Introduction

Understanding what’s important to your customers can help you make vital decisions on how to better position your business for growth.  As a result of Incite conducting a comprehensive review of their business and customer needs, IT firm Horizon Systems evolved into a completely new entity, NETCARE, focused on providing highly targeted network administration solutions to SMEs.

The challenge

Approximately 2 years ago Darryl McAllister, Managing Director of Horizon Systems, engaged Incite to assist him to meet his business objectives. At the time, Horizon Systems was a successful IT company providing a broad range of services. Darryl understood that many businesses  relied on small companies, often ‘one man bands’ to provide their network administration services. In creating his own business Darryl’s vision was built around offering a whole new service paradigm to small and medium enterprises.   

Darryl asked Incite to assist him with developing and defining a ‘distinctive capability’ for his business that would provide a clear competitive advantage and be the mainstay of his future business plans.  

The process

Incite worked with Darryl and his staff to review his current business. A complete business assessment including reviewing the service offering, service delivery, operational structure and skills, pricing, major competition, and business development processes was conducted. To support this fact finding mission, Incite devised a structured questionnaire and conducted personalised interviews of many key customers on behalf of Horizon Systems. The comprehensive questionnaire asked for ratings on performance, fit, value, pricing, and competitive comparisons. 

Customers were also asked to identify new service opportunities and identify ‘points of pain’ i.e. typical ‘issues’ that customer had with IT suppliers. These questions are often unasked and provide important customer insights.   Having the questionnaire managed by an independent third party allowed Horizon’s customers to be extremely candid and honest and customers appreciated the fact that Horizon was making the effort to find out what they valued.

The findings

Following this analysis and several ‘workshops’ to review and refine, it became clear that focusing on particular insights provided an opportunity for Horizon to differentiate their offering:

• Commonly, SME’s with less than 50 workstations did not have access to highly qualified or experience IT resources.  Instead, the IT admin function is either performed ad-hoc by an internal person with low level IT  skills or externally by a ‘one-man band’.

• Typical ‘points of pain’ for this SME segment were:

• Systems tend to run until they break then a premium is paid to replace/repair
• The ‘one-man band’ supplier may be good but he only pays attention once something critical has gone wrong rather than proactively managing the IT needs of the business
• CEO’s we’re not confident as to whether they had a ‘good deal’ or the ‘right’ infrastructure. There is no objectivity.

The result

As a result of these customer insights, a new entity NETCARE (www.netcare.net.au ) was conceived. Netcare Service Plans were developed specifically for SMEs with less than 50 workstations to provide them with a reliable, quality service that met their specific requirements depending upon budget and need. Specific packages were developed from simple ‘monitoring’ to an all inclusive price including all IT support. With a fixed cost plan and inclusions identified, the SME had access to a team of qualified technicians focused on partnering with the company.  The result was business owners had the peace of mind of knowing their costs, avoiding expensive outages and having easy access to an IT professional when they need one.

With this strategic plan in place a targeted marketing/business development program was developed and implemented. Netcare now has clients in the SME space throughout Sydney and indeed across the entire Eastern Seaboard.

Darryl now uses Incite to regularly review his business and to ensure his plans for business growth are on track. Most importantly Darryl meets regularly with his key customers to monitor their ongoing views on his company’s service and therefore his ‘value’ to his clients and refines his strategies accordingly.    

Would you like to make sure you are doing everything you can to keep high value customers and enjoy continued sales growth, year on year? 

Click here to ask Incite to examine your existing customer strategies and help you implement a strategy that has your customers always coming back for more.