Strategic Partnering: Aligning Multiple Players Behind One Goal

CSC: Strategic Alliances Sales Enablement

By definition, system integrators work with numerous software and hardware partners, blending multiple products into comprehensive solutions for their customers. This matrix of offerings poses a unique challenge for a system integrator’s sales team. CSC is no exception.

CSC packages solutions from over 15 strategic alliance partners. The differentiation, positioning, and specifications of these solutions need to be clearly communicated not only to customers, but also to CSC sales reps whose job it is to make compelling arguments for why a customer should buy them. However, crafting a story for each strategic partnership and joint solution is challenging in an industry where meaningful differentiation can be elusive.

Members of CSC’s partner marketing team had successfully used On The Mark in the past and asked us to lead the development of a sales kit for each strategic alliance. This kit was to include a messaging questionnaire and document, customer-viewable collateral, web copy, and internal-only sales playbooks. The timeline was tight to ensure completion of tools before CSC’s annual sales kickoff.

We not only met deadline and quality expectations for over 75 sales tools, we also helped CSC marketing teams improve the speed and cost effectiveness of internal marketing processes. A couple of years later, when CSC needed to refresh the sales kits, they once again engaged On The Mark.

"We hired a team of On The Mark consultants, from strategists to writers, to help us develop messaging and associated sales enablement tools for over 15 alliances. OTM's professionalism, approach, and deliverables helped us exceed our goals. They not only created stronger positioning for our alliance relationships, but also helped us build an improved and streamlined process." CSC Alliance Marketing Manager