TIBCO
Company Repositioning
Challenge
TIBCO Software, a leading business integration and process management software company, selected the Bateman Group as PR agency of record in February 2005. Four years ago, the majority of TIBCO’s coverage focused on enterprise application integration (EAI). Pigeonholed as being primarily an EAI and middleware solutions provider, TIBCO called upon the Bateman Group to shift this misperception among the media and highlight the company’s innovation and leadership in other enterprise software categories such as service-oriented architecture (SOA), business process management (BPM), enterprise service bus (ESB) and AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML).
Strategy
Recognizing the need to very quickly expand TIBCO’s media coverage across a broader universe of software categories and link the company to timely business trends like AJAX, SOA and RFID, the Bateman Group crafted an integrated PR program spanning the company’s broad product portfolio.
Multiple product PR campaigns were simultaneously launched — each bringing relevance to the other and tying closely to the company’s umbrella vision for enabling the real-time enterprise. The Bateman Group’s PR program for TIBCO included aggressive product-focused media relations; customer reference cultivation; byline article writing and placement; product reviews management; awards; and executive visibility through strategic speaking opportunities.
Key to the Bateman Group’s success was our ability to cultivate relationships with marquee customers and promote their stories to literally dozens of top-tier IT trade and vertical media outlets. These customers, widely recognized for their innovative use of TIBCO technology around the globe, include Con-Way Transportation, Delta Airlines, H&R Block, RL Polk, Bear Stearns and Constellation Energy, among others.
Results
While TIBCO’s coverage used to be almost exclusively EAI-related, today almost 100 percent of TIBCO’s coverage is related to SOA, BPM, ESB and/or AJAX trends and technologies, and the company has experienced significant interest from the business media on its strong customer momentum.
Additionally, TIBCO is regularly referred to in the media as one of three SOA leaders alongside IBM and BEA, and the company’s AJAX offering, TIBCO General Interface, is widely touted as being the most mature product of its kind in a very crowded market of vendors.
TIBCO’s tremendous visibility within the media is mirrored with a strong presence at industry trade shows via keynote addresses and thought leadership presentations. Keynotes and speaking slots have been secured at the InfoWorld SOA Forums; Sys-Con Media’s AJAX World (keynote); IT Redux’s Office 2.0 (keynote); Evans Data Corp’s Developer Product Marketing Conference (keynote); Gartner’s Web Services & Integration conference; and The Open Group’s prestigious Enterprise Architecture Practitioners conference series, to name only a few.
TIBCO’s tightly integrated corporate and product PR program also helped improve its bottom line. The company has experienced steady revenue growth every quarter since engaging the Bateman Group in February 2005.
"At TIBCO, we've been expanding our product line rapidly through acquisition, mainly into new markets. Without missing a beat, the Bateman team absorbs the new technology, identifies opportunities for exposure and secures fast results."
Holly Burkhart
Sr. Director, Corporate Communications
TIBCO Software Inc.