Objectives and Metrics
This is a go-to-market plan for Getronics’ Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI), which seeks to meet the following key objectives.
- Establish Getronics brand as leading provider of innovative and differentiated products in the industry, effectively shedding the “me too” image in the first year of operation.
- Ensure that the VDI product breaks even during the first six months after its launch
- Achieve at least $50 million in the initial three months of operation (Yip & Hult, 2011)
- Achieve a 4% market share of the UK market’s virtual hosted desktops by the close of the initial six months of operation
Market Opportunity
Despite the slow beginning in 2009, the VDI market is expected to reach upwards of 40% of the professional personal computers’ market value by the close of 2013, which will amount to more than 49 million, hosted virtual desktops. The value of the hosted virtual desktops is expected to reach $65.7 billion across the world (Hurley, 2011). In addition, businesses across the United Kingdom and Europe are struggling with need to cut back on fixed costs, following a devastating global economic crisis in 2007/8. This was coupled with the persistent currency and sovereign debt crisis facing the single currency market, which have resulted in lower credit availability, consumer and investment demand that have imposed an urgent need for individual businesses to cut costs further. While businesses need to cut back on costs, the need to ensure infrastructure scalability in readiness for growth is extremely important and new purchases at this period will be founded on cost effectiveness and efficiency, which VDI promises (Hurley, 2011).
In addition, the move towards virtualized desktops has become a major trend in the technology industry, with the emergence of cloud computing, which makes VDI in tandem with the demand trends. The VDI is also in mesh with release of Windows 7 that allows increased collaboration, coupled by increasing trends in workplaces and society towards collaborative work environments, personalized/flexible services and expectations of the same at the work place. This is further bolstered by the growing computing power and proliferation of devices (phones, smart phones, tablets, raspberry Pi etc), which have made the datacenter model more practical in supporting different devices and employees, compared to desktop-based technologies (Choi, Fershtman, & Gandal, 2009). These technologies provide an excellent infrastructure for knowledge management, which is increasingly proving an important consideration for knowledge-based businesses, whose competitive advantages solely depends on the ability to leverage knowledge resources and use them to create competitive advantages.
Target Market
Getronics VDI infrastructure will firstly target organizations that require fast desktop deployment including software and education application. These organizations need to cut back on the costs of both hardware and software, which is possible since these technologies allow most technologies to be shared by many users, albeit with possible licensing and subscription costs that are lower than individual ownership. In addition the government, utility and finance industries are important target markets, not least because of the urgent need to cut back on costs, but perhaps most especially, because of the huge variety of repeated tasks and resources which can be best shared in order to cut back costs and increase efficiency (Yip & Hult, 2011).
In addition, either the Getronics’ VDI will target the generation Y computer users, directly or through organizations that have this population group. This market is more inclined towards proliferated technologies as against centralized, desktop computers. Other target markets will include new organizations as well as organization migrating or replacing their older technologies with new ones. New or replacement infrastructure gives an important opportunity for organization to invest in scalable, cost efficient and trending technologies as compared to older infrastructures (Hurley, 2011).
Other target markets include firms that are struggling with high technology overheads, reduction in carbon footprint, energy efficiency and sustainability needs. The proposed technologies will offer an easy and efficient way for organizations to meet their sustainability and cost reduction needs both in the short term and in the long term. This presents perhaps the most lucrative market for Getronics and the VDI infrastructure, not least because new acquisitions and sustainability needs reduce the cost considerations in disposing of older technologies (Egan, 2008).
Competitive Positioning
The VDI infrastructure will be positioned as delivering immediate cost savings and other benefits to organizations by providing technologies that leverages both telecommunication and information technology. The development of Getronics VDI brought together centuries-long experience and knowhow by one of the leading technology solution companies in the Benelux region and the rest of Europe. In addition, the technology was developed in collaboration with Kings University College London, which is among the leading learning institutions in the world. Effectively, Getronics will be sold as a product of a great collaboration and representing the future of both information technology and telecommunication. In this way, the company and the product’s competitive advantage would be established because of its promise to offer trendiest technologies in the industry (Hurley, 2011). Getronics VDI will also be sold as leveraging the latest technologies including Windows 7 and 8 operating systems, cloud computing, open-sourcing etc, which provide the promise of increased flexibility, personalization, lower fixed costs of computing and datacenters that would replace the conventional desk tops for good. In this respect, the product will be positioned as trendy, stylish and futuristic. It is the best choices for the company to eliminate cables from offices and public places, and instead, replace them with wireless and other technologies that will however, allow the best access and utility of telecommunication and information technologies (Yip & Hult, 2011). In this way, the Getronics and its VDI offering will ensure that the company is competitively positioned in the industry, effectively shedding the “me too” image that it has always been attached to Getronics.
Value Proposition
The adoption of virtual desktop infrastructure solutions allows computer users can access their desktops, access resources on their desktops (laptops, client services, personal computers, smartphones etc), or similar resources from central data centers from anywhere in the world. It promises multiple business benefits. These include considerable energy savings because of the VDI’s thin client usage, which consumes as little as four watts as against 90-160 watts that normal workstations demand (Hurley, 2011). The energy savings are critical to client organizations marketing purposes. This is not least, because energy conservation puts them can form an important aspect of a wider energy conservation and environmental protection strategy. With increasing consumer awareness about sustainable and ethical business practices in the faces of global warming/climate change, sustainable businesses have an important competitive advantage that would bolster brand loyalty and brand equity (Egan, 2008).
