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Sweet marketing music

Tanner Montague came to town from Seattle having never owned his own music venue before. He’s a musician himself, so he has a pretty good sense of good music, but he also wandered into a crowded music scene filled with concert venues large and small.But the owner of Green Room thinks he found a void in the market. It’s lacking, he says, in places serving between 200 and 500 people, a sweet spot he thinks could be a draw for both some national acts not quite big enough yet for arena gigs and local acts looking for a launching pad.“I felt that size would do well in the city to offer more options,” he says. “My goal was to A, bring another option for national acts but then, B, have a great spot for local bands to start.”Right or wrong, something seems to be working, he says. He’s got a full calendar of concerts booked out several months. How did he, as a newcomer to the market in an industry filled with competition, get the attention of the local concertgoer?

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by Andrew Tellijohn
December 2004

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Tech fix.its: Natural selection


Natural selection

Three firms stress investigation when looking for tech vendors

by Elizabeth Martin   Technology. It’s a word that puts a sparkle in some business owners’ eyes and strikes fear into the hearts of others.

But it’s impossible to do business today without incorporating technology, whether it’s a customer database, a high-tech phone system, or an entirely new product. Finding a vendor who will truly understand your business is key in order to make the most of your technology budget.

Minneapolis-based Creatis, a creative staffing, design and consulting company, realized that their current database system was no longer keeping up with their needs. The company had more than $6 million  in revenue in 2004.

“Within the past two years, we had realized that our legacy system was inward facing and was not scalable to the needs of our growing business. We knew that we needed a system that was flexible and expandable,” says Chuck Swensson, director of operations at Creatis.

Creatis had been using FileMaker as its main database for the past six years.

When the company decided it was time to invest in a system that could keep up with its growth, Creatis spent six months searching for the right vendor.

Swensson ticked off a long list of needs: “It was critical that we found a partnering vendor that was willing to define and embrace our unique business structure, help us through global enhancements of our process, be responsive, and most of all, possessed multiple examples and clients, with strong references, specific to our size of business, our need for Web-based tools, and the necessity to expand and scale based on business demands.”

Phone system hunt

When St. Paul-based Cherokee Bank decided that it needed a new phone system, it also needed to ensure that potential vendors knew the unique challenges of serving a bank. Today, Cherokee has 90 employees and $250 million in assets.

“Part of this was driven by the opening of a new bank branch later this year,” says Heidi Gesell, Cherokee president and CEO. “One of the challenges with our existing phone system is that it is costly to expand. Centralized call processing, which allows us to provide a personalized level of service to our callers, was also important and a challenge with our existing system. We also are very limited with the reporting we can get on our call center.”

Although Cherokee was still in the process of selecting a vendor in mid-October, Gesell says that Cherokee has spent three months working to ensure a proper fit with the vendor it selects.

The bank’s selection process included creating a request for proposal (RFP) to ensure consistent communication of its needs and expectations, and conducting a financial analysis of potential vendors and their equipment providers. Cherokee also checked vendor performance statistics and references.

 “We had tentatively budgeted for a new phone system, pending evaluation,” says Gesell. “The total project cost will be approximately $125,000, which is very close to what we expected.”

On the same page

Creatis found the partner it was looking for in Reside LLC, a Minneapolis-based technology services company.

“When they came to us they were talking about Web-based CRM,” or customer relationships management, says Eric Scheel, senior application architect/co-owner at Reside. “How can you get our sales people, our marketing people all on the same page with a tool that will work?”

Initially, Creatis and Reside investigated salesforce.com, as a possible online solution. But because of the cost of purchasing seats on the hosted customer relationship management system, it wasn't a long-term, cost-effective solution for Creatis, according to Scheel. However, the company decided to buy a few seats on salesforce.com exclusively for its sales force, and asked Reside to build a system for the other project managers, creatives and customers that would integrate with salesforce.com.

“It's an integrated approach for the entire company,” says Scheel. “Everybody, whoever they are, where ever they're located, they're all on the same page.”

As Reside worked with Creatis to find a solution to the company’s expanding needs, employee resistance to change became evident as an issue.

“It has changed how we look at our business, and how we interface with our clients,” says Swensson. “Employees are comfortable with the old ways — even though they take extra time and extra steps.”

Although Creatis won’t say how much the conversion to an integrated Web-based system cost, they will admit that it wasn’t easy to make the necessary investment.

