User groups are not just a way to influence suppliers,
they can be a valuable source of information and support. Danny
Bradbury reports.
An effective user group can work wonders in helping firms form
better relationships with their IT suppliers, especially for a
small and medium-sized enterprises. But to get the most out of
membership requires effort by both users and suppliers.
According to Gartner analyst Betsy Bartson, user groups break
down into three main categories. The first type of group is
completely autonomous from the supplier, keeping interaction to a
minimum. The second type retains its independence, but will invite
the supplier company to get involved, presenting at events for
example.
The final type of group is wholly supplier sponsored, reflecting
the supplier's own agenda and sometimes limiting involvement to
larger users. Each have their own strengths and weaknesses, Bartson
says.
The first, completely autonomous type of group, often emerges
from a grass roots movement, commonly at a regional level, says
Bartson. It might be hosted by a consultancy or reseller without
any direct sponsorship from the supplier.
"It is typically a way for users to get together and learn best
practices from other users, so it tends to be a more tactical,
granular and technical group that gets together to work on a common
issue," she says. Open source enthusiasts generally fall into this
area. "It is the only group that we still use the term 'community'
for," says Bartson.
At the other end of the spectrum, the supplier-sponsored groups
are sometimes not called user groups at all. Dave Chalmers,
business development director at business software supplier Macro
4, prefers the term "customer advisory group". About 25 middle or
senior managers from 15 organisations will be invited by the
supplier to attend meetings and provide product feedback.
Chalmers prefers this model because of the lower cost and more
intimate involvement. "Traditional user group meetings were
expensive and when marketing money dried up, no one could justify
the value.
"In our more controlled environment, the trust level is higher
and that is the big difference. The attendees trust that they are
being given valuable and relevant information, and the supplier is
more open and trusts them enough to share more detailed plans."
However, Bartson warns users to tread carefully with such
initiatives. "These can be influential groups, but the messages are
driven, defined and controlled by the supplier. So it is harder for
you to have a high level of influence," she says.
Some of the organisations attending Macro 4's sessions are not
even users - they are sales prospects - which clearly helps the
supplier with targeting product development, but may add little in
the way of experience that could be useful to existing users.
Responding to this point, Chalmers points out that user group
companies can use their own web logs to voice their concerns, and
the supplier uses the web to contact the broader user base
regularly.
User groups occupying the middle ground, setting their own
agenda but maintaining links with the supplier are often the most
powerful, says Bartson. The DB2 User Group and the Oracle
Application User Group are good examples of this, she says.
"These are very powerful because the group gets together
independently and tries to influence the supplier, so the whole
goal is to share best practices and help drive supplier direction."
By maintaining links with the supplier but setting their own
agenda, they can hold the company to account.
Users who are members of such groups will find safety in
numbers. The larger the user group, the more the supplier will have
to listen to it. It can also enable smaller companies to be heard
along with the blue chip users, says Bartson.
Such autonomy is all very well but these groups are not directly
funded by the supplier, and smaller user groups trying to establish
a foothold can find it difficult to do so without the supplier's
help.
Phil Palmer, who works at construction firm HBG, is helping to
form a user group for Autodesk's Revit structural design tool.
After a slow start due to a small user base in the UK, things are
moving along, he says, but he relies heavily on Autodesk's
help.
The supplier donated £1,000 towards the creation of the user
group's website and provided meeting facilities. Now Palmer is
courting the company for a list of UK Revit users.
"One of the issues is that the supplier is not particularly keen
on handing out the list of UK licensees. We are trying to get a
list that we can then e-mail out to the UK users," he says.
Autodesk was also initially against the user group bringing in its
resellers, says Palmer, in case a competition issue should emerge
between channel partners. However, Palmer says the company has
become a lot more positive.
One of the biggest challenges for individuals organising a user
group is finding the time to make it happen, says Palmer.
Organising venues and event schedules is a particularly time
consuming task, he says, adding that Autodesk also helps with
this.
