Monday, May 18, 2009

Engaging with Microsoft: Case Studies

One of the tools that Microsoft uses to get its story out is case studies. As a “Microsoft Shop”, AdvancedMD has been featured in two case studies, both of which were driven and sponsored by Microsoft.

The first was a collaborative effort between a writer contracted by Microsoft and a couple of us (Ken Meyers, former VP of Operations, and myself), and it gives a broad view of our interactions with Microsoft, and how we leverage Microsoft technologies:

The second is a case study of Women’s Healthcare Associates, an AdvancedMD customer in Houston, Texas:

The final sentence in the introductory paragraph pretty much says it all: “Just ask Lourdes Rubio, who, as Practice Manager for Women’s Healthcare Associates in Houston, Texas, lost more than U.S.$150,000 in insurance claims due to bad software.”

So, why bother with case studies? They end up on Microsoft’s website, where they can be searched, but it’s doubtful that many prospective AdvancedMD customers would do that.

A couple of weeks ago I went to the local Microsoft Sales office (near the Salt Lake City Airport) to meet with a couple of ISV evangelists, and was surprised to see this one-page summary of our case study on the wall of the lobby (along with a dozen or so others):

MS_Case_Study

To be honest, I’m not sure that we’ve really taken advantage of the case studies that Microsoft has done about us. We should probably have a few boxes of copies that we could deliver to prospects…but, since we do most of our business over the phone and Web demos, printed documents don’t fit into the equation very well.

So, here’s the really sad thing about this blog post: I can’t tell you how to get Microsoft’s attention to get a case study written, because I wasn’t involved except for a brief interview.

Speaking of which…I had to laugh the first time I saw my quotes in the case study. The writer did a GREAT job of making me sound eloquent. I did actually say everything in the case study that was attributed to me, but I’m pretty sure the words weren’t mine. Probably for the best.

In any case, I seem to recall that our PR company contacted Microsoft and set the wheels in motion. If we are successful in becoming a managed account, I would imagine that this kind of thing will become just part of relationship.

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