CONTENTS:

FEATURE ARTICLE - THE INTERNET vs. THE TRADE SHOW.
The Internet is rapidly outstripping the trade show as a source of sales leads. Trade shows continue to have their uses, yet their value
depends on the maturity of your market.

GOOD IDEAS & PRACTICES - BENTLEY SYSTEMS CHANNEL MODEL
In today's market, competition is driving down margins amongst resellers of the same brand, with all the attendant problems for the channel. Is Bentley Systems channel model the best approach for today's technologies and markets?

BOOK REVIEW - 'SELLING TO VITO(tm), the Very Important Top Officer'
In a world of information overload and interruptions, time is the most important asset of senior managers. This book is about overcoming
the noise and getting their attention and confidence.

e-CHAT - THE PERCEIVED RISK OF PURCHASING FROM WEB SITES AND HOW IT IS BEING ADDRESSED.

FROM THE EDITOR......

Selling capital goods to industry

Customers are demanding more value, the web is enabling new entrants to more easily compete and current suppliers are striving to
differentiate themselves, often by adding more service content to their solution. In this environment, the traditional selling model of advertising, tradeshows, PR, direct sales force and resellers is under huge pressure.

Are there alternatives?

We believe there are and we will be bringing them to you.

Each issue will bring a mix of new approaches, best practices and resources for competing within this increasingly competitive 'wired
world'.

By picking those elements that fit your situation and then organising them into your own unique combination, you can lead the change and reap the rewards.

"Change is a threat when done to me, but an opportunity when done by me."
Rosabeth Moss Kanter

Quote for today:

"The absolute fundamental aim is to make money out of satisfying customers."
SIR JOHN EGAN, b.1939 Jaguar

FEATURE ARTICLE - The Internet versus Trade Shows

As the Internet tightens its grip on the sales and marketing process, do national trade shows still serve a useful purpose? In our opinion, shows will have two clear roles. They will provide a forum where prospective buyers can meet the potential suppliers of face to face services. They will also provide a chance to see the myriad of novel, niche applications adjacent to ERP and CAD solutions.

In the short term, visitors will think of better uses for the airfare and hotel costs they pay for data gleaned so easily from the Web. IT vendors are finding it less and less attractive to devote so many marketing dollars to reach people accessible on line. But the killer issue is time. With skills in such short supply, neither party can afford the luxury of taking expensive talent out of circulation to walk round some Baltimore or Beijing showground.

Markets develop in phases. At first, the market comprises pioneer vendors and users. They "learn by doing" projects that define products and solutions. MRP and CAD provided early examples. Today it's co-operative engineering and CRM. In this phase, shows are much less important than conferences, since users want to obtain ideas from other users. Vendors get their pet user to pitch that they offer state of the art solutions.

Next, the application gets talked about, as users pass the pilot stage. Virtual Design Review would be a good example today. Once there are enough reference sites shows become very important. Users aware of the technique, but yet to implement, are keen to know who are supplying and how successfully. Trade shows are an efficient way for vendors to reach prospective customers. Sales representatives meeting users like this is the key technology transfer activity in Industrial IT. This is despite governments spending a fortune in taxpayer's money on agencies to "assist the technology transfer process".

In the final phase the market consolidates down to a small number of players. CAD and programmable controller markets have reached this point. However, the CAD market does not collapse just because most manufacturers replaced their drawing boards. It extends. The rest of the design department starts using screens to call up model data and attributes for modelling and analysis. The increasing use of multidisciplinary teams encourages the purchasing and production functions to follow suit, and the total applications then grows to include workflow, PDM, CAM and the rest of it. At this point in the cycle, shows do not have a particularly strong role for the mainstream geometry creation system decisions. The buyers and sellers know each other already. Shows tend to lose their focus and
become collections of niche tools like computational fluid dynamics, factory simulation, or sheet metal nesting programs. Similar arguments apply to MRP and process automation.

Given the impact this set of applications makes on the design or manufacturing processes, no wise purchaser of any of them treats
them merely as a product. They're a combination of products and services. For most mid-sized manufacturers local resellers provide this combination. They will turn user's ambitions and IT dreams into reality, set down their information flows, identify how processes will change, and retrain those who need retraining.

At first sight the new economics don't look good to a show organiser. To make any trade show pay, its organisers need a few big vendors taking on decent sized booths. The large booths attract both visitors and other vendors. The organiser's cost per sale of a large booth is little different from that of a small one. The $40 to $50 per head of marketing spend to get each visitor through the door, is not easily covered by a larger number of smaller booths.

