B2B Marketing

ALPHATECH INDIA LIMITED:B2B

CUSTOMER RETENTION
Situation Analysis
• Alphatech India Ltd. is a subsidiary of Alphatech Corporation and is a
market leader in providing technology for Automated Information
Management System(AIMS)
• Zeta Corporation is the closest competitor of Alphatech and was
giving tough competition for most of Alphatech’s offerings. Lately,
Alphatech’s market share dropped from 65% in 2009 to 60% in 2011
• Alphatech was providing IT services to Neptune, an Indian project
consulting company since past 5 years
• Neptune was considering options of upgrading it’s existing AIMS
system or to scrap the entire AIMS system and implement new Zeta
based AIMS system
Situation Analysis
• In 2010, Neptune’s evaluation committee had approved Alphatech’s
AIMS and Das had recorded the order on Alphatech’s sales portal as
committed for that year
• Alphatech offered to provide services for Rs. 105 million post 30 %
discount on the initial list price of Rs. 150 million. Mr. Das was also
able to maintain the same quoted price of Rs. 105 million for the FY
2010-11 & 2011-12
• But later Neptune management had deferred the order for two years
and in 2011, Das had successive meetings with Harish Swami but the
new IT director was inclined towards selecting Zeta Corporation as
new vendor
Problem Statement
• What strategy should Mr. Das devise to secure the high value order
from Neptune before the close of financial year?

Key Concerns
• Foresee the adverse possibilities with just two month to close the financial year
• As Alphatech was counting on the order, Das had received a third and final
reminder about it from his immediate boss, Dheeraj Mishra, general manager-
north
• Budgetary Constraints of Neptune which led to postponement of deal and Zeta
persistence and willingness to extend their discount
• Convincing Swami to consider Alphatech offer as he was favoring Zeta-based
AIMS
• Possibility of negotiating again with Alphatech head office for further discount as
they were maintaining their previous price of 2010 even after currency
fluctuations
 Comparison of Alphatech & Zeta
Alphatech
Technical edge over the competition
Alphatech technology was fully compliant with
Neptune’s complex technical and functional
requirements
Did not provide preferential treatment to Xion as
partner and implementation vendor at Neptune
(Alphatech’s Partner Engagement Policy)
Trying to retain Neptune as its high value customer Trying to acquire Neptune as a flagship customer
Provided 30% initial discount and maintained the
quoted price for FY 2010-11 & 2011-12
Zeta
Zeta technology was inferior to Alphatech
Zeta technology was not fully compliant and
implementation from scratch was required
Zeta was willing to give preferential treatment to
Xion if it would support its technology at Neptune
for increasing their customer base/market share
Approached Neptune a number of times for re-
evaluation of their technology and were willing to
extend heavy discount
Recommendations
• Das should do a background check on Swami and try to find the reason behind
Swami’s push for scrapping the existing system entirely and developing a new
Zeta-based AIMS by ignoring 2010 committee recommendation and without
discussion with the user department
• Das should study Neptune decision making unit (DMU) concerns and priorities to
identify the resonating focus. For example, if they are facing budgetary issue he
can substantiate the value proposition by offering credit or phase wise
implementation
• As Das was not proactive in understanding the pain points of Neptune whereas
Zeta was persistent, he should now actively follow up with Neptune and figure
out if Zeta is providing heavy discount on initial price, and accordingly request
Neptune for total cost analysis by also considering the post-purchase costs like
training, compliance, operational and maintenance costs etc.
• If further discounting is not possible at Alphatech’s end then Das should try to
convince Ramamurthy, Gopakumar and other decision makers to consider
Alphatech’s offer by highlighting below value propositions
• Technological edge over Zeta
• Full compliance with Neptune’s complex technical and functional requirements