Maidsfield Blog - Partnering and Business Development

I wrote before about partnering with perceived competitors.

Paisley (MN, USA) and QUMAS (Cork, Ireland) are clearly active in the same markets, selling to similar buyers and are side-by-side on the Forrester Wave and the Gartner Magic Quadrant. They are not competitors.

Even in reviewing both company’s products and services, they are clearly providing solutions to solve similar needs. Yet, they are not competitors.

In this partnership, Paisley will embed the QUMAS DocCompliance™ functionality as a feature of Paisley Enterprise GRC™

Paisley and QUMAS fit because:

• Paisley is an industry leading provider of solutions for governance, risk and compliance (GRC) including comprehensive software solutions, training, and expert GRC professional services. Paisley have more than 1,400 large enterprise and mid-market organizations including 30% of the Fortune 500.
• QUMAS is the leader in Enterprise Governance, Risk and Compliance (GRC) with more than 250 customer deployments and over a decade of experience helping companies in highly regulated industries provide a proactive regulatory defense.
• Paisley have achieved great market penetration into a broad range of sectors.
• QUMAS’ have achieved great success in Life Sciences and Financial Services sectors.

Paisley wins because of expanded capabilities and enhances Paisley’s offerings:

We are excited about the expanded policy management capabilities that the DocCompliance solution will bring and how it will enhance the Paisley Enterprise GRC solution. The addition of this functionality will further support the GRC convergence efforts of our clients and extend the value of our solution to all organizational consumers of compliance information.

- Tim Welu, CEO of Paisley. Click here to read more.

QUMAS wins because of significant distribution channel and expanded visibility in a very broad market:

The QUMAS DocCompliance product offers significant complimentary functionality to Paisley Enterprise GRC. The Paisley relationship also provides a significant distribution channel for our solutions and expanded visibility of the QUMAS solutions in a very broad market.

- Kevin O’Leary, CEO of QUMAS. Click here to read more.

ALSO, QUMAS recently won Irish Software Association Collaboration Award 2008 based on the Paisley partnership. http://www.QUMAS.com/news-events/pr-111108.asp

Stacey and Tim Welu, Paisley	Kevin O’Leary, QUMAS

I compliment the vision of Tim Welu, Kevin O’Leary and their teams in Paisley and QUMAS.

Donagh Kiernan
Maidsfield Associates

“…delivering consulting services in Sales Generating Partnerships and Strategic Business Development …to established globally focussed technology companies.”

September 2008

After two years being CEO with Campbell Informatics, I’m back to pick up Maidsfield Associates. It’s been a great intensive two years with Campbell Informatics with many successes and many more to come. I spent much time building relationships and selling into the US Pharmaceutical market with Campbell Informatics and met many great people. I am continuing to support Cliff Campbell and the Campbell Informatics team as a Director on the Board and an advisor.

Maidsfield’s focus is on assisting globally focussed technology companies with Sales Generating Partnerships and Strategic Business Development support to the CEO.

Thankfully, things have taken a good start with reviving old client relationships and some new ones. I enjoy the constant learning experience and I revel in progressing and developing further and bringing this experience to my clients. In that vein, I was deeply honoured to have been one of the 32 Irish technology entrepreneurs to have been selected to participate in the Enterprise Ireland / Stanford University Leadership 4 Growth Programme over the past year. I learned so much and met so many great people.

In continuing with Maidsfield, I chose the focus of Partnering as it’s an area I had good successes in the past and when finding the right-fit can deliver great value to growing technology companies.

I chose Strategic Business Development supporting the CEO, as I enjoy it and can quickly understand the CEO’s visions and plans in developing their business and assist in their projects

Looking forward to it

Donagh Kiernan
Maidsfield Associates
info@maidsfield.com

I thoroughly enjoyed Jerry Kennelly’s talk last night at the it@Cork Summer Event in Murphy’s Brewery.

