Feature Article: Simplify Your Security Offerings To Spur Sales

By Gennifer Biggs, Business Solutions magazine.

Bigger is better, right? Well, maybe. Sometimes having an abundance of solutions for your customers can actually slow you down. That is exactly the challenge faced by FishNet Security, a security systems integrator. With 26 offices coast-to-coast, more than 100 vendor partners, and dozens of solutions on its line card, big began to equal unfocused sales and operations for FishNet. That's when FishNet's leadership decided the security company needed an overhaul. So, over a matter of months, FishNet EVP Gordon Shevlin worked to create solutions sets, or "buckets" where expertise could be fostered and communications — both internally and to customers — were streamlined. That new approach allowed FishNet's sales teams to focus on longer-term solutions rather than products and projects. The idea took four months to take shape, but in 2008, the first year the solutions sets were in place, FishNet enjoyed 50% growth around those solutions.

Used with permission from Business Solutions magazine.