OpenView Labs Completes Competitive Messaging Project for Prognosis Health Information Systems
OpenView Labs, the operational consulting arm of OpenView Venture Partners, today announced the completion of a significant competitive messaging project for one of the companies in its portfolio, Houston-based electronic health record (EHR) provider Prognosis Health Information Systems. Conducted over the course of one year, the project came about in response to government regulations mandating the implementation of EHR systems by 2014.
Fearing that its messaging — which was outdated due to changes to HIPAA laws enacted in 2011 — would no longer resonate with customers and prospects, Prognosis’s leadership team engaged OpenView Labs for help. “We recognized that if we didn’t change our messaging, we might never get the opportunity to perform,” explained Prognosis’s CEO, Ramsey Evans.
In response to this concern, OpenView led a two-phase project to help Prognosis react to changes in the HIPAA laws. Beginning in May 2011, OpenView identified the key pain points affecting Prognosis’s buyer personas, and produced a verified set of value propositions reflecting their changing needs and concerns. The second phase, conducted a year later, gave Prognosis the opportunity to re-test its new competitive messaging to ensure that it was still resonating with its top buyer personas given the changing regulatory environment.
An important aspect of every project that OpenView completes for its portfolio companies is ensuring a transfer of information and skills. “We want to impart relevant knowledge to our portfolio companies,” said OpenView Labs Managing Director Brian Zimmerman. “That’s why we’re focused on preparing companies like Prognosis to execute a repeatable process so that they can carry out projects like these on their own as they continue to scale. That self-sufficiency is critical to building a strong, sustainable business.”
Ultimately, the project allowed Prognosis to not only improve its messaging and Web content, but also its go-to-market strategy, marketing cost efficiency, customer service, and product development strategy.
“One of the most important things to emerge from this project is that the direction we’re now heading in and the messaging we’re using to communicate that direction is far different than what’s being conveyed by our competitors,” said Evans. “There’s a clear distinction that exists, and I think that’s a very good thing for our business.”
To find out more, see OpenView’s case study, “Sharpening the Spear: How One Company Leveraged Competitive Messaging to Formulate a Stronger Plan of Attack.” OpenView invested in Prognosis in 2010. It also published an eBook on competitive messaging earlier this year entitled “Why Us? A Guide to Competitive Messaging.”
About OpenView Labs
OpenView Labs is the strategic and operational consulting arm of OpenView Venture Partners, a global venture capital fund that invests in expansion-stage technology companies. The Labs team consults to the management of OpenView’s portfolio companies across an array of functional areas, including recruiting, go-to-market support, and research and analytics. Together with its network of senior advisors, the team supports OpenView’s portfolio companies on a range of initiatives ranging from methodology incubation and market research, to providing strategic coaching.
About OpenView Venture Partners
OpenView Venture Partners is an expansion-stage venture capital fund based in Boston that is focused on high-growth software, Internet, and technology-enabled companies. Through its staff of seasoned operating executives, who collectively bring several decades of technology and management experience to the firm, OpenView is able to help portfolio companies quickly optimize their product, go-to-market, and organizational and operational functions. Founded in 2006, the firm invests globally and has approximately $440 million in total capital under management.