In addition, these technologies offer massive cost savings both with regard to the desktop/back end servers as well as in end user devices. The simplification and standardization of server hardware as well as client services, not least because the companies are capable of getting rid of the individual CPUs in favor of centralized servers (Choi, Fershtman, & Gandal, 2009). This reduces the fixed costs associated with the purchase of separate workstations, while the operational costs are reduced not only by the energy savings, but also because of the reduced costs of software purchases and licensing. In terms of the end user devices, the VDI thin clients are least costly compared to desktops. Financial estimates show that VDI infrastructure costs as less as 50% of the traditional computing infrastructure.
Further, centralized data centers (data storage, processing and dissemination) allow heightened central security systems and measures to be applied to the organization’s systems. They make it possible to avert storing actual data on desktop devices. All the data is stored on centralized data centers. It is impossible to download data from the desktop and onto USB storage devices without specific authorization. Centralized data centers make it possible to apply strong security measures, which militate against a greater range of cyber-security vulnerabilities. In addition, in the event of security breaches, it is easier to troubleshoot and address the problem earlier compared to the traditional systems (Cho & Okamura, 2010).
In addition, the freedom of the computer users from the desktops, coupled by the high and cheap scalability of the computing infrastructure allows greater flexibility. Business can take growth or contraction in their business by simply adding more or reducing peripheral devices to the central datacenters. This technology bolsters productivity and employee motivation, collaborative working, communication, knowledge management and aligns the provisions of information technology with the needs of the client organizations (Hurley, 2011). The resultant increase in performance increases the quality of products and customer services, which in turn bolster customer satisfaction. Other value propositions include:
- Single point, centralized access from multiple devices
- Single consistent framework to handle messaging, security etc
- Infrastructure resilience and scalability (Hurley, 2011)
Product Pricing
Third parties including HP, IBM, Capgemini, Accenture, Atos Origin and CSC among others develop the hardware necessary for the implementation of the Getronics VDI. Effectively, the pricing of these hardware as well as third party software will be in part dependent on the pricing strategy of the partners. However, value addition to the products will extracted from the clients, but would be priced in such a manner that the pricing of the VDI infrastructure remains considerably lower compared to the conventional infrastructure. Other services, tailored softwares and applications, will be priced based on the cost plus framework, with an R&D premium of 10% of the priced imposed on every purchase in order to cover for the development and initial marketing costs (Yip & Hult, 2011).
Messaging Hierarchy
The information to the market will be bundled as follows:
- Highlights- These messages will provide brief highlights of the Getronics VDI and its advantages. It is meant to draw attention an interest among the customers and make them want to find out more information on the product (Egan, 2008).
- Changing Workplaces- These messages will follow the highlights segment. At this stage, the messages will ensure that potential clients understand the changing nature of work places e.g. sustainability, flexibility, cost efficiency, cloud computing etc.
- Transformation of the Workplaces with Getronics VDI- Once the market understand that workplaces are indeed undergoing a transformation, coupled by the urgent need to adapt to the changing needs, this messaging level will introduce VDI. The messages will explain the nature of Getronics’ VDI and their possible role in minimizing workplace problems due to the transformation (Yip & Hult, 2011).
- Choice of the Best Approaches- This level of messaging will ensure that the market has an understanding of their own needs, and how Getronics VDI can meet them. It will ensure that every potential customer understands what to expect even before contacting the company (Hurley, 2011).
- Delivery of Tangible Results- This level will reinforce the expectations of the potential and existing customers about the products.
- Getting Started- This level of messaging will give every decision maker in any potential client organization on their next step towards the acquisition of the technologies.
- Why Getronics-Highlights the company’s strengths, unique history and ability (Yip & Hult, 2011)
Media Mix
The media mix will target the following audience categories:
One-to-one: The Company will use the client contacts on its databases, internet advertising companies and internet pay-per-click services etc to ensure that individual decision makers are aware and interested in the product (Hurley, 2011).
One-to-few: In this audience, the company will use social media, billboards, in-store advertising, customer contact databases, events sponsorships and road shows/trade fares, product placements and per-click internet advertising to market its products. Both the One-to-one and one-to-few promotion requires extremely accurate audience targeting and product positioning, lest it leads into considerable (Yip & Hult, 2011)
One-to-many: The Company will use mass media to advertise its offerings including television, business and technical magazines, newspapers and even radio. The company will also use celebrity endorsements, billboards, events sponsorships etc (Hurley, 2011). This relatively more expensive
Campaign Plan and proposed Financial Plan
The proposed costs are only estimates. They are subject to change in the light of better information and Getronics advice, in such a way as to remain within an acceptable limit and still meet the set objectives. The product launch costs will be borne by Getronics, separate from the marketing costs.
References
Cho, I., & Okamura, K. (2010). A centralized resource and admission control scheme for NGN core networks. ICOIN'09 Proceedings of the 23rd international conference on Information , 27-30.
Choi, J. P., Fershtman, C., & Gandal, N. (2009). Network Security: Vulnerabilities and Disclosure Policy#. Tal Aviv: CERT/CC.
Egan, J. (2008). Relationship Marketing: Exploring Relational Strategies in Marketing. London: Financial Times Prentice Hall.
Hurley, S. (2011). A Go-To-Market Strategy for New Solutions at Getronics Creating Compelling Value Propositions. Westhood: Solutions Insights.
Yip, G., & Hult, T. (2011). Total Global Strategy. New York: Pearson Education.
