At Ptak, Noel & Associates, we help IT organizations to become “solution initiators” in using IT management technology to resolve business problems.  We do this by translating vendor strategy & deliverables into a business context that is communicable and actionable by the IT manager. For consumer clients, we do this by helping our clients understand how other IT organizations are effectively implementing solutions with their business counterparts.

Ptak/Noel tracks the IT management market as it evolves from individual silos of systems, network, application and database management tools into a comprehensive solution set that delivers, supports and protects business transactions, services and processes. Our customers recognize the meaningful breadth and objectively of our research in IT management technologies and processes.

For our vendor clients, Ptak/Noel provides an objective third-party opinion on how to improve their competitive advantage, delivering actionable advice and innovative decision-making, sales, and marketing solutions. For our non-vendor clients, Ptak/Noel provides an objective third-party opinion of IT vendors and their services, helps them to identify and prioritize their needs to prepare them to better evaluate vendor offerings and how they meet the client’s needs.

Ptak/Noel Services and Fees

Retainer

Our retainer services provide access to all primary analysts at Ptak/Noel. A typical retainer includes:

• Unlimited Inquiry
• Pre-paid Consulting Days
• Access to Ptak/Noel publicly published reports and commentary
• Discounts on pricing of all services

Services available from Ptak/Noel include:

Webcasts/Webinars/Speaking Engagements

Prepare custom presentations and record delivery for webinars and webcasts. Prepare and deliver in-person presentations for professional, customer and vendor events

Commentary and Research reprint rights

Ptak/Noel prices its publications for unlimited external reprint and posting rights along with inquiry support by the commentary  author(s).  These services are available for:

• Commentaries:  Analyst view of products, announcements, industry happenings.
• Research Reports:  Analysis and review of internal or external research or industry event(s) that we believe our clients should be informed about.
• Market Observations:  Succinct summary statements of  analyst opinion.

Consulting

Customer consulting projects covering but not exclusive to the following areas:

• Develop/refine product direction and strategies for solutions and services.
• Conduct and analyze custom research.
• Detailed competitive analysis and positioning of products and services.
• Develop sales and marketing collateral such as Sales Play-books – include actionable sales tips and insight based on an analysis of competitor tactics, customer need and a variety of purchase scenarios.
• Provide alternative scenarios of how markets will evolve based on demographic analysis of markets, industry trends and technology evolution.
• Evaluate and strengthen corporate strategy, product strategies and go-to-market tactics.
• Analyze and evaluate sales/marketing strategies.

Content Creation Services

Ptak/Noel works with clients to develop informative and practical research, analysis and informative content that informs, influences and guides decision making. These are available in a variety of formats including:

• Whitepapers – client funded reports and analysis
• Case-studies – succinct report of customer-experiences based on personal interviews
• One page articles suitable for posting online or in newsletters can purchased singly or on contract for once or twice a month. Articles can be issue-based or a Ptak/Noel take on the impact or implication of existing research.
• Media-friendly collateral such as online slide-shows, interviews, pod-casts, blogs, etc.

Data analysis

Based on a review of existing client research, Ptak/Noel will present their unique view of the impact, implication, and meaning (e.g. Goldman Sachs says 25% of respondents indicating an upgrade in client systems as a top priority – Ptak/Noel says if those respondents want to avoid application migration headache, then they need to look at creating dynamic client systems with application virtualization technology). Presentation formats include a single written report (see an example at: The State of J2EE Application Management), PowerPoint presentation or as a series of short articles.  Other options are possible.

Customer Success Research

This service is a cost-sensitive compromise project between doing a full-blown customer survey and preparing a series of case-studies. Ptak/Noel poses questions to a select group of customers to produce charts highlighting solution benefits (e.g. critical features needed to really save time on consolidation projects). Ptak/Noel uses other questions to produce customer vignettes to elicit responses, convey some specific solution benefit or client success details that tend to get lost in general surveys. One example of this type of project is available for viewing at www.ptaknoel.com/CSS/Heroix.

Market Trend Scenario Research

Using a scenario methodology initially developed and successfully applied worldwide by our European partner, Ptak/Noel provides a strategy testing research service that uses demographic analysis along with our own research to create scenarios of alternative ways the IT market may develop. Ptak/Noel combines its insight into market trends, evolving end-user needs, demographics to develop creditable alternative scenarios of what the market will look like in 5 to 25 years. These can serve as a basis for setting product and solution tactics, medium to long term strategies, and direct investment decisions.

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