This webinar will provide insight into the results of the survey including how marketers have changed their focus over the course of the year. You will learn the metrics marketers are watching to determine ROI of marketing activities and the areas where marketers continue to face challenges. Following an overview of the marketing survey results, you will hear from Marketo and SoftServe who will share their marketing strategies and best practices for ROI.

Click on the links below to view a copy of each presenters slides:

SIIA
Marketing Report Overview

SoftServe
Keys to Marketing Success

Marketo
5 Secrets to Marketing Success

Presenters
Rhianna Collier
Vice President, Software Division, SIIA

Mary Brandon
Vice President, Marketing, SoftServe

Jason Miller
Social Media Manager, Marketo

Webinar Description
Software Defined Network introduces a new breed of computer network that exists only as software so that you can control it independently of the physical switches and routers running beneath it. Apart from hardware independence, SDN promises better scale and provides a single point of control for all network policy. With the network being virtualized, it now becomes possible to deliver a data center that can be delivered as a service. The control and management of the data center can by automated by software. In this talk we discuss the current developments in software defined networks and software defined data centers, what users can achieve today and identify challenges that they may face.

Featured Presenters:
Seema Jethani
Director of Product Management, EnStratus

Vanessa Alvarez
Cloud Thought Leader & Director of Product Marketing, Gridstore

The results show that technology is playing a significant – and in many cases, growing – role in corporate marketing.  And while nearly all companies have embraced social media marketing, other platforms, especially mobile, have only limited appeal for digital marketers.  The results also show that most executives have yet to invest significant resources in their digital marketing efforts – though many appear ready to increase their commitment of both time and money.

Below are key findings from the survey, which will be explored in-depth during an SIIA webinar on February 27.

Social Marketing Now Universal

This year’s survey finds a significant jump in the number of executives who say their company is using social media as a marketing platform.  Only 2 percent of respondents now say they are not using social media for marketing – a figure that stood at 11 percent a year ago.  This year’s survey also shows that 69 percent of executives say that social media is having a positive impact on their business – a slight decline from last year, in which just over 74 percent felt a positive impact.

And while the results show that nearly all businesses are now using social media marketing, they also indicate that the amount of time companies are dedicating to social media marketing has remained about the same.  This year’s results track closely with the previous year, with the exception that slightly more executives say their teams spend one to 10 hours per week on social media marketing (66 percent in 2013 survey versus 54.5 percent in the 2012 report).  The increase at the lower end of the time range is likely because more companies are using social media marketing, and new entrants tend to begin with a more limited engagement.

Executives clearly expect a greater commitment to social media in the future – 58 percent say they plan to spend more on social media marketing in the year ahead.  And while 30 percent of executives think that social media is adding to their marketing costs, an increasing number say it is reducing marketing costs (7 percent in 2013 survey, versus 4.7 percent in 2012).

With nearly all companies now using social media, it’s clear that the business community sees conclusive marketing value in these channels. The fairly stagnant time of use data suggests that companies are treadling lightly when it comes to their current social marketing commitment. But even with that, all signs point to more time and money being invested in social marketing in the years to come.

Mobile Marketing Impactful, But Usage Lags

At the same time that social media marketing is advancing, business use of mobile marketing continues to lag.  Only 25 percent of the companies surveyed are using mobile marketing – a slight drop from the 2012 survey, in which 29 percent said they are using mobile marketing.  Of the companies using mobile marketing, nearly half say that the mobile solution they offer is being used by 5 percent or less of their customers.  Given the low usage rates, it makes sense that more companies are not jumping into mobile marketing.

Still, even with low usage, executives believe that mobile marketing is having an impact.  One-third of executives in this year’s survey say that mobile marketing has changed the relationship with their customers, with 16 percent saying that product usage has increased.

This year’s survey also shows a significant drop in the number of companies targeting the Blackberry platform in their mobile marketing efforts.  Those targeting iOS, Windows and Android platforms remained largely the same between 2012 and 2013, however those targeting Blackberry dropped from 22 percent in the 2012 survey, to just 12 percent this year.

Mobile is unquestionably changing the way people live and work, but has yet to significantly change the way companies market. For the second year in a row we find limited use of mobile marketing and little indication that will change in the immediate future.  That said, there is a strong positive sign in the fact that a large percent of those using mobile are getting results.  More evidence of positive results, combined with expanding smartphone penetration and technological developments, should fuel mobile marketing growth in the years ahead.

The 2013 survey, which was conducted between October and December 2012, mirrors a survey SIIA conducted during a similar time period in 2011.  It asked questions of over 100 marketing executives who work for companies ranging in size, including those employing 1 to 99 people (65 percent), those employing between 100 and 999 (25 percent) and those employing over 1000 people (10 percent).

Rhianna Collier is VP for the Software Division at SIIA. Follow the Software team on Twitter at @SIIASoftware.

  Name: Feyzi Fatehi
Title: CEO
Company: Corent Technology, Inc.

