Marketing is often seen as an overhead or expense that in recessionary times could see the knife coming to make some cuts. This is a short-sighted business decision, and many leading organisations recognise this and actually increases their marketing spend, but others perhaps have a lesser focus on that spend. Why? Well to ensure the business is kept known and on the minds of both current and prospective clients, sometimes just to ensure they know you’re still in business and what business they are in, in whole or in part.

Recently I saw a report on “14 Service Providers to Watch” which looked into several aspects of Business Service Management (BSM) service delivery. The criteria for the vendors assessed was:

• Support for service monitoring from a cross-domain perspective;
• Reconciles information from multiple sources;
• Provides some insights into user experience;
• Automates linkages between IT service performance and SLA or other business outcomes;
• Captures application/infrastructure interdependencies; 
• Supports some level of policy-driven automation; and
• Supports multiple roles across IT and the business.

Now what I found really interesting here was, not so much the content, good though it was in parts, but the absence of some vendors who are major players in the BSM marketplace, yet were not “invited to the party” to be part of the assessment. Perhaps this was because of their reduced marketing spend, or lack of attention to promoting all or new services. Such companies like BMC Software (who were synonymous with BSM!), are not just software vendors, but also implementers and SAAS providers. Even Service-Now who leads the ITSM market for SAAS delivery, could be classified as BSM service providers based on the above criteria. So being known, being appropriately recognised for the services you deliver is important if you are to be included in assessments, be they by analysts or part of a Procurement process.

Many of you know that SMCG provides ITIL assessments of vendors tools, documentation and processes under license from the OGC, were some major vendors have gone through the test and been awarded the “ITIL Process Compliant” trademark as a result. As the OGC’s role within the UK Government is to provide advice and guidance to all other government department involved in a procurement process, it would not be much of a stretch to assume they will update their guidance from its current line of ensuring the vendor (be they service providers or software vendors) have their ITSM solution ITIL compliant. Until recently most would reply that they have the “PinkVerify” status, which was the only justification of ITIL alignment in the marketplace that the vendors/providers could use to prove their ITIL claims. With the new OGC approved programme these vendors/providers now have a real proof point which the OGC supports and recognises. Then it’s simply a matter of being “invited to the party” when the Procurement invitations to tender (ITT’s), Request for Information (RFI) or Request for Purchase (RFP) review the OGC’s official list of approved “ITIL Process Compliant” vendors application.

So marketing spend is important in good times and in bad times, to ensure you are known and recognised on the “right lists” when the analysts and prospective buyers come out looking. I guess it’s also down to correct positioning too. Had BMC or Service-now positioned themselves as BSM service providers, they would have been invited to this assessment, just like their competitors CA, IBM, HP etc. So when customers old and new come looking, will you be on the right lists?