Strategic Communication Proposal

Canvas IT

Table of Contents

1.
2.
3.
4.
a.
b.
c.
d.
5.
6.
7.

Situational Analysis (including primary research)

Statement of Purpose
Target Audiences
The Plan
Goals
Objectives
Strategies
Tactics
Evaluation
Conclusion
Supplements

Situational Analysis

Organizational Backgrounder
About Canvas IT
Canvas IT is an outsourced service desk and healthcare integration firm
based out of Atlanta, Georgia. This start-up company was founded in 2010
by CEO Micah Laughlin, who has since assembled a team of roughly 25
highly experienced healthcare and IT professionals. Laughlin has over 17
years of healthcare technology industry experience, including serving as the
Vice President of Regency Hospital Company which supported 23 hospitals
with over 4000 employees across the country. After selling Regency,
Laughlin was compelled to create a company to be a leader in the industry
of healthcare technology support, and has since grown to encompass
several other aspects including Epic Interoperability, healthcare integration
and service desk support.
Canvas IT Services
The company has created a centralized model to assist clients maximize
efficiencies and reduce overall costs while delivering exceptional service to
boost end-user productivity.
The service desk portion focuses on meeting clients specific needs, as no
two companies are the same. Offering single point of contact, on-shore
domestic remote support, the professional and tenured staff is available for
all tiers of service. Differing tiers include Always On Tier 1 (AOT1), Core
Business Hours (CBH), After-Hours Partnership (AHP) and Tier 0 Ticket
Triage (T0TT). In addition, all services are scalable and designed to be
flexible with growing businesses.
Epic Systems Interoperability is another aspect encompassed by the
company. Canvas IT is an industry expert in Epic systems interoperability.
From custom interface development, to vendor portfolio management, to
optimization and ongoing support, Canvas IT can create, navigate, and
successfully implement an interoperability road map that will guide success
and measurable ROI for your institution in the meaningful-use era.
Key People
Micah Laughlin is the founder and CEO of Canvas IT. He possesses over 17
years of experience in the healthcare IT industry, mostly in rural hospitals.
He has planned and implemented technology solutions throughout the
country for acute and behavioral hospitals, physician practices and
ambulatory surgery centers. He previously served as Vice President of
Regency Hospital Company supporting 23 hospitals across 9 states with
approximately 1000 beds and 4000 staff members. During his career, Micah

has also served as Manager of Business Development for Transitional

Hospitals Corporation, Healthcare Research Associate for Jennings, Ryan
and Kolb, Vice President of Information Technology for Physician Health
Corporation, and Founder of MDCIO Consulting.
Kent Elmer serves as Canvas ITs Chief Financial Officer. Elmer is a CPA
with more than 20 years of broad-based experience ranging from Big 4
public accounting to CFO level positions at a variety of companies. He
began his career at Arthur Andersen & Co. After gaining a strong
foundation, he made the transition to the private sector. His public company
experience includes various positions including Controller and CFO of a
NASDAQ software company (IQ Software Corporation). He has also been
the CFO of a number of early and growth stage technology ventures in both
software and hardware (Carecentric Solutions, Inc., Digital Furnace, Inc.,
R.F. Solutions, Inc.). In addition, Kent spent time on the West Coast with
Broadcom Corporation assisting in the acquisition and integration of over
10 early stage companies in a twelve-month period. Every private sector
company that Kent has worked for has successfully navigated its way
through the acquisition process.
Dorian Nimmons, the Director of Client Services, is a leader for delivering
quality and employing best practice methodologies. He holds a Masters
Degree in Business Management from the Georgia Institute of Technology
and a bachelors from the University of South Carolina in Information
Technology. Before Canvas IT, Dorian headed the Help Desk IT group at
COVAD Communications and MCI Telecommunications, managing a team of
over 400 employees. Dorian also served in the United States Air Force for
over 10 years as a leader in the Healthcare field.
Jonathan Stephan is the active Vice President of Business Development. He
brings 15 years of IT, Managed Service and Outsourcing experience to
Canvas. Over the years, he has worked with over 100 Mid-Market and
Enterprise customers to help them streamline IT Service Desk Operations,
gain ITIL maturity and deploy best of breed technologies. He has seen his
customers consistently trying to solve issues around People, Process and
Technology and excels in providing solutions that deliver rapid Speed to
Deploy, low TCO and aggressive SLAs and performance. As an ITIL
Certified industry expert, Jonathan previously served in both Management
and national customer facing sales roles for a Gartner recognized Managed
Service Provider. He has also been in the trenches as a Service Desk analyst

