Alinean Announces Record Performance and Significant New Customer Additions in 2009

ORLANDO, Fla., Feb. 17 /PRNewswire/ -- Alinean, the leading creator of value-based interactive sales and marketing tools for B2B vendors, today announced record performance in 2009, achieving sales revenue growth of over 26%.  Alinean's client roster grew significantly, while launching over 300 active tool campaigns for over 100 of the leading B2B companies worldwide.  Combined with being named as the standardization choice at several new customer accounts, this performance widens Alinean's lead and affirms its position as the industry-standard sales and marketing tool platform provider.

As many companies continue to tighten their belts, Alinean has announced plans to add 15 new positions in 2010 and expand its headquarter office space in Downtown Orlando, FL.  "2009 was a pivotal year for Alinean," said Tom Pisello, CEO of Alinean. "We extended our lead in both the interactive sales tool and value-based selling space for one basic reason:  Our commitment to helping our customers communicate, quantify and prove the value of their solutions to increasingly frugal buyers."  

The increased demand for Alinean's tools is driven by 'Frugalnomics' - the permanent shift towards economic scrutiny and business case requirements for almost all B2B investments.  

Confirming this trend, Randy Perry, VP of Business Value at IDC recently reported that over 90% of buyers need quantifiable proof of a solution's value before purchase approval - and a requirement that vendors provide that proof. Buyers need to be shown how proposed solutions will save them money, improve profitability, generate additional revenue, or drive competitive advantages before investing - and before getting executive approval. Added CEO Pisello, "It is no coincidence that the best B2B vendors have standardized on our tool platform.  Top companies value measurable results above all else, and for sales & marketing teams driven to succeed, Alinean is the clear choice."

Results of Unprecedented Demand in 2009

• Added 20 new customers to marquee list of leading B2B solution providers.  2009 additions include Thomson Reuters, Juniper Networks, NetApp, OpenText, SonicWall, Western Blue, ProActive Services, Verdiem, NetScout Systems, BlueArc, Telus Communications, Infor Corporation, SolidWorks, and InMage.
• Announced as value-based sales & marketing tool vendor of record at EMC, Juniper Networks and NetApp, with continued standardizations at valued, long-time customers Microsoft, HP and IBM.
• Gained additional customers via partnership with IDC (http://www.idc.com) - including Aspect, Netcordia, Sterling Commerce, Nuance and Van Guard.  IDC markets, sells and authors their tools with the Alinean EnterpriseROI™ platform.
• Launched several ROI/TCO demand-gen campaigns with partner Ziff-Davis Enterprise (http://www.ziffdavisenterprise.com), establishing these tools on micro-sites for Dell and several others.
• Generated 50,000 visitors per month, along with 10,000 assessments and business case reports across all campaigns.
• Grew revenue by 26% and continued profitable growth for third straight year.

How Alinean's Success is Driven by the Success of its Customers

Demand Generation - To help reach and connect with customers more effectively, B2B vendors use Alinean's online demand gen Assessments, Return on Investment (ROI) and Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) tools on corporate websites and micro-sites to drive more demand, capture higher quality leads and convert more leads to sales. These programs have been proven to entice 50% more leads compared to other initiatives, achieve 240% superior conversion rates, and increase online loyalty with 44% increases in repeat visitors and 65% increases in time per visit.

Sales Enablement - To help sales and channel professionals align with executive buyers, accelerate sales cycles and compete more effectively, Alinean's sales enablement ROI, TCO and Assessment tools evolve traditional sales presentations to higher-value consultative engagements that are proven to reduce the time it takes to develop credible assessments and business cases from days to an hour or less;  reduce discounting, increase deal size by 20%, reduce sales cycles by 30-40%, drive channel partner loyalty, and increase the competitive success rate of proposals by over 60%.

"In today's economy, B2B vendors need to make the case for their solutions in quantifiable terms. Buyers no longer accept product-focused pitches based on feature, function & price alone," said Jefre Futch, President and COO of Alinean. "We appreciate the opportunities to contribute to our clients' sales and marketing campaigns – and look forward to continuing to drive more demand and improve selling efficiency for our customers in 2010."

About Alinean

Alinean is the leading developer of value-based interactive demand generation and sales tools – driving sales and marketing effectiveness by empowering B2B solution providers to better prove and improve the value of solutions to frugal prospects and customers. Alinean fundamentally changes the way that B2B solution providers engage with prospects - via targeted SaaS-delivered interactive tools that revolutionize corporate website interactions, sales presentations and proposals from antiquated feature/function/price selling, to customer-focused value engagements. Alinean tools are used to automate opportunity discovery, align goals and solutions and quantify return on investment (ROI) by companies such as. HP, IBM, Microsoft, EMC, Dell, Intel, AT&T, Siemens, Unisys, Thomson Reuters, NetApp, Citrix, VMware, Symantec, Novell, Cisco, Oracle, Sybase, and CA. For more information, visit http://www.alinean.com or call 407.382.0005.

SOURCE Alinean