|
MEMBERSHIP
Our
records indicate that you aren't currently a Software Council
member. The Software Council is a membership-driven organization,
and we need your support to thrive and continue serving you.
If you haven't sent in an application for membership, please
support the Software Council and submit your application
today.
VENTURENET
CALL FOR APPLICATIONS
VentureNet®
is Southern California's premier software and information technology
capital conference. It is the primary forum where the region's
most promising companies get to meet and present to prospective
investors and strategic partners from around the country.
Now in its tenth year, VentureNet typically attracts
partners from venture capital firms in Southern California,
venture capital firms from Northern California and elsewhere
in the country, corporate investors, angel investors, and investment
bankers. It also draws many CEOs and entrepreneurs, and decision-makers
from the most influential professional services organizations
focused on the software and information technology industries.
VentureNet is about taking your business to the next
level. Even if you're not looking for funding, you'll have the
chance to meet professionals who have the experience, tools
and connections to help you grow your business. At VentureNet,
you will make important contacts, disseminate information about
your company and learn from people who are "in the know."
Visit us at www.VentureNet.org
for details on exhibiting or presenting at our September 8th
event.
MORE>>
MAKING
BLOGS WORK
BLOGGING IS HOT!
By Phil Becker, Managing Partner, The Venture Group
Five
years ago, nobody knew what web logging was. Today, there are
an estimated ten-million blog sites and that number is growing
by 4,000 daily!
Blogs have influenced a Presidential election, may have cost
Dan Rather his job, and are now beginning to totally redefine
the relationship between companies and their clients. Blogs
represent an intimate, immediate, two-way relationship between
a firm and the rest of the world that has never before been
possible.
Mainstream media from Business Week to The Wall Street Journal
have done major cover stories about how this new technology
is reshaping the way people and companies use the Internet.
Impact!, the Software Council's Marketing SIG, is devoting their
September meeting to examining how leading companies are starting
to integrate blogging into their marketing mix.
While many people create or read blogs, the blogging phenomenon
is so new that we are just beginning to understand how to use
them as marketing tools. There are firms that are already using
blogs effectively to drive sales and maintain valuable customer
relationships. Conversely, blogs can also be a weapon that could
destroy your brand or your entire company, and you may not even
know about it until it's too late.
MORE>>
To
see how other companies have already successfully implemented
blogs, please join for the next Impact! event “An Executive’s
Guide To Blogging Your Way To The Top!” on September 15th
at the Doubletree in Santa Monica, where both individual companies
and advertising agencies will share their real-world experiences
with you. Register
today!
BUSINESS
CONTINUITY MANAGEMENT:
ITS INCREASING ROLE IN THE WORLD OF CORPORATE PLANNING
AND MANAGEMENT
By Tim Lovoy, Partner, Deloitte & Touche LLP
Business
continuity management is assuming a greater role in corporate
planning and management due to concerns about terrorism - in
all its forms - as well as more traditional incidents that can
disrupt business and government. But much more work still needs
to be done, and business executives face numerous questions
when it comes to the issue of business continuity management
(BCM). Questions such as:
- What
has led to the deployment of BCM functions in other companies?
- How
much should be budgeted for this activity?
- What
level of staffing should be dedicated to BCM?
- How
much can business continuity management impact my company's
competitive position?
- How
important is it to address third-party organizations in the
BCM process?
- What
is my company's risk tolerance compared to that of my competitors?
- How
important is it to test BCM plans, and why should we conduct
tests?
- How
does general management view BCM spending?
It
is critical for business leaders to assess the state of business
continuity management within the organization, relative to similar
companies. Business executives should ask, "How does the
level of business continuity management preparedness for my
organization compare to that of others in the marketplace?"
MORE>>
MEMBER
SPOTLIGHT: INTERVIEW WITH INTEGRIEN CEO,
AL EISAIAN
Interview by Jennifer Beever
Integrien won the SCSC Software Developer of the Year award
for 2005. The Software Developer of the Year award is given to
the company that shows the most market acceptance, innovation,
functionality and usability, and best practices in product development.
Interviewer Jennifer Beever talked with Integrien CEO Al Eisaian
(pronounced "E-sigh-on") about the company and its recent
success.
Tell
us about your company
AE: Integrien is the leading provider of integrity management
software. Basically, we help IT organizations predict and prevent
problems in their IT systems before they can cause negative business
impact. We combine several technologies including auto-discovery,
auto-thresholding and dynamic correlation analytics to predict
problems before they happen. We help business and IT unify their
views and move them from a fire-fighting mode to a fire prevention
mode. Companies that use our product run more reliably and are
more predictable - they gain control over the complexity that
is prevalent in the modern IT environments.
What is the pain you solve for businesses?
We go across all the silos. The modern data center is comprised
of the networking stack or silo, the server silo, the operating
system silo, the middleware silo, the database silo and the applications
silo. In order to deliver services that generate revenue for the
business, all the silos have to work together. Existing tools
allow you to work within each silo and find out what is happening
in each layer. But, the majority of the problems occur at the
inter-linking points of these stacks or silos. Hardware failures
don't really matter anymore, because there's so much hardware
redundancy built into systems now. We provide a holistic, end-to-end
view as it's relevant to the mission critical transactions of
the company.
MORE>>
OPTIMIZE
YOUR MARKETING BUDGET
By Barbara Lewis and Dan Otto
Historically,
marketing budgets have been rarely statistically calculated
for optimum productivity. Instead marketing budgets are usually
based on meaningless metrics such as percentage of last year's
sales or percentage of last year's budget. Once marketing managers
receive the budget, they divide the monies among marketing activities
such as new customer acquisition, current customer retention,
former customer reacquisition, up-selling and cross-selling.
A marketing budget can be segmented by customers, products,
geographic regions and media spend, for example. Oftentimes,
the allocation of monies across the various marketing activities
and segments is a guestimate with little statistical or financial
data to determine the specific portion of funds for each activity
or segment.
However,
with the advent of computer modeling, marketing executives are
able to confidently make budgetary decisions that optimize long-term
profitability of the firm by properly allocating across the
marketing activities and segments. Underlying the marketing
budget optimization are three concepts: diminishing return market
response curve, customer lifetime value and customer equity.
MORE>>
MEET
NEW AND RETURNING MEMBERS
Welcome
New Members:
Returning
Members:
|
CONTENTS
|