The other factor is the web. Any potential user can find out almost everything they need to know about the products, what they do and
who supplies them from the Internet. But what they can't do over the web is identify novel applications, nor kick the tyres and meet face to face the people who will help them turn products into their solution. And that's where shows could play a key role.

Users need a national marketplace where they can meet solution providers. What better way to assess a dozen possibles in one go than at a trade show? But today resellers only take booths at local shows. If they attend a national show it is to see what novel applications will build the perfect portfolio of marketable solutions with perhaps a minuscule perch on a supplier's booth. These niches still provide good reasons too for certain users to attend.

The challenge for national show organisers is to change the format to make it worthwhile for all these small, diverse potential exhibitors to share the costs of a vibrant marketplace. In our opinion they need to try harder. Too often, the only rationale that organisers offer for this year's show is the one that they held last year.

Mike Evans,
Cambashi Ltd.

GOOD IDEAS & PRACTICES - BENTLEY SYSTEMS CHANNEL MODEL

In today's market, competition is driving down margins amongst resellers of the same brand, with all the attendant problems for the channel.

One of the suppliers in the market, Bentley Systems has produced a strategy that allows channel partners to differentiate Bentley's
MicroStation product and extend the partners business models beyond simple fulfilment.

The strategy is twofold: firstly, to move to a maintenance / upgrade agreement and away from a model which relies on selling each new version of software. Secondly, to provide a mechanism by which their channel partners can tap into the growing market for integration and other services. The Bentley SELECT program is the implementation of this strategy.

The SELECT agreement is between Bentley and the customer, yet the dealer actually sells the agreement and delivers the service
components directly to the user. In this way SELECT provides Bentley with a direct link to MicroStation users, whilst also allowing the dealer to maintain relationships with their customers.

Rather than visiting existing customers to expend effort on reselling a new version, dealers can concentrate on developing a relationship
that values their knowledge and expertise in implementing IT. For Bentley and the reseller, the up front payment by the customer for a 1, 2 or 3 year SELECT agreement provides a regular revenue stream.

For the customer, the benefits are that they have access to a range of upgrades, products and services - from reduced product pricing and term licensing agreements to on-line support and consultancy.

Bentley's SELECT web page is at: www.bentley.com/select/market/index.htm

Nick Ballard, Cambashi

BOOK REVIEW : 'Selling to Vito(tm), the Very Important Top Officer', Anthony Parinello

ISBN 1-55850-386-2, paper back, purchase price £ 7.33 via Amazon.co.uk

This book describes an approach for getting the attention of senior managers based on a lifetime of selling within the US. It is not a
sales methodology. It simply explains the importance of calling high and the consequences of not doing so. It paints a picture of the mentality of senior managers. Then provides practical examples of letters and telephone calling scripts suited to gain their attention and that of their personal assistants.

Recommendation: A worthwhile read when looking to improve initial calling skills, scripts and contact success rates.

Ian Dabney, BrainSells

e-CHAT

In the final stage of the sales, prospect concerns focus around risk and price. This is recognised and prepared for by sales people, yet if you are trying to sell services, training or add on modules via the web this may have been overlooked.

Below is a copy of an article I recently read. It discusses how this issue is being handled within e-commerce sites. Maybe this is an idea worth using?

Dataquest reports that from February to April of 1999, 20 percent of all online buyers experienced some kind of problem with their orders. The potential result continues a disturbing e-commerce trend: The empty shopping cart. Forrester Research recently reported that 66 percent of all e-commerce browsers leave a site without buying.

Can Customer Support Change Their Minds? "For a brick and mortar location, that would be entirely unacceptable," said Robert
LoCascio, CEO of Liveperson. His company claims to improve conversions by 20 percent through a software program and customer call resource centre that can have a customer support chat window enabled within 24 hours of contact with Liveperson's sales team.

Here's how Liveperson works: A user at one of Liveperson's sites wants to know if a warranty is available on the item in question. The user doesn't find the explanation on the site satisfactory. The user clicks on the Liveperson logo and a chat window opens. The user can then pose questions about the warranty for that product, and get answers via a chat operator.

"One of the biggest mistakes e-retailers make is leaving out this live element," LoCascio said. "The user's online experience affects any
kind of branding effort you plan on doing whether it's a $50 million off-line campaign or just the branding you execute on site. No one's coming back if they don't have a good purchase experience."

Source: MARKETING INSIDER NEWS Friday September 24,1999

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