“It is always hard to budget money for a project of this size, while very necessary. It was very hard to take the leap of faith that you will get your return on investment,” says Dodd Clasen, president and owner of Creatis.

The project will be implemented in four phases, the last of which will take place in 2005.

“We almost always recommend to our clients the phased approach,” says Jennifer Zick, vice president of sales and marketing with Reside. “It gives you a chance to walk before you run.”

Doing due diligence

Bloomington-based Sagebrush Corp. needed to find a vendor to fulfill its vision for a new product. Sagebrush offers products and services for K-12 educators and librarians and dreamt of a new product.

 The 400-employee company has been serving the educational market for over 50 years and has been offering educational technologies since 1982. The company’s most current form, now called Sagebrush, was created through acquisitions in 2000.

Many schools have subscription databases for which they pay sizeable amounts of money each year. But often, these databases go unused because they all have different interfaces that are challenging for both students and teachers to learn. Sagebrush wanted to create a product that would allow students to enter the information they’re looking for and their grade level into an easy-to-use search engine and get age-appropriate results.

“It really makes research much more straightforward. The kids aren't spending their time figuring out systems, the kids are spending their time looking at content,” says Tom Boe, senior product manager with Sagebrush.

The company developed the product, now called PinPoint, but knew they needed an outside vendor to create a way for PinPoint to interact with databases such as Lexus-Nexis and Google.

As Sagebrush began its search for a vendor, they were looking for what Boe calls “broadcast search capability.” But as the search for vendors continued, it became evident to Sagebrush that few firms were hungry for the job. The company interviewed several vendors who “thought they could set their own terms” says Boe.

“We almost stumbled across iXmatch and their specialty wasn't this broadcast searching, but their specialty intrigued us,” says Boe. “It was almost serendipity that they had an office almost two miles away.”

“Prior to working with Sagebrush to do Pinpoint, our focus had been on searching internal information,” says Bret Busse, director of marketing and business development with Minneapolis-based iXmatch Inc.

But Boe says that Sagebrush was confident that iXmatch could do the job.

“That was determined through some due diligence up front,” he says. “Not only was it determined that from a technology standpoint they were capable, but philosophically and a corporate culture was compatible with what we had.”

One of the project’s biggest challenges was timing. Due to the budgeting cycle of schools, iXmatch and Sagebrush had less than six weeks to get the product ready to go to market, says Busse.

PinPoint was released in May 2003.

“The iXmatch relationship is a really positive one because we based it on solid knowledge that they had technology that we could use,” says Boe.

Although technology solutions may seem glamorous, and a quick solution to complex problems, Swensson encourages other companies to make sure the proposed change really fits the company’s long-term strategy.

“My advice would be to first challenge ‘why’ you feel you need to upgrade or revamp your database needs. Does it fit within your one-year, three-year, and five-year strategy? How will you pay for it? Have you completed an ROI analysis? It is very important that it focuses on the needs of your customers. These tools should accelerate your ability to do business, rather than be the main focus. Remember to ask yourself, ‘How will it improve our ability to service our clients?’ ” says Swensson.

In looking for an outside vendor, networking is key, Swensson adds. “Find a vendor that is confident and hungry to learn about your business, rather than to be hungry for your business. Partnership is critical in these arrangements.

Also, be ready to be challenged by a vendor as to how your business operates. “If you’re not willing to look at your business from a new perspective, you may spend time and money simply replicating your old system into new technology — without actually improving your ability to service your clients faster and better,” Swensson adds.

“Talk to several vendors,” says Scott Larson, Cherokee’s chief technology officer. “Do your research. Try to get a good understanding of the new technologies and how they will benefit the company.”

[contact] Tom Boe, Sagebrush Corp.: 952.656.2973; tboe@sagebrushcorp.com; www.sagebrushcorp.com. Bret Busse, iXmatch Inc.: 952.842.7500; bret@ixmatch.com; www.ixmatch.com. Dodd Clasen, Creatis: 612.333.3233; www.creatis.com. Heidi Gesell, Cherokee Bank: 651.227.7071; www.bankcherokee.com. Scott Larson, Cherokee Bank: 651.227.7071; www.bankcherokee.com. Eric Scheel, Reside LLC: 612.767.2000; escheel@reside.biz; www.reside.biz. Chuck Swensson, Creatis: 612.333.3233 ext. 108; chuck.swensson@creatis.com; www.creatis.com. Jennifer Zick, Reside LLC: 612.767.2000; jzick@reside.biz; www.reside.biz