CRH PLC - IT Sales Opportunities - 2008

CRH plc is a building materials company, which manufactures and distributes building material products to construct the frame, through products that complete the building envelope to distribution channels. The Company is organized into four divisions, two in Europe: Materials and Products & Distribution; and two in the Americas: Materials in the United States and Products & Distribution in the United States, Mexico, Canada, Chile and Argentina. Materials businesses are involved in the production of cement, aggregates, asphalt and ready-mixed concrete. Products businesses are involved in the production of concrete products and a range of construction-related products and services. Distribution businesses are engaged in the marketing and sale of builders' supplies to the construction industry and of materials and products for the do-it-yourself (DIY) market.

Industry trends and drivers have a direct or indirect affect on IT spending of all companies operating within an industry. For example - increase in sourcing from low cost countries might influence CRH to relook at their supply chains, resulting in selling opportunities for SCM solutions, collaboration tools etc. Thus, we can conclude that industry spending on any particular IT product or service is an important indicator of the criticality of that product or service for the industry. Based on the IT spend information available in 'TechNavio', we have computed a 'criticality score' for various IT products and services, for CRH.

Various company level developments and events are important indicators of selling opportunities and drive the sales of IT products and services. For example - an acquisition by CRH might result in opportunities for IT migration and integration services. By tracking these sales drivers (using 'TechNavio'), we have arrived at a demand score for each product and service.

Through an in-depth analysis of industry trends and drivers and company level developments and events, we have made the 'IT Selling Opportunities Map' for hardware, software and IT services for CRH. These maps have been divided into four zones representing Level I, Level II and Level III opportunity areas. Level I opportunity areas have the highest scores and hence, there is a high probability that CRH will buy these products and services. Level II opportunity areas have lower scores and hence, lower probability to sell to CRH Level III opportunities have the lowest scores and hence, unlikely to sell to CRH.

The report is meant for IT vendors and intends to help them identify selling opportunities within the company. Further, the identified sales drivers can be used to penetrate these accounts or increase current share of the customer's wallet. Also, the report lists key IT spending decision makers, which will enables salesperson to directly contact the key executives within the company.

TechNavio Insights is a set of reports based on TechNavio - a market intelligence platform for the IT industry. It builds on the intelligence available within TechNavio, and leverages on the custom research experience of the 'Technology Navigators'. TechNavio is built on years of experience of Infiniti Research in deep dive custom research and consulting for over 30 Fortune 500 companies and numerous large and mid-sized companies.