Q4 2005

	IN THIS ISSUE: FEATURE STORY: Alinean Recognizes Top 50 Small and Midsized Businesses Deriving Highest Return on IT (ROIT) » The SearchCIO 200: The Return on IT Leaders SearchCIO / CIO Decisions Features Alinean’s IT Success Factors Got leads? » Computerworld: People - The New IT Priority »
	WHAT'S NEW! Alinean Launches Value Finder™ Sales Intelligence Software » Alinean and IDC Offer New Certification Courses for 2006 » Alinean CEO and SearchCIO ROI Expert Tom Pisello Blogs his latest thoughts on ROI for small and medium executives. Read Tom’s Holiday wish list for SMB ROI »

Alinean Recognizes Top 50 Small and Midsized
Businesses Deriving Highest Return on IT (ROIT)

Alinean has unveiled its first annual ranking of the top 50 small and midsized businesses (SMBs) achieving the greatest return on IT (ROIT) from more than 8,000 U.S. public companies studied.

Top-performing SMBs tend to be more frugal, spending a mere 2.8 percent of revenue on IT in contrast to the average SMB, which spends 4.8 percent of revenue on IT. However, on a per-employee basis, leading SMBs spend more than the average – $15,223 per employee, $1,251 more than the median. These leading SMBs utilize technology as a productivity enhancing and revenue generation tool to defer adding head count to meet business needs.

Proving that size does matter, a comparison of SMBs with larger competitors reveals that small companies consistently outspend their larger peers, mostly because of the economies of scale that help large organizations save on IT infrastructure, administration and support. On average, small companies spend 4.8 percent of revenue and $13,972 per employee on IT versus larger companies’ spending of 3.3 percent of revenue and $11,580 per employee. 
Click here to read more »

View the SearchSMB 50 ranking - a listing of 50 small and medium-sized businesses that excel in maximizing IT investments.»

Press Release: Alinean Recognizes Top 50 Small and Midsized Businesses Deriving Highest Return on IT (ROIT) »

Calculate your own IT ROI using Alinean's downloadable worksheet »

The SearchCIO 200:
The Return on IT Leaders

Alinean has announced its third annual ranking of the top 200 U.S. companies deriving the greatest value from IT investments (ROIT^TM) from more than 8,000 U.S. public companies studied. Due to rising energy prices and traditionally frugal IT investment, the energy industry shows up the strongest this year, owning 12 of the top 20 spots.

The ranking, published on SearchCIO.com as The SearchCIO 200, reveals that top-performing companies are consistently more frugal in their IT spending as a percentage of revenue, spending 2.8 percent where the average company spends 3.4 percent. These leaders have managed to reduce IT infrastructure Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) via consolidation, standardization, and best practices, while more carefully investing IT dollars in new projects that are likely to deliver a substantial return and competitive edge.  To read the whole story, click here »

View the results on SearchCIO.com »

SearchCIO / CIO Decisions Features
Alinean’s IT Success Factors

Over the past three years, Alinean has used its Peer Comparison software and IT spending / performance database to measure and study several of the best IT organizations and collect information on why they did so well. Several key practices are consistent among the groups that allow them to drive cost savings and improve value from IT.

Click here to learn about the key IT success factors »

Learn how your own sales and consulting teams can better engage Cx level executives with key IT spending and performance benchmarks and peer comparisons – and best practice recommendations »

Got leads?

Most direct sales and marketing professionals have a single wish for the holiday season and New Year – better, more qualified leads. In this ROI Expert article for SearchSMB, Alinean discusses different lead sources and recommendations.
Click here to to read the article on SearchSMB.com  »

Need help finding the best opportunities and contacts? Alinean’s new Value Finder solution empowers direct sales and marketing professionals to search for specific business and IT spending opportunities amongst 20,000 worldwide corporations and 150,000 contacts. Click here to read the press announcement, and begin improving your prospecting today »

People - The New IT Priority

Advice by Thomas Pisello, Alinean CEO & Computerworld contributor

One of the new top priorities for CIOs is people. At least that's what the attendees at the Society for Information Management (SIM) national 2005 conference in Boston indicated, and many IT professionals applaud the new sentiment. Being a technical professional was once a glamorous and rewarding career path. But that was pre-bubble, pre-outsourcing and pre-offshoring. During the cost-cutting of the past five years, IT departments have been viewed as cost centers, falling victim to annual staff reductions, leading to severe morale and retention problems. Now that business is picking up again, IT is becoming more of a competitive advantage, and leading companies now see the lack of skilled IT resources as a serious impediment to their future success.

Read the whole article on Computerworld.com »

Alinean and IDC Offer New Certification Courses for 2006
 

For more information & a complete schedule of upcoming classes, click here »

Alinean Launches Value Finder^™ Sales Intelligence Software

Empowers IT solution provider sales & marketing teams to
uncover qualified opportunities and targeted leads

ORLANDO, Fla. (December 14, 2005) — Alinean today announced the availability of a first-of-its-kind solution that complements existing CRM solutions and sales methodologies. Value Finder^™ is the first and only sales intelligence software aimed at helping IT solution providers uncover the most opportune prospects and leads.
To read the whole story, click here »