Maidsfield Blog - Partnering and Business Development

Two events of interest in the coming weeks - interactive lunchtime sessions in the NSC Boardroom: (limited seats available)

1) Tuesday June 9th 11:30 - International Services Success with Pat McGrath of PM Group and Jim Costello of SouthWestern (SWS BPO)
register on the it@Cork website - http://www.itcork.ie/index.cfm?page=events&eventId=156

2) Tuesday June 23rd 11:30 International Product Success with Denis Kennelly of Tivoli at IBM and Richard Cooke of Lincor
register on the it@Cork website - http://www.itcork.ie/index.cfm?page=events&eventId=157

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/

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

Listen to interview with Jeff, recently podcast by Tom Raftery on the IT@Cork blog…

Jeff Nolan is a Silicon Valley veteran who just recent moved on from SAP into a CEO position with Teqlo.

I’ve been a reader of Jeff’s blog for while and am looking forward to meeting with him and hearing his presentation at the IT@Cork Annual Conference on November 29th.

Jeff blogs about, among many other things, new business models for software companies, “Emerging Trends in Pricing and ROI”.

What Jeff has to say has implications for:

1) Software Product Companies
Should you continue to seek up front perpetual per seat type licensing deals or should you seek a recurring revenue model?

This changes the dynamic of your business significantly. It changes how you sell, who you sell to, the nature of your customer relationships, your support structure, your product development plans, your cashflows, etc……

2) IT Departments

As Jeff points out, Business Functions are buying solutions without consulting IT. They have their own budgets and require no IT infrastructure apart from a web interface SO they don’t need IT expert input in the purchase.

Where is the ‘Authority’ and ‘Power’ of the IT Department going?
Where are all the CIOs gone?

3) Financial Managers and Investors in the Software Industry

When big lump-sum up-front licence fees are gone, how does this affect your cashflows and working capital requirement to fund a growing business?

Software As A Sevice (SAAS) is happening at all levels of software to consumers, small to medium business and at enterprise.

Salesforce.com is an example at enterprise level and there are many more….

This post is in response to Joe Drumgoole’s post: “Is the Irish Software Association worth the price?” and on the ISA 2006 Annual conference

If you’re serious about scaling your business, then today’s ISA Annual Conference, was most definitely worth the price.

So is E800 worth the investment in becoming a member of the ISA?

From today’s event and on ISA brochure, the ISA represents the growing software business. So its not about where you are now, its about where you are going.

I thoroughly enjoyed the half-day event in the Dublin today.

Following Minister Michael Martin’s kick-off the programme started with analysts/investors views of the marketplace. We heard from Andy Malik of Lehman Brothers, Eric Hjerpe of Athlas Venture and ex-Siebel senior VP, Melinda Ballou from IDC and Sean Foley from Microsoft.

These were very practical presentations of what works and whats in flavour. We got great information on business and revenue models. (More on this at some other time)

By 11am, I was already overloaded with valuable information and with 5 more speakers to go. But what followed were 5 real Irish technology business leaders who have delivered great international business success. Fergus Gloster, Senior VP Salesforce.com, Garry Moroney, ex-Similarity Systems CEO, Pat Brazil ex Eontec/Siebel, Sean Melly CEO eTel and Peter Conlon CEO Xsil.

The conference and the structure flowed with themes presented by the analysts/investors being supported and compounded by real examples from the technology business leaders.

This was a real “Get Off Your Ass” event.

I’m a soon-to-be member of ISA, again.

Congratulations to Bernadette Cullinane, ISA Chair, and the ISA team behind todays event.

It does need to be discussed whether ISA is a national organisation and if it is assisting new business owner/managers or just experienced business people.

Regional industry organisations, like IT@Cork, should work with ISA in the regions to jointly drive the international growth and leadership agendas.

At the recent IT@Cork event on “Managing a Service Business for Growth” we heard from two successful Cork based IT@Cork member companies on how they built their businesses.

In a previous post I raised the question on whether service business revenue growth was directly related to employee numbers.

The two speakers at the event, Paul Hourican from PFH Computers and Pat Ryan from Abtran, clearly outlined service business revenue growth on a non-linear scale to employee numbers.

The two businesses have defined their services on the basis that they have:

As they are human, the two speakers outlined where they also learned valuable lessons in:

Tom Raftery posted photos of the event Paul Hourican and Pat Ryan

Do check out the next IT@Cork event on “Business used of RSS”

The insights by both speakers provided lessons for all businesses even if you a custom development services businesses.

Richenda, my wife, remembers when U2 played at Waterford Regional Technical College, now WIT, at a price of 50 pence per student. She didnt go, she was a bit young. Who was U2 then anyway? But no doubt they were great. Many people missed their opportunity to see this U2 greatness in the making.

How do you become great? It’s not by one great deed nor one great goal nor one great success. Many people rest on one thing of greatness and it fades.

I’m so lucky to regularly meet so many great people today in business in Ireland and further afield. I am always keen for these people to share their knowledge and experience with the industry, within an industry organisation such as it@cork for example.

The it@Cork annual conference is coming up and many great people are speaking and attending. do see www.itcork.ie for more information.

I am really looking forward to hear Jim Mountjoy speak. A great person indeed, both for his achievements and his contribution to the technology sector in Ireland. Jim doesnt speak in public very often and maybe curses the thought of it. No doubt his to-the-point approach will come across from the podium as much as it does across the table. If you dont know of Jim, just do a google and you’ll see.

Other great people speaking at the conference include Charles Handy, Robert Scoble, Joe Gantly and many more.

Great People will gather in the 100’s in Rochestown Park Hotel, Cork - November 30th - Book at www.itcork.ie

In your mind, Who are the great people in the Irish Technology Sector? Do we do enough to reward them for their leadership and contribution?