In StockByte, Jerry established a clear vision and opportunity early on and went after it fabulously and whole heartily with great success. That is $135M worth of success when Jerry sold his companies last year.

With the vision at the very start and quickly establishing that they were ahead of the market, Stockbyte established themselves as market leaders and acted accordingly. StockByte were innovative on business model, marketing, delivery of their offering and collecting feedback from the market.

I really really liked:
1) how they marketed the ‘personality’ of the business to set them apart.
2) the constant objective to drive more streamlined scaleable business across the entire business
3) the fast response feedback loop to generate new product directions
4) the focus on high quality, high value and premium service at a relevant high margin price
5) the fast pace
6) the fun of it all, constant innovation coupled with constant business growth, there’s nothing better!

Well done Jerry.

This story and how Jerry delivers it should be bottled and used by Enterprise Ireland as one potential model in building an international successful business. BUT it’s definitely a lesson that it’s well achievable with the right mindset to start with.

I’m going back to work.

also see great write-up on the event at http://www.waveson.com/itcork-and-jerry-kennelly/trackback/

To carry on the theme of certainty from a previous blog post, facing reality allows us to plan for making the best of it. Being more certain is about leaving less to chance or luck. Reality is the best basis to build our plans on. (Definition of Reality: When you stop believing in it, it’s still there)

Reality can frighten the life out of people. Courage is required. (Definition: Courage is not the absence of fear, but realizing there’s something more important). Ignoring realities leaves things to chance. Facing realities provides greater certainty.

You can only prepare for what’s to happen if you accept that it can happen, good and bad. You are more certain to make things happen for you if you face reality early and prepare.

- Understand the client need
- Understand how your offering solves that need
- Understand the buying decision and process, the decision makers, influencers etc
- Define how will implement your solution

When you face realities early you can appreciate possibilities and act fast.

We can always reap greater rewards if we are prepared for all the good things that can happen and conversely if we are prepared for the bad things we can manage it better.

The two sides of not facing reality are, probably, Over Optimism and Panic, whereby we are over-reacting to some information that may not be reality that brings us to bad decisions and missed opportunities to progress.

I am currently reading Jim Collins’ ‘Good to Great’. I really really like it.

In discussing the “Hedgehog Concept” in deciding your business direction, the question of ‘What you can be best at’ is raised. The question emphasizes taking a reality view based on facts, rather than based on a challenging aspiration. I think its probably a healthy balance of both facts based and aspiration as collecting all the necessary facts may be time consuming and costly. Gut Instinct should come into it also.

If you want to be a market leader then what would you do if you were leader? If its 5 or 10 years from now, how would your company look? What type of people are part of the team?
How would you act? How would you market? How would you sell? What partnerships would you have? How would you deliver your solutions? What does the market see and think about you?

You would no-doubt operate to a set of uncompromising standards.

Start today, act like it today, carry out all actions as the leader you have in mind.

Dress for where you’re going, not for where you’re coming from.

In the middle-ages, when people didn’t understand something they either put it down to an act of The Gods or superstition. As science explains more and more we seek to control more of what happens by being better informed.

In sport, we see the weaker teams leaving a number of things to chance rather than being better prepared and experienced to know that its not luck that wins games.

In Marketing and Sales, the more experience and knowledge we have of the solving the needs of a market then the more certain we can be in selling solutions to that market.

Its not chance that understands how to win sales with the least effort and in the shortest time. Its not chance that understands the market, how to reach clients and effectively progress the sales process.

All along the sales generation process there are many hurdles and they can be very different for different types of sales. New concepts and products bring their new challenges. These challenges are in understanding what it takes to generate optimum revenue, from defining the offering, making the sales and down to creating satisfied customers and building a track record.

I had a view ten years ago that so much of marketing and sales was about chance. Now I see that was totally incorrect and inexperienced. Today I have a view of what is certain with still many areas of uncertainty left a little to chance.

