Now that the republican convention is reaching its summit, I will nominate demandware as a presidential nominee for excellent positioning. I steered clear of larger companies such as SAP or Oracle because their brand is so well known, it makes analyzing positioning a little irrelevant. Although I do think SAP’s positioning of solutions for the mid market is an interesting challenge, but that is for another day.

As with Sterling Commerce I reviewed how they cover: description of what a company does, value they provide, and differentiation. How succinct and credible the story are also key. These 5 factors are scored as follows:

•  Presidential - Excellent score, top marks
•  Vice Presidential – Acceptable score, enough to get by
•  Voter – Provides a voice, but limited influence
•  Illegal Alien – Should not be allowed in the process

The main item I really like about demandware description if themselves is their mix of actual content with messaging.

1. First of all on the web site label the company background as “Our Story”, and they tell a story
2. They start with facts and problems they solve, not a long blub about the company
3. They mix vision, excitement with grit.

Let’s look at the details. The main description of the “their story”

The vision-then and now-was clear: bring to market an enterprise-class ecommerce solution that would put more power and innovation in the hands of merchandisers and at the same time would remove the technical costs, risks and complexities of running an ecommerce operation. We took what we knew of great ecommerce merchandising (our founders have been in ecommerce since 1994) and applied to it the then-emerging advancements in Software-as-a-Service architectures and dynamic grid computing. Then we worked hard. We stayed up late. We drank lots of coffee. And ultimately, in late 2005, we delivered the market’s first on-demand enterprise ecommerce platform

1) What the demandware does:

“bring to market an enterprise-class ecommerce solution that would put more power and innovation in the hands of merchandisers”

Clear delivery of a solution, clear target prospect.

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2) Value:

They start with facts such as

eCommerce merchandising and marketing innovation is what generates the revenue, yet most operations are spending 80% of their budgets simply maintaining current infrastructure

The description of value is bold, empower the key business champion in the prospect, limit challenges and implications for IT.

“put more power and innovation in the hands of merchandisers and at the same time would remove the technical costs, risks and complexities of running an ecommerce operation”

Score:

3) Differentiation

They tout their vision, SaaS technology and hard work. I like the mix and believe the “Then we worked hard. We stayed up late. We drank lots of coffee.” Quote adds humor and balance to the vision. Essentially, they are acknowledging it is hard stuff and they work hard.

Score

4) Being Succinct

Very good

• 1) Start with problem
• 2) Single paragraph on company
• 3) Customer validation

Score:

5) Being Credible:

Their experience, vision, creativity oozes through.

Score:

Related is a good article by Craig Stull on Cuil. He mentions they called themselvesa Google killer. Not a very good positioning strategy. Get real. After looking at their web site they call themselves “the world’s biggest search engine”…..Hmmmm 

Positioning is definitely not the be all and end all. Targeting a real market, with solid products and great customer experiences are all critical.

Let me know your thoughts.