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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
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
Sponsorship
Amy Katz, President