CA vows marketing push will win it new customers

Vendor claims 70 per cent of its revenue comes from just 500 customers - a figure it wants to dilute with marketing push

CA Technologies has vowed to boost its marketing efforts in a bid to win net-new customers through its partner base in order to grow its top line.

At its Partner for Impact conference in Berlin, chief executive Mike Gregoire (pictured) told a gathering of 70 partners that he wanted the firm to sell into what he called the competitive white space.

He said the cloud and a string of new tech trends have democratised technology, meaning smaller customers can take advantage of what CA has to offer - meaning bigger opportunities for it and its partners.

In its last fiscal year, CA's revenue dipped annually by four per cent to $4.64bn (£2.87bn), and its first quarter in FY14 saw sales slide one per cent to $1.13bn.

Gregoire, who joined CA in January, said 70 per cent of the firm's sales come from a pool of just 500 customers, and insisted that growth at both his firm and partners' depends on selling to new customers.

"We want to sell new products to new customers - that is our number-one focus," he said.

"That is why we want to engage the partner community because this is an area that has been a very big struggle for us, and it is part of our growth strategy.

"Selling to the same customers over and over again does not yield the kind of growth we are looking for. We take a look at a whole map of the globe, and we want to go to that competitive white space... That is our priority, we want to do it with you and we don't want to be doing it alone."

He added that CA's customer base was "to die for". It works with 96 of the Fortune 100 companies, the top 20 global banks and 11 top aerospace and defence firms.

Speaking up

Gregoire said that another drawback of selling to the same accounts for 30 years is that the concept of wider brand awareness and marketing "gets muted" - something he is keen to turn around.

"We know every customer so we do not need to do the kind of marketing and brand awareness we would if we were trying to sell to a broader audience," he told partners. "[Now] we are trying to sell to a broader audience, and you're going to see a lot more marketing muscle from CA.

"I have hired a new CMO [chief marketing officer] and dedicated funds for global brand marketing. I've allocated funds... specifically for EMEA to ensure products are marketed appropriately."

He added that this month will see the opening of a big development centre in Silicon Valley which will be home to 500 engineers - an event he is planning to shout about after hiring a string of billboards in the locality.

"We are about one to two years ahead of what people think of CA," added Gregoire. "I don't think most people really understand how much we do with security - they sure don't know we're the number-one provider in that space.

"They don't know we're the biggest market-share leader in product portfolio management, they don't know that we're the biggest heterogeneous manager of applications. We need to get that word out."