Bio:
Feyzi Fatehi is a Silicon Valley veteran with 25 years of leadership experience building high performance teams at HP and multiple software start-ups that commanded more than $1 billion in valuation. He has been a speaker at Harvard Business School, Wharton, Stanford, Pepperdine and UCLA Anderson School of Management. Feyzi is a member of the IBM Partner Advisory Council, as well as the UC Irvine Chief Executive Roundtable and serves as the chairman of the Technology Council of Southern California/ Orange County. He has a BS in Solar Engineering, an MS in Software Architecture and an MBA in International Management.

Home town: Laguna Niguel, California

First job:  Software Engineer at HP Cupertino, as a member of the small and elite team that invented the first ever commercial Real-Time Database, the HP Real-Time Database.
What are you currently reading?  Aleph; by Paulo Coelho, Mojo, by Marshall Goldsmith

All-time favorite music:  Imagine, John Lennon

What is the best meal you have had recently? Eggplant Parmesan, at Mama Cella’s Italian Kitchen, Rancho Bernardo, San Diego

What is your next (dream) career? Anything that would push me beyond my comfort zone, and would allow me to learn as well as contribute, while having the privilege of working with genuine, driven, energetic, visionary, and innovative people.

Hobbies: Reading, movies, golf, ski, ocean … and spending quality time with my family and good friends.

What do you think is the hot button issue for the software & services industry going into 2013? Recognizing that the “Cloud” is much more than just a set of virtualized systems hosted by third parties, and start looking at the next gen software platforms that help deliver the promises of the “Cloud” such as tangible and timely benefits that would accelerate and amplify SaaS success.

Why is your company a member of SIIA? The high quality of member companies, a first-class management, and the top SIIA industry events and programs.

Mark MacCarthy, Vice President, Public Policy at SIIA, directs SIIA’s public policy initiatives in the areas of intellectual property enforcement, information privacy, cybersecurity, cloud computing and the promotion of educational technology. Follow the SIIA Public Policy team on Twitter at @SIIAPolicy

As we work with the Administration on implementation, a priority for our industry will be to avoid rigid regulations that impede the innovation that is essential for effective cybersecurity.

A regulatory approach seeking to cover a broad, rapidly-evolving cross-section of industry would have the unintended consequence of slowing technological innovation and limiting our collective cybersecurity preparedness. Therefore, it is essential that the Administration work with industry to implement the Executive Order in a way that retains necessary flexibility. Technological innovation must be allowed keep up with rapid developments pertaining to both cybersecurity threats and protections.

To that end, we look forward to continuing to work closely with the Administration and congressional leaders to implement this policy.

Ken Wasch is President of SIIA. Follow the SIIA Policy team on Twitter at @SIIAPolicy.

VanRoekel joins a roster of other influential policymakers and government IT executives presenting at Cloud/GOV, including:

• Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA), Chairman, Committee on Government Oversight and Reform, U.S. House of Representatives
• David DeVries, Deputy CIO, Information Enterprise, U.S. Department of Defense
• Dawn Leaf, Deputy Chief Information Officer, United States Department of Labor
• Peter Tseronis, Chief Technology Officer, U.S. Department of Energy

Cloud/GOV will offer a comprehensive look at the challenges and opportunities federal agencies face in their transition to the cloud. Government CIOs who have already made the switch to cloud computing will discuss the lessons they learned and provide advice for other federal executives. Presentations will also address emerging FedRAMP-related issues, including the convergence of the cloud and “big data” analytics. In addition, the conference will include a comprehensive look at federal policy changes that could impact cloud computing in 2013.

Michael Hettinger is VP for the Public Sector Innovation Group (PSIG) at SIIA. Follow his PSIG tweets at @SIIAPSIG.

Panelists:
Susie Adams
Federal Chief Technology Officer, Microsoft

Kevin Plexico
Vice President Information Solutions, Deltek

Mike Binko
President and CEO, kloudtrack

Rhianna: Welcome to SIIA! Tell us a little about Argos Software and what makes your solutions unique.

Lee Anne: From our start in 1979, Argos Software has focused on developing specialized business software for the agri-business, supply chain and logistics industries. In addition, we offer a variety of services that help our customers succeed in their planning, implementation, and on-going training activities.

Rhianna: Why is it important that each implementation be customized for the customer?

Lee Anne: Each implementation is designed around the customer’s requirements as no two businesses are alike! Our network engineers work with our customers to specify their network requirements. We want to be sure that their infrastructure will properly support the software. Then, we conduct an “implementation planning workshop” that will begin to configure the system to meet the customer’s business processes, to train the administrator on the system features of the system, to define the data conversion requirements, and to train the trainer. We work with the customer’s administrator and staff on implementing each of the functional areas. The implementation process is tailored to the customers’ requirements and staff. Our goal is our customers’ success with the right balance of on-site and web training sessions.

