User login

Knowledge & tools for services marketing & sales

Benchmarks & Metrics

Outsourced Remote Management Profit Metrics

That remote managed services are a must for any technology service organization is a foregone conclusion in this day and age. To get a good overview of current profit metrics, we spoke to managed services expert, Jack Freislinger who shared with us these metrics:

The Fascinating Services Sales Compensation Mosaic

Recently, I asked our readers to tell us, in general terms, how their organizations handle services sales compensation. The early responses I received so far vary dramatically. If someone has thought of it, some company out there has adopted it. To be sure, best practices are clearly emerging. It’s the bad ones that make you wonder. The two-part question I posed to readers asked them to identify the group that takes the lead within their organization for maintenance contract sales. Then I asked about that group’s compensation mix. This is part of my research in preparation for writing a new book on the subject in collaboration with a few battle-tested colleagues.

Where Would they Be Today Without Services?

Outside of pure services companies, corporate success – even survival – appears to be strongly correlated to success in services. At a recent in-house seminar, Dr. Stephen Brown of Arizona State University asked a group of senior vice presidents: “Who is the world’s biggest services company? He offered the following hints: American Express, Citigroup, GE, IBM and Marriott. Of the 60 or so in attendance, only two people guessed IBM or GE. People are surprised when they find out that among the world’s largest services giants, more than a few started out as product companies. Services at IBM

The Inseparable Employee and Customer Satisfaction

Most service managers agree that customer satisfaction is directly linked to employee satisfaction. When they are happy at work, service employees project enthusiasm, energy and other positive behaviors as they interact with customers. When they aren’t happy, service employees can’t consistently act happy and customers sense any underlying discontent. This linkage is so important that some companies highlight it as a core value. Marriott International exemplifies and lives this concept through its “spirit to serve” culture that the company has espoused since its founding - “Take care of the associate, and they’ll take care of the guest.”[1]

Professional Services Q1 2002-03 Performance

We selected a broad cross section of publicly-held professional service firms, 21 in all, and compared their first quarter revenue and gross margin performance for 2003 and 2002. While some firms have suffered, many have flourished. Here are the highlights. click the file listed below to see the results tables. BearingPoint brought in revenues in excess of $821 million in Q1/03 – a 41% increase over Q1/02. This is the highest year-over-year quarterly increase for our select group. IBM maintained revenue at above the $10 billion mark and that is 23.6% more than the revenue reported for the same period of the previous year.

Buyers’ Preferences for Sales Tools

A recent ITSMA survey of 200 senior-level business and IT executives from Fortune 1000 and government entities in the U.S. reveals clear patterns of preferences and confirms the growing use of these tools.  Read more »

Positioning for the turnaround

Now that economists have said that the recession is “officially” over, we’re all breathing a big sigh of relief, right? Well, not exactly. Consumers may be buying DVD players, automobiles, and going to Starbucks, but most technology buyers have continued to cut back or delay new spending. The technology slowdown has impacted even the best service organizations who have had to scale back their spending, cutting areas such as travel, entertainment, professional development, and you guessed it, marketing. With the recovery closer at hand where are services organizations investing right now to have the greatest impact on sales? Here’s where you should focus. Closer Alignment with Sales
Syndicate content