Posts tagged sales
When selling yourself as faster and cheaper is no longer enough: Part 2
Jan 18th
By Francis Moran and Leo Valiquette
In Part 1, we introduced Host Analytics, an enterprise software vendor that delivers a suite of corporate performance management (CPM) tools through a software-as-a-service (SaaS) model. We discussed how the company initially positioned itself as a “faster and cheaper” alternative to established competitors such as Hyperion – a vendor later acquired by Oracle from which many of Host Analytics’ founders had come.
By the late 2000s, Host Analytics had come to realize that its initial value proposition no longer represented the firm’s true value and wasn’t supporting its position as an emerging market leader. It needed to rebrand and reposition itself and take advantage of the fact that SaaS had begun to go mainstream as a delivery model for many enterprise applications and had found greater acceptance among finance professionals. Read the rest of this entry »
Challenging the status quo
Dec 21st
By Francis Moran
When trying to sell a new and innovative product, and a premium one at that, into a somewhat conservative market, there is often no greater competition than the status quo.
The team at NanoScale Corporation knows this all too well. After years developing its intellectual property into a range of products for the defence, police and hazmat markets, NanoScale has focused its efforts around expanding in the civilian disaster restoration market. Here, restoration professionals work to repair, remediate and decontaminate commercial and residential properties damaged by fire, storms, water, sewer backups and mould. In North America alone, this market is worth hundreds of billions of dollars. It is a steady market sheltered from general economic volatility given that disasters and accidents happen all the time and the cost of restoration is typically covered by an insurer.
While NanoScale has made inroads into this market in recent years, it remains challenged to overcome the status quo and the reluctance of its potential customers to embrace new products and technologies quite unlike what they are accustomed to. Read the rest of this entry »
Accelerated: Waterloo’s culture of collaboration
Jul 14th
By Francis Moran and Leo Valiquette
Throughout this series, we have often referenced startup accelerators and the important role they play in the commercialization ecosystem, as well as where government support fits into the equation. So we thought it was time to take a closer look at these entities by profiling three different ones from Canada, the U.S. and the U.K.
This week, we start with Waterloo’s five-year-old Accelerator Centre. We recently spoke with Tim Jackson, COO of the AC, about the role that this kind of organization plays in the process of getting technology to market, what makes it tick, the culture required to support it and how it measures success. What follows is an abridged transcript of our conversation. Read the rest of this entry »
OMG! There’s an entrepreneur on campus
Jul 11th
By Francis Moran and Leo Valiquette
Recently we have explored where and how government can facilitate the process of commercialization to help technology entrepreneurs get their products to market. Throughout this series, we have talked about the entrepreneurial right stuff and the value of those soft skills collectively referred to as emotional intelligence.
But where does good old-fashioned formal education fit into all of this? What role does, and should, a person’s alma mater play in the formation of the next generation of entrepreneurs? Read the rest of this entry »
Words of wisdom: Some things change with time, others don’t
May 4th
By Francis Moran and Leo Valiquette
There is a German proverb that states, “An old error is always more popular than a new truth.”
This is often evident in the business of getting technology to market, particularly among nascent entrepreneurs and startup management teams who are coming into the process of commercialization well-versed in the engineering of a product but not so much in the fundamentals of business planning, customer engagement and market development. Read the rest of this entry »
On-premise vs. Cloud – the market is shifting
Jul 21st
I talk to VAR’s/MSP’s all day long. One of the things I am always shocked by is how many of them don’t know how little money they make selling on-premise technology and how much more they can make selling all cloud solutions.
For some of my VAR’s, I see an 82 per cent profit increase. If that is not enough to get your attention then I don’t know what will. Let me break down why and see if it makes sense to you guys as well. Read the rest of this entry »
POS, supply chain systems top Canadian retailers’ IT purchase choices for 2010
Jul 20th
Majority of Canadian retailers prefer sticking to the tried and true when it comes to software purchases, according to a recent survey of the industry.
In a poll of 34-mid-to-large sized retailers, the Retail Council of Canada (RCA) also found that these businesses may be embracing social media technologies but are still wary of cloud computing.
Nestor Arellano
Here’s some data collected by the RCA which might be helpful to tech vendors and service providers who have set their sights on Canadian stores.
