Background

IDC is one of the premier global providers of market intelligence, advisory services, and events for the information technology and communications industries. With over 775 analysts in 50 countries, IDC has provided strategic insights to help its clients achieve their business objectives for more than 40 years.

Business Problem

In late 2006, a major systems vendor contracted IDC to analyze its financing and leasing programs, both to evaluate the competitiveness of the program itself, as well as to provide feedback on the tools and processes used by distribution and channel partners to access the program. The goal was to understand how the vendor's program compares against programs offered by other leading providers, and to make strategic recommendations to improve its offerings. IDC brought Callan Consulting on board to conduct interviews with partner financing program managers, and to assist in analysis and generation of recommendations.

Solution

Starting with an interview guide created in conjunction with relevant IDC analysts and consultants, Callan Consulting conducted in-depth interviews with executives in charge of financing programs at fifteen distributors and resellers of IT products, capturing the results of each interview in a detailed write-up. Callan Consulting then analyzed the interviews, performed a first pass analysis, and created a first draft PowerPoint presentation to capture the findings and recommendations.

Results

Both IDC and the system vendor were pleased with the results. The findings were presented at a high executive level within the systems vendor, and inspired some significant re-engineering of its financing programs with an eye toward better distinguishing between the way it targets financing for larger, custom opportunities versus the processes and programs better geared to smaller, more "commoditized" financing deals. In fact, the team was so pleased with the quality of the analysis that it was captured in IDC's best practices repository.

Reference

• IDC Web site


• Download PDF of this case study

© 2008 Ed Callan. All rights reserved. Client quotes used by permission.