xPeerient’s Online Marketplace Connects Ready IT Buyers with Sellers
Instead of spending money on lead generation, solution providers can sign up for a new type of peer networking and solution engagement marketplace that connects IT buyers ready to sign on the dotted line with the IT pros best suited to help them.
By Colleen Frye
With a goal of streamlining and boosting the efficiency of the IT buying-selling process, the xPeerient online marketplace launched in the Colorado market today with its IT executive peer networking and solution engagement platform.
Mark Hall, president and CEO of xPeerient, points out the current inefficiencies in the process, saying that IT solution providers are spending money on lead-generation and demand-generation programs, and “manufacturers are spending huge amounts of money feeding leads to the channel.” On the buyer side, “they are getting hammered with lots of lead-generation programs and cold calls.”
The missing piece, Hall says, is the ability to connect the buyer who is ready to buy with the appropriate solution provider—”to convert the active buyer into an active selling opportunity [for the channel],” he says.
In addition to connecting IT buyers and sellers, the xPeerient SaaS-based platform enables peer networking among IT executives working on similar projects seeking similar technologies and advice, as well as provides a thought leader portal open to the public.
Founded in 2009, Massachusetts-based xPeerient beta tested its platform in July 2010. The launch and general availability announcement was made in partnership with Colorado-based CXO LLC, an executive networking organization in the region and a subsidiary of Executives Network. The site includes information on about 700 partners in the Denver area, according to Hall, detailing each partner’s total solution portfolio, locations, and vendor partnerships. Colorado is the first in a series of regional rollouts across the U.S.
Hall says xPeerient has researched about 3,500 partners across the country. “The SaaS platform is focused on the channel partner’s entire solution set,” he says. “If you think of the partner portals on Microsoft or Cisco, you can drill down as an IT buyer and find sellers, but xPeerient is an aggregation of those portals into one location. It’s a more rigorous understanding of who the channel partners are, and the total combined sum of all the solutions they provide.”
According to Hall, xPeerient charges a small subscription price to be part of the platform. And when a partner gets invited to meet a buyer, there are two payment models to choose from: pay a small percentage of the total deal when part of a “short list” of providers to present to the seller; or pay a larger percentage only when the partner wins the engagement. Currently there is no charge for the buyer, Hall says.
Because CXO’s next strongest area is Phoenix, “that is the next obvious step for us,” says Hall. “And in the spring, we’re looking at doing tier-one marketing and testing, then looking to do a national launch in the summer of 2011.”
