Its 2009 Stupid

Its 2009 Stupid

Recently it was Line7 sinking and Pumpkin Patch uprooting in North America. No doubt the weeks ahead will further add to the litany that is the Recession 2009.

Even the old saying ‘If you keep doing what you’ve always done, you’ll keep getting what you’ve always got’ has become a misnomer in the current climate. Now it’s more like ‘if you keep doing in business what you’ve always done, you’ll get nothing.’

An interesting example of one company recognising and responding to the need for change is a relative newcomer with a pithy name, Spamdunk. The Wellington based business is focused on the sales of off-site anti-spam services to the world and is experiencing rapid growth in the tight IT sector.

“The global recession forced us to look very hard at what we were doing” says Nick Lissette, General Manager of SpamDunk. “Cutting prices isn’t enough, everyone, including us is doing that. SpamDunk looked at how we could better package and deliver our product. By making buying our service as simple as possible we reduce customers hidden purchasing costs as well as slashing their bill – we call it FMCG IT. We apply the same principles to IT sales to those used in supermarket product sales”.

The concept is an interesting one. By simplifying IT services and making the buying decision fast and simple, the customer can reduce internal costs and time spent on evaluating, implementing and running IT services.

“We are removing the jargon, complication and IT ‘dark arts’ without compromising the effectiveness and robustness of our service “ says Nick “ And in doing so customers tell us we have made the proposition easy to understand and implement. In several recent cases our pricing and packaging has helped customers avoid the tender process would have cost the customer time to implement and manage.”

SpamDunk adopts an off-site email filtering model for blocking Spam. This has helped SpamDunk capitalise on the growing number of businesses who are outsourcing technologies to reduce costs and relieve stress on internal IT staff. SpamDunk are not the first company in the world to offer anti-spam to the market as Software as a Service (SaaS) but believe their focus on simplicity, quality and price with a healthy dose of creative spark and personality is what the market wants.

This difference is readily demonstrated by their website (www.spamdunk.co.nz) which features segments by Russian Brides , ‘Viagra Alike’ salesmen and the rapidly becoming infamous (due to a highly collectable T-shirt run) Dr Geoffrey Obed , the Nigerian banker with and offer you just might take!

The result of Spamdunk’s unique marketing is the acquisition of a high profile customer base which includes New Zealand’s largest tertiary institutions, Government departments and members of New Zealand’s top 100 CIO list.

FMCG means volume and volume pricing. As Nick Lissette points out, today all bets are off when it comes to the traditionally sacrosanct IT budgets. Every department in any business is being told to sharpen up and Spamdunk have positioned themselves to both assist and benefit in 2009.

ENDS

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