and Business Analyst for two of the largest companies in Atlanta. This
unique blend of Sales and real world Service Desk experience make
Jonathan a unique resource for companies evaluating Service Desk options.
Bryan Fowler actively serves as the Vice President of Healthcare
Interoperability at Canvas IT. Fowler specializes in providing Big-4 level
strategy-to-operations IT integration solutions to private and public health
care organizations and similar compliance-laden entities. He leverages his
committee membership at IHE (Integrating the Healthcare Enterprise) to
provide next generation advisory services to organizations working to
address complex sustainability issues. Fowler helps clients overcome a
climate of increased regulatory compliance and rising costs specifically
around areas of technology implementations and interoperability by
leveraging experienced solution teams and best-practice Project
Management Office (PMO) guidelines.
Accomplishments
Over the short five years of Canvas ITs beginning, there have been several
rapid changes and advancements. Opening as a start-up company in 2010,
every employee had to possess a variety of skills and actively complete tasks
across the spectrum of services. The service desk aspect showed
tremendous growth roughly 18 months after opening with the transition of
selling multiple tiers of support to primarily selling Tier 1 support and also
selling to two non-healthcare clients. This led to the hiring of Jonathan
Stephen, launching the rapid growth of the service desk aspect.
EHR optimization has also shown rapid growth. While initially only focusing
on Epic Interoperability, Canvas IT has now changed gears to encompass
Healthcare Integration, providing the opportunity to partner with large
clients by being experts in an area of great need.
In relation to revenue, Canvas IT has reached a top line revenue of around
$2 million in the past five years and has set a goal to reach $5 million by the
end of 2016.

Opportunity Backgrounder
Other Service Desk and Interoperability Firms
Canvas IT is not the only company in the world specializing in service desk
support or interoperability solutions.
HCI Group is a global healthcare integration firm with offices in the United
States, Canada, and the United Kingdom. The HCI Group is much more
than a world-class staff augmentation firm; our domain knowledge of
healthcare IT projects spans every aspect of the EHR implementation

lifecycle and the entire healthcare continuum (thehcigroup.com). They

encompass Advisory, Implementation, Interface and Interoperability,
Optimization, Sustaining Support and many more.
EHR Concepts is another healthcare integration firm that is located in
Georgia as well. EHR Concepts puts our focus the client with a full suite of
consulting support, training services, staffing and technology services that
can apply to your entire organization or just a specialized project,
(ehrconcepts.com). They too provide implementation services, project
management, a Circle-Back Optimization program, and legacy support as
well.
Industry Jargon
IT- Information technology
Interoperability- The ability of different information technology systems and
software applications to communicate, exchange data, and use the
information that has been exchanged
EHR- Electronic Health Record
Interface- a device or program enabling a user to communicate with a
computer
Implementation- the process of putting a decision or plan into effect;
execution
Data- the quantities, characters, or symbols on which operations are
performed by a computer, being stored and transmitted in the form of
electrical signals and recorded on magnetic, optical, or mechanical
recording media
Technology- machinery and equipment developed from the application of
scientific knowledge
Chief Information Officer (CIO)- a job title commonly given to the most
senior executive in an enterprise responsible for the information technology
and computer systems that support enterprise goals
Epic Systems Corporation- a privately held healthcare software company.
According to the company, hospitals that use its software hold medical
records of 54% of patients in the U.S. and 2.5% of patients worldwide

SWOT Analysis
Strengths: Internal Factors
Executive committee contains a diverse group of individuals, ethnicities and
professional careers.
The team has a very intimate workplace culture, with employees possessing
similar values and qualities.
Employees are experts in their fields.
Being a relatively new company, Canvas IT is flexible and growing.