I’m looking forward, impatiently, to replacing chance and uncertainty with near certainty in marketing and sales as we gain more experience and knowledge of our market.

ShareIT is a free seminar for small businesses. Damien Mulley organised the first session for UCC last Saturday, with strong feedback from participants.

My powerpoint presentation on Sales Generation is attached here.

Don’t talk about what you’ve got.

Don’t talk about what you do.

Listen to what the customer needs. Understand what the customer needs. Talk around and all about their needs, even if you don’t provide all of it. You might refer them to someone to resolves some of their needs while you resolve others. Be a person their seek objective advice from.

Then talk about solutions, in order of the priority to the customer.

Customers want to know that you:
1) Understand, (be passionate about understanding the real pain and problems)
2) are knowledgeable in solving their needs (you know more that your customers on the topic as you solve it for the industry)
3) Have the capacity to deliver a solution
4) Take responsibility to “Make it Happen”
5) Deliver value for money, (providing greater comfort/guarantees commands greater price)

Damien Mulley has organised a Business Advisory for small businesses. see BusinessAdvisory.ie

Damien asked me to speak about Sales, while others are covering
-> Bootstrapping a small independent software vendor.
-> Effective communications
-> How to use outsourcing to grow a small IT business.
-> Marketing research for Tech Startups
-> Search Engine Optimisation for your website
-> Managing web projects.

see full session details on BusinessAdvisory.ie

Relatively speaking creating and implementing a technology solution is easy compared to changing peoples’ behavior.

If you are selling new or better ways of doing things present a baby-steps transition from the old to the new.

Don’t expect your customers to take the big-bang approach. It’s may just be percieved as too much of a risk.

“Make it easy for them to say yes.”, Larry Quinn at Enterprise Ireland Class of 2006 showcase.

“Brave was the man who bought the first fax”, ???

In running a business there are a number of stakeholders including Customers, Staff, Suppliers, Shareholders and Government Agencies.

What makes it all work is getting the balance right:

This list is not quite in the right order, but the measurements are interrelated and a balance should be sought.

I had some initial troubles with dirt under the screen surface of my new Tecra. O’Neill IT replaced it promptly and I am very happy with my choice of machine.

I bought the Toshiba Tecra M7 Tablet PC because of supposedly productivity improvements and I’m simply an early adopter buyer.

Over the past week flying around the US, I got work completed in confined spaces on airplanes. I wouldn’t have had the room or the time otherwise to complete a time critical document. I am getting better at manipulating documents and writing in Tablet mode. The battery life was almost 3 hours. I do need to get a Toshiba Slice Expansion battery.

I’ve seen it a number of times in the past few years where a company wrongly perceives another company to be a competitor. They are supplying into the same market sector and their message is not very different to yours. In reality they turn out to be ideal partners.

NOW, it’s happening to us (Campbell Informatics) and my gut is telling me that they’re an ideal partner but people in our market perceive them to be competitors.

We do indeed have some commonality in the problems we solve. We both also provide for other related areas that the other is not interested in solving, as I see it anyway.

I am calling them this week to seek to meet and discuss joint opportunities.

I’m looking for a construction project alert service for US and European based pharmaceutical manufacturers.

Protel is one for UK and Ireland. CIS Ireland is one for Ireland only….

Who does it for US and European wide?

We have launched a corporate blog for Campbell Informatics.

The management of facilities, systems, equipments and processes for Pharmaceutical/Biotech Manufacturers is bound for great changes and Campbell Informatics are at the leading edge of this change.

So read about the methods to implement Quality-by-Design, Process Analytical Technologies, Engineering and Quality Management and more in an integrated data centric manner.

Check out www.campbellinformatics.com/blog

This is in response to, or to add to, Annette Clancy’s post “Costing and Pricing” about an exercise with artists.

But first, I enjoyed Jeff Nolan’s presentation on “Emerging Trends in Pricing & ROI” at the IT@Cork conference recently.

