed at the midmarket: short-term engagements that start at $50,000. The new program -- broken into three categories -- allows IBM's SMB partners to sell IBM front-end services for the first time. The three services address IT alignment, Web site effectiveness and security vulnerabilities.
"We're trying to send a signal with these offerings," IBM's Solazzo says. "We will be small. We will be agile. We will be local in terms of working with these partners. Nobody on earth thinks of IBM as doing a $50,000 engagement on Web site effectiveness or IT strategy. But we are doing just that."
Other midmarket offerings launched in March 2006 include Express Managed Services and the Express Advantage Concierge, a toll-free phone number intended to be a single point of contact for new customers who fear they could get the runaround from Big Blue.
"In many ways, these offerings are trying to modify the brand image that, frankly, keeps us out of many [midmarket] considerations," Solazzo admits.
The Express Advantage label and the marketing effort behind it targets midmarket CIOs like Madison -- a self-described "tough sell" who is suspicious of any company that can afford to send him glossy brochures.
"I started getting these flyers about two months ago," says Madison. Some of them looked like fast-food menus, he recalls, so he chucked them in the barrel without looking them over. "The phone calls started coming actively within the last four weeks. It was surprising to me, because it was a clear change in their market strategy," the IS director adds.
Madison knows IBM's reputation for being too bureaucratic to move quickly and so large that a midmarket company might feel pinned against the ropes by the vendor's enthusiastic embrace. For him, that's especially true when it comes to consulting services.
|