So why do it? And why attend these user groups at all? The
bottom line is that as a product or supplier becomes strategically
important to your company, you cannot afford not to monitor what it
is doing.
"Frankly, if a chief executive does a keynote speech and they do
not talk about a product that is critical to my business, that is
an issue," says Bartson.
This is the reason Sharon Reason, commercial manager for HBOS
Procurement, attends user group meetings for datawarehouse supplier
Kalido. However, managers increasingly have to justify days spent
out of the office. "It is more key nowadays to be seen not to be
going out of the office on some sort of jolly," she says.
User group members need to bring back something tangible. In
Reason's case, it was reams of notes, gathered over a couple of
days of serious networking.
"We were looking at where we were going to go with the product,"
says Reason, explaining that ongoing internal developments in HBOS
Procurement call for a close examination of its software strategy.
"I needed to come back with a clear idea in my mind of where the
company was going from first-hand experience."
For Rodney Jones, IT manager at Heygates flour millers, the
Developer's Group has been similarly useful, but at a more
practical level. The group, which was originally an autonomous
developer's group for Borland's Delphi software development tool,
became the Developer Group when it began expanding its meetings to
include Microsoft developers.
Because there are so few flour millers in the UK, off-the-shelf
applications for that market are rare, so Jones used Delphi to
write his applications.
"The Developers Group gave me an advantage. I could listen and
talk, and get that feeling of comfort. I have a few people's phone
numbers. I could call people if I got stuck," he says.
However, Jones says he finds the Developers Group less useful
these days because he can get all the information that he needs
from the subscription-based Microsoft Developer Network.
Consequently, he attends fewer meetings.
With Borland being increasingly challenged by Microsoft's
developer tools. The user group provides a good way for the company
to keep users loyal to its own products. Jason Vokes, European
product line manager for Delphi, says he regularly speaks at the
Developers Group and occasionally brings over a US
representative.
However, the Developer Group's increasing emphasis on Microsoft
and the lack of a dedicated Delphi user group illustrates the
danger for the supplier of an autonomous user organisation: the
lack of control.
Just as customer participation in a user group makes for smarter
supplier management, so supplier management of its user group is
crucial if it wants to maintain loyalty and build mindshare among
its customers.
Without such a meeting of minds, users can lose track of
supplier strategy and suppliers risk hemorrhaging users. It is best
for everyone to keep themselves in the loop, even if it does mean a
day or two out of the office every now and then.
Case study: Coda user gets involved
Tony Murphy, head of financial accounting at government-funded
UK tourism promoter Visit Britain, has been a user of Coda
accounting software since 1989. It was probably inevitable that the
user group committee would ask him to be a member.
Murphy joined the user group committee two years ago and since
then he has been involved in everything from negotiating with the
supplier and organising social events to updating the group's
website.
Before Murphy joined the committee, there was a separate user
group for each platform that Coda's software covered. They have now
amalgamated into a single Coda User Group, which he says improves
communication between Coda and the members of the user base.
The user group is funded by member fees, paid in to an account
administered by Coda. However, the group still controls its own
funds, maintaining a treasurer who is a co-signatory of the
account. A Coda employee acts as secretary and user group
liaison.
The Coda User Group has a significant influence on product
direction, says Murphy. It votes on suggested enhancements, which
are then fed back to Coda. The supplier allocates a set number of
developer days per year to the user group, which are used to help
build what users identify as the most important enhancements into
the product.
Murphy's advice to anyone wanting to become active in a user
group is to examine and iron out time management issues at the
outset.
The Coda User Group committee meets four or five times each
year, and Murphy's other duties involve dealing with e-mails and
talking to companies about how they can best use the product.
Murphy informally folds his user group duties in with his job.
"It is time consuming, but I tend to say that my contract at work
is for a number of hours, and I always do 10% to 20% more than
those hours, so if I spent two or three hours a week doing this it
is not a problem."
www.codausergroup.net