OpenPages
Company re-launch into corporate financial compliance requirements of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act

The Challenge:

In 2002, OpenPages’ CEO, Mike Duffy, knew he needed to take drastic measures or his company would not survive. Duffy recognized that his company would never move beyond a niche player status in the content management market, which was dominated by the likes of Vignette and Documentum.

What Duffy did know was that OpenPages had a great technology platform upon which a rich set of applications could be built. So he began researching the needs of organizations that had significant financial reporting and regulatory disclosure requirements. During this same time frame, in reaction to the Enron and Worldcom scandals, Congress passed the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. As a former accountant and controller, Duffy understood the ramifications of this new law and the challenging reporting requirements it would be placing upon corporations. By the spring of 2003 OpenPages had developed and delivered an application, Sarbanes-Oxley Express, to a few forward thinking customers to help them meet their compliance reporting requirements.

With these assets in place, Duffy knew it was time to officially re-launch OpenPages with a new position on solving the corporate financial reporting compliance requirements of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX). But because market for SOX-compliance software was still in its infancy, it did not yet command the media’s attention. Subsequently, coverage of SOX technology was sporadic and unpredictable. Moreover, while the mainstream and financial publications were trying to untangle and interpret the legal requirements of the act, they paid very little attention to companies offering technology for SOX compliance.

The LP&P Difference:

To drive awareness for OpenPages’ emergence as a new company, OpenPages turned to LP&P for help. LP&P focused on five core strategies:

• Help educate the media about SOX;
• Develop close ties with the three analysts most often quoted by the media in stories about Sarbanes-Oxley compliance;
• Concentrate on building momentum in financial and accounting publications, which would in turn bubble up to the mainstream press;
• Illustrate OpenPages’ market momentum through an aggressive new customer announcement program supported by an exclusive media pitch program; and
• Feed the media with new story angles on how SOX was just the first step towards a broader enterprise governance and risk management strategy

• To educate the media, LP&P established an aggressive buddy campaign designed to connect OpenPages with a variety of SOX-related topics, positioning OpenPages executives as thought leaders and go-to resources for quotes. LP&P also developed and fostered strategic relationships with the key analysts most often quoted, driving reporters to the analysts as additional resources.

 

The Results:

Laying the groundwork with the analysts and verticals publications paid off when reporters from the AP and Investors Business Daily sought out and covered OpenPages in feature-length article, and when OpenPages’ customers were included first in articles about the purchase of SOX technologies and, a few months later, in implementation stories.

In 2004, OpenPages was featured in over 150 articles, which is more than triple that of its nearest competitors, and conducted more than 50 analyst briefings. Additional highlights include:

• Nearly 80 percent of OpenPages coverage was in business or financial publications, a key target demographic for OpenPages’ sales team, including: BusinessWeek, Financial Times, Investor’s Business Daily, Associated Press, San Jose Mercury, Boston Biz Journal, and CFO.
• Fifty percent of OpenPages coverage was feature stories, as opposed to the minor mentions that accounted for most of its competitors’ coverage.
• Almost every major SOX technology article mentioned OpenPages and a competitor. While the competitor named in the stories varied, OpenPages remained the constant vendor.
• CEO Mike Duffy was recognized as one of Treasury & Risk Management’s “100 Most Influential People.”
• In 2005 OpenPages was the vendor that received the majority of the coverage in the Wall Street Journal’s April 25, 2005 story on Sarbanes-Oxley, “Can Technology Help Companies Comply with Sarbanes Oxley?’
• In May of 2005 OpenPages CEO, Mike Duffy, was named a finalist for Ernst & Young’s New England Entrepreneur of the Year .

 

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