The OnForce pros are a valuable asset to our community. Over the years, we have worked to ensure that our service providers have the highest quality of technicians to leverage for all of their CE and IT requirements.  While the OnForce Pro Online Community remains strong, we decided to create a Pro Advisory Council. The ProCouncil consists of five top OnForce PowerPros who have leveraged the platform to grow their individual businesses over the years.  PowerPros are those who have demonstrated strong performance and have met certain criteria, including completing 50 work orders on the platform; taken various OnForce training; and obtaining at least a 95% rating. These members work hand-in-hand with us and provide honest feedback about the OnForce marketplace and ways we can improve.

I enjoy speaking with our pros and I try to engage them in conversation every chance I get.  Feel free to meet our Pro Council and hear from them what they hope to accomplish in the next year. They all had diverse things to say, but a couple of themes came through loud and clear: 1 - the OnForce Marketplace helps them grow their business, and 2 – our Platform has room for improvement on how it operates.

I believe we are only as good as our OnForce pros, so as we work with the Advisory Council, I want my team can get honest feedback and learn from their experiences.  We want to hear how we can improve the platform for them and our service providers, alike.

I encourage you to meet our Advisory Council and listen for yourself how they hope to improve OnForce in the coming months.

This is the question that comes to mind as everyone is talking about the DTV transition.  Are you ready?  Since the transition is this Friday, June 12, I hope you are. But just in case you are one of the 3 million that have yet to switch over, you still have a little time to prepare.  Before you figure out what you need to do next, I want to discuss what the transition means.  Without going into the technological weeds, all television stations will make the switch from analog to digital and if you are not set by Friday, you may not be able to watch your favorite TV show (or the Red Sox as the play the Yankees this week.)  And there are three simple ways to ensure you are set: obtain a digital to analog converter box to connect to an existing set; subscribe to cable, satellite, or anther paid TV service; or get a digital television set with an antenna.

Although the press has made everyone aware of this transition, you may be one of the 3 million left in the lurch.  At OnForce, we see it everyday. In fact, we’ve seen a steady growth of Flat Panel TV work orders on the platform (upwards of 50,000 over the last year.)  There is no doubt that the cause of this uptick is due to the DTV transition - and we expect that there will be more work orders in the near future. The good thing – we have service professional with several qualifications, including SBCA, CEDIA, and Samsung certifications, to help our service providers as they place more work orders through the platform.

Still unsure what to do next?  Here are some resources for you:

• http://www.dtv.gov/index.html
• http://www.sbca.com/dtv/html
• Or you can use the old fashioned way and call: 1-888-225-5322 (1-888-CALL FCC) which will be open for several months.
  

We released our quarterly OnForce Services Marketplace Index (OSMI) recently. Many of our predictions from the end of 2008 came to fruition.

Here are several predictions and how the OnForce marketplace reflected this reality through over 70,000 actual service events in Q1 2009:

Companies Are Looking to Fix Not Buy

• The number of Break/fix service events on the OnForce platform grew quarter over quarter.  In Q1, we saw our Break/fix events go up to 63% from 59% in Q4 of last year.
• We saw this trend was inline with the overall consumer confidence as the Consumer Confidence Index declined throughout the quarter.

Cheap Becomes Chic

• When companies do look to replace old equipment with newer equipment, they are using lower cost options.  We’re seeing when companies do install new equipment; they are making the shift to purchasing lower cost and non-branded equipment.

Customers Become the Price King

• Many of our VARs and OEMs did test pricing threshold this quarter. 

While I believe many of these same patterns will follow through the rest of the year, I also see some growth areas.  I was encouraged when we saw an increase in some categories, including:

• The TV/Video services category grew from 22 percent in Q4 2008 to 24 percent Q1 2009.
• PC/Desktop orders stayed steady quarter over quarter, and along with TV/Video, continued to be the top two largest work order categories.
• Video projector services also went up – which we believe is due to the fact that companies are looking to use this new technology, while trying to curtail travel costs.

Please watch the full OSMI video link below, where I cover many of these key points. I encourage your feedback – do you agree that these trends will continue throughout the rest of the year?  What other information would be valuable from the next OSMI?

Best-

Peter Cannone

I attended the EHX 2009 show in March which was held in sunny Orlando Florida along with several members of my team.  We had a chance to speak with our OnForce Pros who have been on the platform for several years as well as new folks who were interested in joining the OnForce Pro community. I always enjoy speaking with our service professionals to hear their stories and to ask for candid feedback about OnForce.

I heard that even as we are facing tough times, our Pros are still seeing steady business come through the platform. And the good news is - not much has changed in two months.  More and more work orders are coming through on a daily basis and our Pros are reaping the benefits.  I trust that our marketplace will continue to grow and our innovation will help us overcome these interesting economic times.  There is still a lot of business out there, and I firmly believe that as we continue to improve our platform, OnForce and our Pros will come out on top.  The outlook is still a bit brighter. With that, I thought you’d be interested in hearing the OnForce stories directly from the Pros themselves. I hope you enjoy the video from EHX.

Last week, I was in New York and had the pleasure of getting together with my buddy, the ever-charismatic, Steve Burke from Everything Channel as we did a NetSeminar, which was geared for the channel to talk about zero cost ways to get into the services game. This was one of two events with we did with Everything Channel last week alone. The first was the virtual trade show, “Selling into the SMB Market: Creating Opportunities to Stimulate Sales,” where our own head of marketing, Maria Battaglia, was part of the keynote panel along with Cisco, Sonicwall, and Lenovo. While Maria was involved in the keynote session, the OnForce booth experienced a lot of traffic throughout the day and our team had several good conversations with folks wanting to learn more about us.  For those who stopped by the booth, most were curious about the platform and how to get started.  We were excited about the turnout, as more than 200 of people swung by virtually to check us out - which left us thinking that people were doing more of these virtual events as they are looking to cut travel expenses.

Once we finished the trade show, I was able to join Steve in NYC as part of a NetSeminar I mentioned earlier, which was officially entitled, “How to Increase Your Services Business and Reach at Zero Cost.”  Although I’m a huge Boston Red Sox fan (and am thrilled we swept the Yankees this past weekend), I have to admit New York is a great city, so I was naturally excited to take the opportunity to go there and play and part in this event.  While participating in the NetSeminar was a new experience for me, it afforded me the opportunity to discuss OnForce, something I love doing.

As part of it, Steve and I discussed the myths behind the on demand service model and how OnForce can help solution providers drive down overall costs, while increasing their service revenue. In this economy, we’re faced with a lot of challenges, but at OnForce, we’re able to help both sides of the coin – by connecting buyers to our talented pool of service professionals who can help fulfill national work orders, quickly and efficiently.  And towards the end of the presentation, I was proud to discuss a couple of case studies featuring solution providers who have successfully leveraged our platform with amazing results.

In case you haven’t had the opportunity to experience about our marketplace, I personally invite you to learn more about OnForce.  View the NetSeminar (On Demand) to see and hear what Steve and I discussed. And let us know your thoughts – we want to hear from you.