 Possesses and eager and aggressive mindset and are very adaptable.
Weaknesses: Internal Factors
Being relatively new, the company lacks established processes and
organizational experience.
Marketing team could be considered a weak link due to outsourcing a firm.
Lack of depth of client base.
Opportunities: External Factors
Working towards being a world leader healthcare integration.
Going global is in the works.
Relatively new company allows for tremendous growth in a very specific
niche.
Threats: External Factors
Other large-scale firms tend to attract larger big-pocket companies.
Could be difficult to penetrate an already competitive field and still gain
substantial profits and growth.
The organization will plateau at its current stage of development and not
achieve its goal.

Statement of Purpose
The purpose of this communication proposal is to create a general outline of
Canvas IT collectively, allowing all employees to be united in who the
company is, where the company has come from, and where the company is
going.

Target Audience
The forthcoming plan targets a distinct, yet broadening audience for various
aspects of the company: healthcare integration applies to any/all healthcare

facilities in need of experts in implementation, and service desk support

applies to all potential clients in the healthcare integration sector, but also
to non-healthcare companies in need of service desk support.
Healthcare Professionals
The target audience includes all healthcare executives,
specifically the Chief Information Officers. All CIOs have extensive
experience in the healthcare industry and ultimately determine whether or
not to outsource the integration, implementation and/or service desk needs.
The average age for a CIO ranges from well over half being between the
ages of 40-49, and just around 18% being in their 30s and the oldest just
over age 60. The target audience encompasses both genders and all races
including Caucasian, African American, Asian, Middle Eastern, and Indian
ethnicities; however, only seven percent of all CIOs are women and are
almost exclusively of the Caucasian race.
Other psychographic information included in the target audience includes
all political philosophies, for example, republican, democratic and
utilitarian. All religious beliefs are encompassed in the target audience. All
geographic areas are included as well, due to Canvas IT offering remote
service desk and integration support.
This target audience has the ability to control the success of Canvas IT as a
whole. Without CIO support and therefore contracts being formed with
healthcare institutions, there will be no measurable success (monetarily).

The Strategic Plan

1.
a.
b.
c.

d.

Goals
Building a Recurring Revenue Model.
Objective: The overall objective will be to achieve greater than 50% of
revenue to be recurring (multi-year contracts).
Strategy: Establishing close relationships with current integration clients
can lead to a greater chance at having a stable revenue model through
following up with a support contract.
Tactics: Achieve 20% top-line profitability; being an authoritative brand in
relation to both support and healthcare integration; create at least one new
support client a month in the fractional support model to create larger
profits.
Evaluation: The success of this goal will be measured by evaluating the
overall recurring revenue quarterly and annually.

2. Refining the Go to Market Strategy.

a. Objective: Increase the organizations overall measurable impact.
b. Strategy: Determine what Canvas IT marketing tactics are working in
attracting and retaining new and existing clients through a systematic and
strategic plan.
c. Tactics: Using the 8 Touch Model, Q&A with clients, attempting different
calling patterns/ messaging types; to connect these tactics with the
overarching sales strategy; create a more solidified marketing department;
creating a mantra; updating the website.
d. Evaluation: The goals success will be determined by evaluating the
measurable impact the market strategy has had on clients through the
feedback given and SEO.

Conclusion
The primary goal for Canvas IT is to create a recurring revenue model as
soon as possible. It is also critical to establish a unified marketing plan in
conjunction with the overall sales strategies to ensure the company is
maximizing market exposure to meet with recurring revenue goals.
Canvas IT has shown tremendous growth since its opening, and is currently
in the process of really refining its offerings to gain the most traction
possible in such a specific industry. There is strong company leadership and
with high objectives for the next year including obtaining 20% margin and
going global.