TechValidate Research on The Skills Connection

Introduction

This case study of a medium enterprise financial services company is based on an April 2017 survey of The Skills Connection customers by TechValidate, a 3rd-party research service. The profiled company asked to have their name blinded to protect their confidentiality.

Challenges

The business challenges that led the profiled company to evaluate and ultimately select The Skills Connection:

• Engaged with The Skills Connection for the following reason:
  • Wanted to change their position in the MQ/Wave/Marketscape to generate new business

Use Case

The key features and functionalities of The Skills Connection that the surveyed company uses:

• Uses The Skills Connection to:
  • Provide the necessary expertise to effectively engage analysts
  • Show them how to gather the right information for analysts
  • Show them how to effectively communicate their story to analysts
  • Help them improve their position in an MQ/Wave/Marketscape
  • Provide the tools and best practices needed to build a strong case for analysts
  • Create compelling evidence-based cases for analysts

“The briefing presentation and product demos that we developed for this evaluation were much stronger than they would have been without their guidance. We learned from that process and will be able to apply that knowledge in future evaluations.”

Results

The surveyed company achieved the following results with The Skills Connection:

• Experiences gained with The Skills Connection:
  • The ability to create a strong evidence-based case to analysts covering their product / service
  • The skills needed to communicate with analysts in the future
• Benefit from working with The Skills Connection:
  • Provided their internal team the tools and skills to effectively engage with analysts
• Agrees with the following statements:
  • Met their internal schedules and deadlines: strongly agree
  • Ensured they met schedules and deadlines for the analysts: strongly agree
  • Facilitated the co-ordination of activities across their internal response team: agree
  • Acted as an extension of staff: strongly agree
  • Enabled them to focus on what was needed and avoid wasting time on anything else: agree
• Agrees with the following statements:
  • Collaborative: strongly agree
  • Knowledgeable: strongly agree
  • Service-oriented: strongly agree
  • Value for money: agree
  • Best practice focused: strongly agree
• Rates The Skills Connection as 5 out of 5 stars.

Introduction

This case study of a small business computer software company is based on a December 2019 survey of The Skills Connection customers by TechValidate, a 3rd-party research service. The profiled company asked to have their name blinded to protect their confidentiality.

Challenges

The business challenges that led the profiled company to evaluate and ultimately select The Skills Connection:

• Engaged with The Skills Connection for the following reasons:
  • We worked with Anne to win the Gartner Cool Vendor

Use Case

The key features and functionalities of The Skills Connection that the surveyed company uses:

• Uses The Skills Connection to:
  • Provide the necessary expertise to effectively engage analysts
  • Show them how to gather the right information for analysts
  • Show them how to effectively communicate their story to analysts
  • Help them enter an assessment, such as an MQ/Wave/Marketscape, for the first time
  • Create compelling evidence-based cases for analysts

Results

The surveyed company achieved the following results with The Skills Connection:

• Experiences gained with The Skills Connection:
  • Confidence communicating the unique value of their solution to analysts
  • The ability to create a strong evidence-based case to analysts covering their product/service
  • The skills needed to communicate with analysts in the future
  • Unique insights about their solution that were instrumental in winning over analysts
• Benefits from working with The Skills Connection:
  • Positively shifted their position in the MQ/Wave/Marketscape
  • Received better results than when they had engaged with analysts
  • Effectively communicates the unique value of their products/services
• Agrees with the following statements:
  • met their internal schedules and deadlines: strongly agree
  • ensured they met schedules and deadlines for the analysts: strongly agree
  • facilitated the coordination of activities across their internal response team: agree
  • acted as an extension of staff: agree
  • enabled them to focus on what was needed and avoid wasting time on anything else: agree
• Agrees with the following statements:
  • collaborative: agree
  • knowledgeable: agree
  • service-oriented: agree
  • value for money: strongly agree
  • best practice focused: agree