What is the relationship between how we price our product or service and what it costs us to deliver?

To point out the obvious: Price - Cost = Profit

So which is most appropriate for calculating the cost of your product or service?

1) Price = Cost + Margin (where Margin is % profit you decide to earn on each sale)
2) Price = The perceived value to the buyer adjusted according to competitive forces
3) Price = X% of Return on Investment - where X% might represent one year’s savings as a result of your offering

Lost Opportunity Cost is typically the lost revenue while doing one thing as opposed to earning cash someplace else. The cash that would have been earned someplace else is the Lost Opportunity Cost.

I’m not saying that we should respond to every opportunity. I believe in quite the opposite. Pick your focus and move fast.

It’s becoming clearer and clearer to me that Pace is imperative and not acting with a sense of urgency causes you to lose out. Particularly as a small company on a growth path, you need to act fast when you see a relevant opportunity.

The core of the problem is this:

When we estimate the time to complete a task, we rarely try to do it faster, thus losing that time forever.

Completing the task faster is reducing your lost opportunity costs.

This is why I’m becoming a big fan of Eli Goldratt’s “The Theory of Constraints”. Part of which is about estimating individual tasks to be completed under ideal conditions with 50% certainty and manage the uncertainty at a more all encompassing level.

A construction company was commissioned to build a really grand five star hotel in New York. They decided to use their best engineer, a founding partner with the firm, Jim O’Reilly (he was originally from Cavan, Ireland). The managing partner, Chuck Houlihan (of Irish ancestry) was a strong business man but a little hard headed.

In building the hotel, Jim was at the core of engineering design and construction until business differences separated Jim and Chuck. Jim left the company.

The hotel was completed and all went well and opening with a grand celebration.

Then one day, there was a problem with the air conditioning. This became a big problem and all the expertise with the company couldn’t pin point the cause. Chuck was forced to call Jim to ask him back to check it out, whatever the cost. Chuck asked his engineers to follow Jim everywhere in finding the problem.

Jim toured the hotel checking the system at different points, asking questions and moving on. Then after about two hours he stopped. He had found it. Taking our a piece of chalk marked an X on a piece of equipment. The other engineers saw instantly what we meant.

Jim sent in a bill for $50,000 dollars to Chuck. Chuck nearly had a heart attack and smartly replied to Jim for his billed to be itemised.

Jim responded:

$1 for the chalk, $49,999 for knowing where to put it

Being able to do forecast sales and meet them is magic. Isn’t it?

Recently, I’ve being reading many books on sales management. Many of theses books were from a large company point of view, with 268 sales reps and such. They were typically public companies with quarterly results to report and shareholders expecting the continuous growing sales and profitability. These companies would talk about the certainty required in the measurement of the sales process. “Having a few in the bag, just in case” was always a safety being used. “You must be paranoid”, another would say repeatedly.

When you can pay for the best of everything:
1) You have strong market intelligence of what the buyer wants
2) You know what the markets’ purchasing plans for the coming year
3) You know what you can produce and can move fast to add capacity for contingency reasons
4) You know your sales cycle and lead time to sales
5) You have a pipeline and understand the probabilities at the various stages
6) Your team of 268 sales reps are well trained and managed by the best

So what if you have none of these.

The principles still apply. Do what you can do.

Progress is everything.

Case Studies are an invaluable sales tool. Nothing can explain your value clearer than showing how a similar company gained by using your product and/or services. Being able to show all the concerns being alleviated and typical challenges overcome goes a long way to removing barriers to a sale.

When you struggle to understand what a company does, A Case Study shows it very quickly.

With every new client engagement is an opportunity for you to demonstrate your capabilities. Collect the before picture precisely, both the financial and emotional measures.

With good case studies in your arsenal your proposal for business is much more believable as a future vision of success for your client.

Treat every opportunity on the basis that the world is watching how you perform.

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