Rhianna: You partner with a number of top provides. How important is that partner ecosystem to your business?

Lee Anne: Our partners are critical to our success. Without their development efforts and technical support, our own products cannot grow to meet the ever-changing demands of our user partners. We are reliant on our supply side partners to ensure we can provide a modern and robust infrastructure and foundation for our suite of applications. We rely to a large extent on our user partners to provide the roadmap for our own development efforts. In today’s ‘flat world’, partner ecosystems are vital.

Rhianna: How does Argos keep their customers up-to-date on upgrades and the latest enhancements of your software?

Lee Anne: Our ABECAS Insight Subscription Service provides both on-going support by our technical team as well as updates to the software. A new version of our software is released about every 4 months and is available to all subscribers. The Version number that customers are currently working with can be seen by clicking ‘about’ on the ABECAS Insight menu. When a system is first installed and changes are required in the software during the implementation process, we generally provide our development version so that updates can be installed as needed. Our technical team works with customers all the way!

Rhianna: What do you think will be the next major advancement in supply chain management systems in the next 12-18 months?

Lee Anne: To date, SCMS has focused on operational efficiency, but with an ever increasing demand for visibility, both upstream and downstream, we will see systems to systems communication and visibility tools (and mobility) growing in importance. Summary data provided by dashboards, accessible from mobile computers will be high on the selection criteria for next year’s buyer, as will automation of exception alerts triggered for suppliers and customers.

Rhianna Collier is VP for the Software Division at SIIA.

Rhianna:Why was it important to you to be a part of the AATC Program Committee?

Russ: Being a part of the Program Committee helps SoftServe give input into the shape, structure, and content of the event agenda, while staying abreast of the latest developments with respect to the event plan.

Rhianna: What are your goals for the conference this year?

Russ: As always, to get some strong new ISV leads, or to further nurture existing prospects. We do this through networking, speaker presentations, and the sponsorship.

Rhianna: What is unique about AATC that makes it so valuable to ISVs?

Russ: AATC is the premier event for ISVs who are just entering or already leading in various segments of the Cloud Computing market. This event has it all: thought leaders, great panels, practical education, and how to content.

Rhianna: What are some of the topics you are excited to see in the program this year?

Russ: Mobile + cloud monetization strategies, the evolution of PaaS technology, a report card on Azure, and the role that Big Data platforms are playing in various SaaS offerings.

Rhianna: What are your industry predictions for what’s in store for 2013-2014?

Russ: 1. SaaS. Large ISVs are in an adaptive race to both build and buy SaaS capability. In this race, the course of 2013 will show increasing gaps between executing leaders and confused or denying followers. This race is the single most important determinant of the future value of the 100 largest ISV providers. The leaders will not simply make more SaaS acquisitions. They will also create hybrid solutions for current install bases. They will deliver new SaaS offerings in the SMB market by refactoring current on-premises technology. And they will adapt channel, sales and marketing models to the economics of the SaaS business.

2. DevOps. Cloud computing is changing the skill set and composition requirements of technical teams. Designing and developing software is now the front end for the long-run challenge: service delivery management and continuous application enhancement. Development operations (DevOps) are one of the critical disciplines for the new technical team. The skill set of a DevOps tech lead includes systems programming, build management, configurations management, service monitoring, security, backup, recovery and more. Over time, the technical team composition for a large SaaS deployment will trend towards an equal number of software engineers and DevOps engineers.

3. PaaS. PaaS remains a clever software technology for rapid application development or refactoring rather than a specific market. Small PaaS players can survive by deploying their technology primarily to create conventional and nimble SaaS solutions in established markets. PaaS technology will be combined with Big Data platforms to create new services and sites in several business and consumer markets.

4. Health Information Exchanges. The firmer establishment and acceptance of The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2009 (“Obamacare”) resulting from the re-election of Obama is driving acceleration in construction and deployment of Healthcare Information Exchanges and Health Insurance Exchanges. HIE construction and operation is attracting large hardware/software providers and major systems integrators. The cloud-based security and data integration requirements for HIEs will introduce new software and security technology like JSON and Oauth into the healthcare IT market. Other industry-specific community clouds may begin to develop in public education, finance, retail and manufacturing.

5. Social media. The technology behind the massive horizontal scalability of major social and search platforms is driving into the smaller-scale footprints of independent colocation facilities, hosters, ISPs, and enterprise data centers. Enterprises will refactor and redeploy more and more applications into hybrid and private cloud deployments, taking advantage of virtualization, multi-tenancy and horizontal scalability to become more competitive with public cloud-computing metrics and price points.

6. Mobile. Scalable back-end cloud services continue to be the anchor for mobile business and consumer applications. Mobility and cloud computing enjoy a virtuous synergy that can be seen in the rich native mobile applications for popular social networks, the hugely successful online store models for application purchase and delivery from Google/Apple/Amazon, and the overall growth in mobile device traffic on popular cloud-based sites and services.