"Whole product R&D is driven not by the laboratory but by the marketplace. It begins not with creative technology but with creative market segmentation. It penetrates not into protons and processes but rather into habits and behaviours"
Geoffrey Moore
author of 'Crossing The Chasm'
[ the classic technology marketeers bible.]
We grow the value of technology companies by equipping them to achieve a Step-Change in Revenue Growth. We do this by embedding globally recognised marketing and sales best practice in all that they do.
Successful companies are always focused on a Market rather than a Technology or on a few Customers. These companies have clearly-defined Product and Channel strategies that are based on an understanding of what products a market wants to buy and the ways in which that market wishes to buy those products.
2in10 reduces the risks associated with becoming a successful product business by applying techniques common to the world's most successful multi-national technology companies. We have productised all of this knowledge so it can be deployed within early-stage and growing companies.
2in10 is a technology venture management company founded in Glasgow, Scotland, and Boston, US, in late 2004 by a group of experienced senior technology marketing and sales professionals: managers and entrepreneurs with experience both at corporate and start-up level.
We asked the question: Why do so many growing technology companies struggle to grow their revenues when they have such clever products and access to buoyant, growing markets? Our research identified that the strength of their technology and innovation was not matched by their marketing and sales skills.
Since 2004 we have interviewed almost 100 CEOs growing technology businesses, their advisors and investors and have worked with around 20 of the most ambitious. In 2005 we developed content and programmes designed to support start-ups and growth companies. These are subject to continuous improvement based on what the marekt tells us.
In 2006 we delivered our flagship 2in10 Step-Change Programme for the first time and involved our first corporate Knowledge Partners: Sun, Freescale and Microsoft. We also opened our first location in Asia, in downtown Tokyo operated by Ichiro Sayama and our Associate Director Fiona Riddoch relocated to Brussels giving us a presence in mainland Europe.
Early 2007 has seen a significant growth in our team, with 5 new Scotland-based Associate Directors as well as Riaz Bava in Dubai and Mike Grant in Cambridge & London.
The good news is that there is a solution to the revenue growth challenge. It involves adopting four key disciplines developed for the specific dynamics of the ICT industry by such leaders as HP, Oracle, IBM, 3Com, Sun, and National Semiconductor, and deployed in Scotland by, amongst others, our largest indigenous ICT company, Wolfson Microelectronics. They are:
Product Management Defining the right product: i.e. one that the market will buy
Product Marketing Sending the right messages to the market to drive demand for your product
Channel Marketing Identifying the right sales channels and developing programmes to help them sell your product
Channel Management Recruiting and managing channel partners to drive that Step-Change Revenue Growth
Whether the products are software, electronics or devices these key disciplines can be applied to give a technology company a market focus: this is how you build real revenues.
