vertical market excellence: your path to success

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Vertical Market Excellence: Your Path to Success

December 6, 2012

Welcome

Joe Panettieri, Editorial Director

Nine Lives Media, a Division of Penton Media

E: Joe@NineLivesMediaInc.com

What We’ll Cover

• Vertical market opportunities for MSPs

• How to create a vertical market practice

• Navigating obstacles and strategies for meeting them head on

• Your questions throughout

Why Vertical Markets?

• Vertical markets help you differentiate • Verticals can provide higher margins • Vertical discussions lead to C-level

executives

Please Welcome Please Welcome

Greg Donovan VP, Service Providers

CA Nimsoft

Ciaran Dwyer CEO

3t Systems

Welcome

Ciaran Dwyer CEO 3t Systems MSPmentor 250 Honoree

About 3t Systems

• Year Founded: 1994

• Headquarters: Greenwood Village, Colo.

• Number of Employees: 58

• Market Focus: Healthcare Vertical

• Types of Services Offered:

– Consulting

– Managed services

– Hosting, Cloud services, Virtualization

• Honors: MSPmentor 100, MSPmentor 200, Talkin' Cloud 100

Welcome

Greg Donovan VP, Service Providers CA Nimsoft

About CA Nimsoft

First to Unified Monitoring

First to Usage Monitoring

First to Vblock Monitoring

First to Full Featured SaaS

First to Datacenter Power

First to Unified IT Management

GROWTH MOMENTUM: NIMSOFT SINCE ACQUISITION

9

Bridging the Gap between Business and IT

10

PROBLEM CHANGE

CONFIGURATION

KNOWLEDGE

SERVICE LEVEL

VIRTUALIZATION

STORAGE

DCIM

SERVER

NETWORK

DATABASE

CLOUD

USER EXPERIENCE

APPLICATION

INCIDENT

SERVICE CATALOG

AND REQUEST

MESSAGE BUS

MO

NIT

OR

S

ER

VIC

E D

ES

K

MESSAGE BUS

CA Nimsoft MSP Center of Excellence

• Team of individuals focused solely on the

Business Enablement of our Service

Provider partners

• Focused in supporting the growth of our

service provider partners by delivering

advisory and enablement services to sustain

momentum and success

• Core Principles of the COE:

₋ We succeed only when you succeed

₋ How you define success is unique

₋ Simple doesn’t mean basic

• Service Catalog

• Pricing and Packaging

• Contracting

• Onboarding

• Service Level Agreements

• Service Offering Launch

• Marketing Collateral

• Sales Enablement & Training

• Demonstrating Value

• Avoiding Commoditization

Areas of Focus:

11

Polling Question

Is your company exploring any of the following vertical markets? (choose one)

A. Healthcare

B. Financial

C. Education

D. Other

E. Not yet, but we plan to soon

Vertical Market Focus: The Benefits

• A vertical market focus aligns you with clients’ businesses

• Your industry knowledge commands a premium charge

• Vertical expertise keeps you ahead of commoditization curve

Creating a Vertical Market Focus, First Steps

• Talk to people, go to industry events, network

• Sign up for vertical industry newsletters, trade associations

• Read shortcut books for the verticals, i.e. Health IT Body of Knowledge: http://www.himss.org/asp/topics_hitbok.asp

• Be honest – don’t pretend to know the language fully if you don’t

• But ask questions and keep learning

The 3t Systems: Healthcare Vertical, The Beginning

• 3t had concentration of healthcare customers without deliberate focus

• Half of 3t recurring revenue from Healthcare customers

• Conducted analysis of healthcare market focus for 3t

– Healthcare market outlook

– 3T culture aligned with Healthcare culture

– Healthcare open to outsourcing

3t’s Healthcare Vertical Strategy

• Established timeline, target geography

• Built up 3t credibility in Healthcare market, filled credibility gaps

• Created Executive Healthcare Forum

– 3t moderates healthcare IT trend discussion, no technology talk

– C-level experts across client base, network

– First event in June

– Held every two months

– Last one attracted 120 participants

3t’s Healthcare Vertical, Next Steps

• Created video case study with CEO of Healthcare center

• Built on existing knowledge around EHR, healthcare organizations from IT perspective

• New hire made from healthcare organization

• Acquisitions focused on healthcare IT practices

Vertical Market Best Practices

• Speaking the language of the business vertical differentiates you

• Application knowledge is essential to success

• Leverage the knowledge of application vendors

Vertical Market Applications: Best Practices

• Learn the main applications for your vertical

• Establish good support relationships with vertical application vendors

• Gain tech expertise in deployment, performance management of these applications

• Understand the difference between application software and IT infrastructure

• Understand and manage the variables that go into providing a good user experience

Vertical Market Tips

• Find verticals that have an appreciation for technology

• Excellent verticals include healthcare, legal, accounting

• Don’t brand yourself as vertically-focused too soon

• Do perform market analysis before you jump in

Ask the Experts

Greg Donovan VP, Service Providers

CA Nimsoft

Ciaran Dwyer CEO

3t Systems

Where Can I Get More Information?

Nimsoft.com

Nimsoft.com/mspzone

Modern IT Blog: blog.nimsoft.com

Socialize with CA Nimsoft!

Twitter: @nimsoft

FB: facebook.com/Nimsoft

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/company/Nimsoft/

SlideShare: slideshare.net/NimsoftMonitoring

YouTube: youtube.com/user/Nimsoft

Our Next Channel Expert Hour Webcast

Date: Dec. 13

Time: 11:00 a.m. PT/2:00 p.m. ET

Topic: Weathering the Storm: What Every Solution Provider Should Know About Disaster Recovery

Register: mspmentor.net/events

Nine Lives Media Contacts

Editorial

Joe Panettieri, Editorial Director

E: Joe@NineLivesMediaInc.com

Sponsorship

Amy Katz, President

E: Amy@NineLivesMediaInc.com