CA Gets the Word Out

"There are perhaps one or two others, but that's it," the IBM transplant says.

What do these companies have in common? Innovation and brand awareness, Fitzpatrick says.

Of late, he's joined CEO Sanjay Kumar on the road at various analyst briefings designed to promote and explain the new CA. The briefings have taken Fitzpatrick around the United States and abroad.

"There's no doubt in everyone's mind that CA has more visibility than ever before," he says.

Credit the company's brand-awareness campaign that has resulted in increased print advertising, as well as a first: radio and TV ads. All told, CA will spend upward of $100 million on advertising this year, Fitzpatrick says. With the company's increased visibility, people are beginning to ask what the underpinnings are supporting CA's brand message that it makes the software that "manages your business." Fitzpatrick has been put on the offensive, outlining the strategies and campaigns that support CA's message.

Ask Fitzpatrick to describe what's been wrong with CA's marketing initiatives during the past few years, and he'll shoot back a direct answer,the lack of a simple, consistent elevator pitch.

"Two years ago, if you got on the elevator on the first floor here and took the 28 second ride to the sixth floor and asked someone what business we're in, you'd get a pretty broad definition of what Computer Associates is and what some of our core competencies are, because we'd come at it from different points. It'd be something like, 'Hey, well, really our legacy has been mainframe systems, and we've grown from mainframes to this particular area, and we have a lot of legacy tools, but the legacy tools have now been transformed into distributed tools, then the client-server model.'"

Proud of Progress

Fitzpatrick is proud to point to the progress the company has made in the past 14 months in clarifying CA's mission and how its products can unlock value for clients. In October 2000, for example, much of the investment community was focused on the accounting side of CA's business, and not enough was focused on its customer side, he says. That led senior executives to conclude that they needed to become an easier-to-do-business-with partner.

To help achieve that goal, the company launched a series of initiatives designed to improve its communication. "We want to let people become more appreciative of what we have to offer. It's not just about branding our software products. It's not just about positioning or leadership in certain segments, such as security and systems management," he says. "It's focused on Computer Associates providing quality of services."

On Jan. 2, 2001, for example, every single person in the company,including janitors and the manager of the company's in-house health and fitness center,received a business card and information on the company's software strategy. Employees were routinely quizzed and rewarded on how much they knew about the company's value proposition. A quirky TV spot featuring roosters, which coincided with the company's new branding campaign, is estimated to have reached 1 billion households. That ad's purpose was to serve as a wake-up call, Fitzpatrick says, "Just to say, 'Hey, we're alive and well.'"

Later in the spring, CA began honing its 3x6 strategy, which segmented its expansive product family and divided it into specific categories. At the time, the entire portfolio numbered 1,244 products.

"It was an awesome array of technology," Fitzpatrick says. "We were literally sitting on a volcano of technology. And I had to figure out a way to unlock that awesome array of value."

Then CA divided its products into brands: Unicenter (enterprise-management software), eTrust (security solutions), BrightStor (storage management) and Jasmine (object solutions and tools). Later in November, the company rolled out three new brands in Advantage, AllFusion and CleverPath. Fitzpatrick says today the company is the United Nations of software, with products that mix and match and run in a variety of settings; from mainframes down to desktops and in competing software environments, to boot.

More recently, the company has begun running more targeted ads that address specific product sets. The first one, launched earlier this year, is for the eTrust family of security solutions. It was followed up by an ad campaign around BrightStor storage solutions and Unicenter infrastructure-management products. "We've never, ever done just a single brand TV spot," Fitzpatrick says.

Forty percent of CA's revenue comes from the sale of products developed for mainframe systems, with the balance coming from the sale of software that runs on distributed systems.

The company's 3x6 strategy represents the six brands that fit into these three areas: infrastructure management, information management and process management. "We have 1,244 software products,more products than Cisco does," Fitzpatrick says. "So, for the past year and a half we focused a lot of work on segmentation, really taking inventory of what we have and what is a common core competency of Computer Associates."

