Messaging and Collaboration - Channel Insider
Empowering the next generation Channel
 

Bull’s Eye Awards
Nominations Open for Channel Insider 2009 Bull’s Eye Awards
Nominations are now open for the Channel Insider 2009 Bull’s Eye Awards, which recognize excellence in customer service, technology prowess, business acumen, channel leadership, communications and community building, and innovation among vendors, solution providers, distributors and channel services companies.



Sponsored Links
  • Control VM Sprawl, What You Don’t Know Can Hurt You
  • FREE Sophos Encryption Tool: Encrypt, compress and share files easily
  • LSI 6Gb/s Portfolio Expands to Include SATA+SAS HBAs
  • Reduce the cost of managing your mobile workers.
  • Find out 7 Ways to Drive Data Center Efficiency
  • SonicWALL breaks through network and email gridlock
  • Save up to 40% on calling costs with Avaya Aura™



  •  

    Fighting the Recession with a Single-Product Focus

    in Messaging and Collaboration


    Article Rating:starstarstarstarstar / 5
    Article Views: 2430

    Rate This Article:
    Add This Article To:
    Solution provider GetConnect rides the economic storm by selling only one product that leverages hot trends like SAAS, Web conferencing and green IT. GetConnect wins business through sales of and services for Adobe Connect Pro.

    Greg Anderson believes he has the business model for all economic seasons: His company sells a single product.

    Forget PCs or servers, operating systems or applications. GetConnect, the company Anderson founded three years ago and of which he is president, does nothing but sell and service Adobe Systems' Connect Pro Web conferencing and e-learning solution.

    That makes the Dallas-based solution provider a rarity. It's not unusual for a solution provider to have a narrow focus on a particular technology or even a single vendor, but a single-product model is, well, singular.

    Despite the inherent risks of a single-product model, Anderson is sticking with the approach. It has served him well through the good economic years, and now that the economy is down, more and more customers turn to Connect Pro as an alternative to costly business trips and on-site training, he says.

    "We feel very fortunate, knock on wood, that his product seems to play well in a recession," Anderson says.

    In addition to cutting travel costs, Connect Pro also is affordable to run. Available as a hosted application through a SAAS (software as a service) arrangement, it requires no complicated, costly on-site deployments.

    Resource Library:

    And for customers concerned about the environment, the product offers a green component: It curbs carbon emissions by cutting down travel.

    Recalling the launch of GetConnect in late 2005, Anderson says he saw a great market opportunity for Connect Pro.

    "This wasn't something I put years of planning into," he says, which is a bit of an understatement. In truth, GetConnect was founded by happenstance.

    Here's how it all went down: Anderson had worked at Macromedia, the company that developed ConnectPro under the name "Breeze," for about six months when the sale of the company to Adobe Systems was completed in December 2005. Anderson had been assured his job was secure before the sale closed, but a couple of weeks after getting that assurance, he was laid off.

    He could have despaired, but instead decided to set himself up as a Connect Pro solution provider. A couple of Adobe colleagues, including Ian Justin, who is vice president of technical sales at GetConnect, agreed to join him. One week after the sale closed, GetConnect opened for business. That was on Dec. 12, and on Dec. 21, the company did its first Connect Pro demo for a prospective customer.

    Today GetConnect employs nine people and serves some 600 customers. In its first year, GetConnect had revenue of $4.3 million, jumping to $6.5 million in 2007. Anderson expects to top $7 million in 2008.

    The company sources Connect Pro from distributor Tech Data, which has seen its share of business models among the thousands of solution providers with which it does business. But ask a handful of Tech Data sales reps to name more than one single-product-focused solution provider, and they draw a blank.

    "At first blush, it may seem like a risky move to focus on one particular product or product line," says Stacy Nethercoat, Tech Data vice president of software product marketing. But, she adds, focusing on a single product and bundling services around it can translate to healthy margins and being recognized as an expert in a particular technology.

    Anderson believes his company has done so well with just one product, often topping the list of Adobe channel partners on sales, because of several factors. For one thing, he says, Connect Pro is a great product.

    A competitor to WebEx's offerings and Microsoft's Live Meeting, Connect Pro offers an interface resembling a Web portal and is used for business meetings and classroom settings, allowing users to author shared content.

    "Pretty much everybody we talk to is blow away by the Adobe product," says Anderson. "They absolutely love it."

    Aside from the product itself, Anderson attributes his company's success to experience. The team he assembled to run GetConnect, including his wife, Shannon Anderson, who is vice president of operations, consists of middle-aged people with lots of experience in the IT industry.

    At Macromedia, Anderson ran western regional sales, and before joining the vendor he had owned a company reselling other Web communication applications.

    Tech Data's Nethercoat believes selling a single product is an opportunity with a time limit. "The opportunity to focus on one product or line will not last forever, but savvy VARs can make the most of it while it lasts," she says.

    But Anderson isn't worried. As long as the product's quality remains high and the need for Web conferencing and distance learning continues, he says, there is plenty of business to be had.

    "The demand for what this product does isn't going to go away any time soon," he says.





    Discuss Fighting the Recession with a Single-Product Focus
     
    >>> Be the FIRST to comment on this article!
     

     
     
    >>> More Messaging and Collaboration Articles          >>> More By Pedro Pereira
     


     


    [ci] feeds
    XML
    Add Channel News, Product Reviews, Trends and Analysis to your RSS newsreader or My Yahoo!


    HTML PLAIN TEXT

    Keep on top of news for VARs and Resellers with CI's Weekly Newsletter and Alerts.

     


    CHANNEL RESOURCE CENTER
     
     
    Enterprise Mobility Zone
    The Enterprise Mobility Zone (EMZ) blog is a tool designed to help senior IT executives discuss, create and deploy next-generation mobile strategies in their organizations.
    Go beyond yesterday's tactical approach to mobility!
     
    Build A More Efficient Data Center
    Demands are growing but budgets are not. Solve your pressing IT issues using the resources you already have. Determine which technologies can help you drive efficiencies and how they are applied. Gain a quick ROI on new initiatives
    Find out how
    Let Enterprise TechBrief do the work for you. Aggregated content, tech news, product reviews, vendor updates, how-to’s—all you need to boost your efficiencies and cut costs, all from one place.
    enterprisetechbrief.com