Friends, customers, suppliers – a large part of the relationships we develop depend upon perceived value and trust and for most companies the marketing challenge is where to sit on the value-trust seesaw. Facebook leans towards value; their emphasis is on growing their user base by increasing the benefits that their users enjoy. They tend to talk publicly about trust only when security issues threaten growth. Banks tend to leverage trust; we’ll pay slightly higher fees if we’re sure our money is safe. It’s a simplistic view, but it’s one worth considering when positioning your own business.

Here at CentraStage we’re pretty much on the value side of things. Don’t get me wrong – security is core to what we do – but as a relative newcomer in a specialized market we know we have to earn your trust and that takes time. So right now we’re adding features and lowering the cost to entry as we build up our customer base and earn our stripes. It is the consistent message across all our public imagery. We want to be seen as the new kid on the block.

The downside is that you can often be overlooked in larger opportunities where trust plays a bigger role. In these cases it is important to be able to separate your corporate brand from the individuals that make up a company. Make sure your clients understand that difference. Your company has a youthful and can-do brand but you are a serious and trusted business person. Your company offers discounts and slashes prices but you work to time honored industry standards. It’s an important distinction to be observed by everyone in your business.

Value the business, trust the individuals. It doesn’t matter how many likes or connections happen daily on Facebook, the real question is can we trust the team behind the business to deliver $100bn of value? It’s an interesting question for all of us.

[Read the article on MSPmentor.net]

Wed, Feb 8, 2012 4:00 PM GMT / 11:00 AM EST

https://www3.gotomeeting.com/register/786607390

Thu, Feb 23, 2012 3:00 PM GMT / 10:00 AM EST

https://www3.gotomeeting.com/register/719928486

Tue, Mar 6, 2012 2:00 PM GMT / 09:00 AM EST

https://www3.gotomeeting.com/register/593052310

Buckinghamshire, UK, 02 February, 2012: CentraStage (http://www.centrastage.com), the leading IT management software provider, confirms it’s ‘Little British Battler’ nomination by announcing revenue growth of over 300% in the past twelve months as the company’s customer base has grown by almost 150%.

Today CentraStage has:

• An international footprint with clients in 12 countries including Australia, New Zealand, Canada, USA, Panama, South Africa and several across Europe
• Over 350 retained customers, up 150% on last year
• Double the team of last year

The news follows a successful start to the year which has seen the company recognised by one of the UKs leading analyst houses, TechMarketView, as a ‘Little British Battler’.  CentraStage has also recently won deals with the likes of the London Grid for Learning (LGfL) (which will see CentraStage technology running in all 2500 London schools), Centrica, Civica, RIM and Bracknell Forest LA.

Commenting on today’s announcement, Christian Nagele, CEO at CentraStage said: “2012 is off to a flying start, further building on our rapid growth in 2011. We’ve always viewed ourselves as a “Little British Battler” so to be recognised for this in our industry is fantastic and builds on our exciting new partnership with the London Grid for Learning.”

Nagele continues, “2011 was a landmark year which saw CentraStage move to Amazon Web Services, introduce 70 new product features and open a US office.  Customer wins across all our target markets confirm that 2012 looks set to be a great year for CentraStage.”

– ENDS –

About CentraStage:

CentraStage is an Information Technology support platform with a difference – affordable, advanced remote computer management. A web-based device management platform designed to improve the management of servers, PCs and laptops, CentraStage can save IT support organisations both time and money. From individual users to sophisticated IT managed service providers, CentraStage is designed to run on any device, computer, server and laptop. Functionality includes audit, monitoring, remote support, deployment and reporting.

About TechMarket View:

TechMarketView LLP (www.techmarketview.com) provides authoritative research and analysis on the UK technology scene. TechMarketView brings you UKHotViews, the source of informed opinion and comment on the events, issues and players that really matter in the UK software and IT services market.

The above example shows that even a successful company like Symantec, which has been around for a number of years is not immune from severe security threats. Products which require software installation & manual updating will always face such limitations & risks and can leave consumers vulnerable to external threats. Since CentraStage is hosted in the cloud it means that the users will never have to worry about updating manually. The cloud allows CentraStage to send automatic updates and therefore, if there is ever a security threat you can be ensured that the risk will be minimised without ever interrupting the user.

Why are we so chuffed with being shortlisted? Several reasons, some more hard-nosed and business-related; but others more related to seeing the fruits of your hard work, and the hard work of the entire team here at CentraStage, recognised by others (and in the face of stiff and numerous competition). And not recognised by just any old bunch, but by the highly respected analysts at TechmarketView. We met with 3 members of the TechMarketView team for 45 minutes – not long to cover both the past, present and future of CentraStage – but it was a positive and enjoyable session from our perspective. Judging by the initial write-up in UKHotViews, we managed to convey both our message and passion in the time available.

Yes, we hope that our involvement in this first Little British Battler programme will bring us increased exposure to potential customers, partners, even suppliers, and the wider SITS sector in general – we can certainly leverage our involvement from a PR and marketing perspective. However the overriding feeling of Ian, Paul and I is that CentraStage has a great story to tell and this gives us a good stage to tell it; we feel that we epitomise the Little British Battler epiphet, punching above our weight, re-defining the IT management software sector, growing rapidly in the UK and overseas. So our thanks again, then, to TechMarketView for coming up with this innovative Little British Battler initiative, and for giving small UK businesses like CentraStage, with a great story to tell, a moment in the limelight.