White Papers—the Solution Prescription

Often white papers are considered the most effective and standard tool of marketing for most of the technology companies. Since their offerings are new and complex, the technology and solution surrounding them needs to be presented in a way that the business audience could understand as part of their business problem solving and help them take a decision.  More so, a company also write and publishes white papers to—gather leads for the sales force, educate potential customers, media, salesforce or channel partners, influence a selection committee, redefine a market space, build credibility or mindshare, and keep up with competitors.

More so, white paper readers remain in search of potential information that can help them understand an issue, solve a problem, or decide. This often involves learning about the technology, solutions, a case study or features and benefits of a product or service they may consider buying. A survey of IT managers by Forbes.com and Bitpipe (now TechTarget) showed that 76 percent of them read white papers to stay on top of new trends, 69 percent to get information about products and vendors, 50 percent to compare products, 42 percent to help justify buying decisions, and 33 percent to develop a shortlist of qualified vendors.

Eventually, a client also is unlikely to commit to an expensive and complicated product or project until they first have all the facts. They'll probably hold meetings with other people in their organization to assess about the offering. Therefore, the more compelling information they have at their fingertips about your company and what it offers, the better the chances of you closing the sale.

In a nutshell it is a report, which addresses a problem and then presents a solution. White papers were first published by the British government in the early 20th century. They explained government proposals for new policies and legislation and are still used for that purpose to this day.

However, since the early 1990s, they have become a tool for business—to—business (B2B) marketing. They are heavily used by IT companies as their products tend to be expensive and complicated. But, increasingly, management consultancies, engineering firms, banks, lawyers and others selling to businesses are using them as well. This is not surprising. White papers are ideal for explaining everything from new manufacturing processes through to the impact of new government rules on business.

What little data there is on the use of white papers seems to suggest they are being increasingly adopted by businesses to support marketing.

Some 61% of businesses involved in B2B marketing already use white papers, according to the US-based Content Marketing Institute. Marketing Sherpa, another US institute, reckons white papers are probably the most important tool for those marketing to businesses.

White papers tend to be long documents packed with useful arguments and data. They're usually written by experienced in-house or freelance copywriters. But to resonate with their intended audience they must be written objectively and present genuine solutions to real problems.

Sometimes, a common mistake is to pepper these documents with sales hype. This is not the place to do that. It undermines the credibility and value of your arguments. To write a good white paper—identify a key problem faced by your customers and explain how it can impact them such as lost market share, cost increases or reputational damage. Describe other approaches and solutions to this problem that have been used and point out their limitations. Now present your solution and address how it has helped other companies and why it works. Describe in detail, preferably with numbers, demonstrating the scale of improvements. Then round-up with a conclusion. Wherever possible, back your arguments using research and statistics from respected third parties such as government agencies and trade associations. This builds credibility.

A truly good white paper is educational and even groundbreaking. It should have your prospects nodding in agreement as they read it. They should come away better informed and believing that you clearly know their problem and understand how to fix it.

A well-produced white paper also places you as the go-to-expert in your field. That not only helps justify buying from you, but possibly paying a premium, as your company's expertise makes you a safer bet to do business with.

If you happen to be writing a white paper, these points can help you build your strategy to achieve the real intent of its publication.

Job Description

A candidate goes to an IT company for a interview. For the first round he is given written test what he was able to answer in less than the time he was allotted. Then he goes for his personal round of interview and he answers all the questions up to the satisfaction of the panelists. The final round of interview happens with HR and they tell him that they will inform him the outcome of the interview after taking the consent of all the stakeholders.

After several days of waiting, the candidate calls up the HR to know about the outcome of the interview. HR replies that he was not been selected and the reason was given that he was over qualified. He was amused and could not understand what is called overqualified when the position requires a person to be matching to the job description and clearing successfully all the skill tests whatever is required out of him.

Somehow, he gets hold on to a panelist to know as to how they felt that he was overqualified for the position. After the panelist went round about several times repeating same dialogues from the recalled memory, he understood why he was over qualified.

He was able to clear the test with high score where his panelists wanted him to struggle and score 40 -50%. He was able to answer all their questions and they didn’t have any more questions to ask. In fact they wanted him to know less than them. Why so? None of the bosses want to be challenged by his subordinates in terms of knowledge, skills or management. Otherwise their existence will be at stake.

Therefore, they always select a person who will be less knowledgeable, less skilled and dumb headed who will carry out their orders. And do not reason out, never ask any questions and will always say “Yes Boss”.

This is the story of most of the work place where two intelligent person and 500 donkeys slough every day. Job descriptions are actually a filter mechanism to filter out most eligible person and keep them aside. If you are adjudged by HR as match with job description by 100% and get a call for the interviews, be assured you get the ego of the panelists.

Frankly speaking, your job search today is a hit or a miss. Sometimes, you land up in an interview and you feel that interviewer does not know the requirement of the profile. Many a times, they look for a person who knows everything to an expert level. Many a times they look for a multi skilled person whether they have such requirement or not. Many a times they look for a follower. However, the job description remains the same for everything.

Morale of the story is, never believe in Job Description. Even the person who writes the Job description, he or she, also might not know for whom they are writing. Several times it’s just copied and pasted without checking the relevance. After many years of working, I have not come to know a fool proof way to land up in a job of your choice.  Rightly so, because it’s the job, for which you are employed and not the one, which you would like to be in. These are two different things. Often, we forget and mix them.