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		Case Study:  Enterprise Policy Management		Related FullArmor Links: Enterprise Policy Management White Paper (374K)

Business Challenge: Boosting the ROI on Microsoft Windows 2000 and Active Directory

FullArmor is one of the country’s largest – and most successful – providers of specialized enterprise management software, designed to help manage Windows 2000 security and improve user and resource administration. One of this mid-size company’s top challenges is to effectively communicate to IT management and executives how this productivity-enhancing tool adds value to their Windows 2000 management arsenal.

“We help companies save time and money by streamlining administration, and protect key components of Active Directory against human error and natural disasters,” said Rich Farrell, FullArmor’s co-founder and CEO. “Think of the worst case, which really happened: A bank upgraded its network, and someone accidentally changed a configuration. The next day, its traders couldn’t get Internet access. For this bank, having the right policy-management tools in place is now a no-brainer.”

For the past two years, FullArmor has used Alinean’s ROI Analysis tools to help it quickly customize and quantify the value of its solutions, with metrics even a skeptical network management team can probe, confirm, and present to its management team. Alinean’s deep metrics provides a credible third-party reference point, with customization that makes the numbers immediately meaningful. Recently FullArmor migrated to ValueIT, to provide additional consultative ROI report personalization and competitive benchmarking for prospects.

“Customers know our software adds value, but they needed credible quantification. We create a report within an hour – and email them a 20-page custom PDF document. They love it – they just cut-and-paste the data they want, and give it to their upper management for approval, with the added benefit of being able to leverage a third-party’s credibility.”
- Rich Farrell, CEO, FullArmor

1,500 Customers and Counting

FullArmor has rapidly grown to create the marketplace for enterprise-class policy management software, building upon the management infrastructure of Windows and NT. Its clients include most of the Fortune 1000, including Bank of America, Boeing and Shell Oil.

The team attributes 25 percent of all sales to the Alinean ROI selling solutions, enabling all of the sales professionals to quickly and easily build ROI business cases. Having detailed ROI analysis has been effective at helping to reduce sales cycles by 20 percent or more, and increasing selling effectiveness, particularly because the FullArmor solutions require customer education as to the added value beyond what Microsoft provides natively to handle policy management.

Becoming the Market Leader

FullArmor was founded by three college friends, right after college – when they didn’t know enough to worry about what couldn’t be done. Their first product was a commercial tool kit offering basic file protection. Soon Wal-Mart wanted its own version, to keep its store-based demo PCs up-and-running, even when customers “accidentally” reconfigured them. Circuit City and Costco followed.

By 1996, the company was three years old, and the Internet was rising; many said the days of Windows were over. Microsoft vowed to reduce the total cost of ownership. It was another make-or-break moment for the privately held FullArmor: The Tennessee Valley Authority was able to quantify 13 percent in hard-dollar savings from FAZAM. TVA’s findings were hailed by the Gartner Group, the influential market research firm.

Of course, even then, Farrell and his team knew that Microsoft would roll these basic capabilities in its operating systems – so they’d better find new opportunities to exploit. Unfortunately, this means constantly being forced to quantify the value FullArmor’s new products will deliver – even before the market knows it needs them.

Selling with ROI

Like many companies, FullArmor initially developed its own ROI data and tools, and then realized that customers demanded third party validation, and that it was a tremendous time-sink and had much hidden cost. It turned to the leading ROI sales tool-provider Alinean for customized templates that would demonstrate the potential ROI achieved when FullArmor adds the final 20 percent to Microsoft’s 80-percent delivery of policy management solutions. Using Alinean’s tools, FullArmor typically calculates a ROI of 200 percent or more, and projected payback ranges from three months to two years, depending on the size and complexity of a customer’s Windows 2000 plans.

“Customers see what tools Microsoft has delivered, and know our software adds value, but they needed credible quantification,” said Farrell. “We create a report within an hour – and email them a 20-page custom PDF document. They love it – they just cut-and-paste the data they want, and give it to their upper management for approval, with the added benefit of being able to leverage a third-party’s credibility.”

What’s Next: Soft ROI This past year was FullArmor’s best yet. Customers were embracing Microsoft’s roadmap for Windows 2000 and Active Directory, and knew they needed FullAmor to pave the highway. Heightened concern about security also raised visibility for cost-effective policy management tools. As a next step, FullArmor is working with Alinean to deepen its ROI tool kit, expanding the business case as new features are added, and enhancing the business case with intangible benefit impact, like customer satisfaction. “We love ValueIT because it’s completely customizable, and we can create detailed business cases ourselves – as soon as a customer calls, reflecting every nuance of the customers’ unique business case,” said Farrell. “If one part of the business case is not relevant, it can be quickly changed or removed, and more resonant elements added, to drive our case home and create credible and achievable results for our customers.” Next up: Extending its policy management tools to any Microsoft-related device, including PDAs, multi-function cell phones and voice over IP applications.		Take Away: How To Sell The Final 20 Percent Microsoft provides the raw capability to set some 600 different policy settings; most companies modify just a few dozen. There’s no way to track what’s been changed – a nightmare for anyone managing a distributed network, where multiple administrators have configure desktops, servers and other devices. “Microsoft is giving companies the infrastructure with its group policy objects,” said Rich Farrell, FullArmor’s co-founder and CEO. “What they need are the management tools to make this infrastructure manageable, and deliver the real ROI.” In fact, when Microsoft rolled out NT 4.0, it asked the FullArmor team to support it on crucial sales calls, because the NT-version of its software helped convince cautious corporate buyers that they could easily manage Microsoft’s newest offering. Having highly credible benefit metrics, backed by a proven methodology, really helps. “In some companies, as many as 10 to 15 people have to sign off on a budget because it involves a strategic commitment to Microsoft’s Active Directory,” he added. “Having clear, business-driven ROI metrics that can speak to a company’s unique situation really helps shorten our sales cycle.”