Part of that strategy included looking at segmenting the existing e-business markets along the lines used by most analysts and then refocusing CA product lines to play a stronger role in selected areas. "Two years ago, if someone asked Gartner or some other financial analyst who the leaders were in infrastructure management, generally IBM, Oracle or BEA Systems would roll off their tongues," he says. "For the people in IT, CA would never come up because we never defined ourselves in the e-business category."

Promoting the refined portfolio has been nearly as challenging as fitting all of the company's technological innovations into the 3x6 matrix. That has been especially true with regard to building loyalty among partners. CA, after all, has one of the world's largest direct salesforces in all of software. To create new opportunities for partners, CA has refined the way customers can buy its products, from subscription to business outcome. Allowing customers to buy products in new ways has opened the door to selling to more types of customers, namely small and midsize enterprises.

"Here's where we need tremendous help from channels," Fitzpatrick says.

To help the more than 10,000 channel companies worldwide that use and sell its products, CA has created an online resource center using its own portal technology. It's a one-stop resource center full of tools, information and advice for getting training, closing sales and solving customers' problems. CA has also refocused its channel marketing group to make it more responsive to partners' needs.

"The channel partners that are with us today are going to benefit immensely from all the investments that we are making," Fitzpatrick says.

"It's about CA helping VARs create the demand and getting what I call aerial support," he adds. "I'll provide the power and muscle to get the message out there of who we are, because I can invest a lot more money on advertising than any individual VAR."

And then there's the $2 billion the company has invested in the past two years in R and D. That's helped CA remain a technology leader. In the past six months, the company has delivered more than 70 new products. That kind of track record, he adds, should go a long way in quelling critics who argue the company has done little with the companies it has acquired. Thanks to the introduction of the new BrightStor enterprise backup products in July, which addressed the previous lack of software for high-end Unix systems, CA can count hundreds of new customers, many of whom were wooed from rival Veritas, Fitzpatrick says.

"A small-to-midsize business partner of CA has a tremendous advantage over its competition in teaming up with us because of the breadth and depth of what we offer them," he adds.

Despite all the enthusiasm, however, certain realities exist. For example, when asked specifically if CA would spend more next year on channel-related activities than it will this year, Fitzpatrick waffles somewhat. Spending, he says, will be "more focused." He says CA previously did not do enough market due diligence to understand all of the market's dynamics.

Going forward, Fitzpatrick promises a cleaner, more focused channel marketing strategy, starting with the consolidation of all marketing activities into one organization. "It's going to be clear and simple," he says. "There will be the overriding, overarching Computer Associates message on core competencies. As we go down another tier, here's our messaging for channels and here's the value-add for them. And here's our messaging for our direct. It's coming from one source, so it's clear, simple and doesn't cross over and confuse people."

Targeting Key Customers

The company has new campaigns to target key customers, including one campaign that is running with a third party to target existing ARCserv customers, who are now being offered new security products in CA's expansive suite. All sales, Fitzpatrick notes, are going through partners.

One thing Fitzpatrick vows CA will do better is communicate. One way is through program enhancements made earlier this year to CA Smart, originally introduced at CA World Orlando in July 2001. Through the program, CA will train partners to become certified in various CA products. CA Smart certified partners will soon be able to brand and distinguish themselves, thanks to their new certification, according to Fitzpatrick. CA plans to sink a significant amount of money to brand and promote the program, both to partners and to end users.

At this year's CA World, scheduled for late April in Orlando, the company will have a lot of the same goals, including reiteration of the branding, and further simplifying and clarifying CA's message. "But what you're going to see a lot more of this year at CA World than ever before is customer focus and company messaging focus, in both our channels and our direct customer," Fitzpatrick says. "The message will be why it's important to do business with CA. You're going to see a lot more of that to come." n

,Rich Cirillo contributed to this article