Entering a new technology based B2B business – Part V

B2B, Marketing, Marketing Ecosystem, route to market

What is the Technology Infrastructure Needed

In the last 4 episodes of this blog, we have focused on multiple things, while wanting to get into a new technology based B2B business. When I say a new technology based B2B business – there are 3 components –

New – new could be for you , as in a new product or a new service that you are launching OR it could be new for the market itself
Technology – the key emphasis over here being that it’s something which is related to technology driving the sale of this product. The technology could be existing or it could be a net new way of using technology
B2B – so we are not selling to a consumer, the sale will typically have multiple stake holders and there could be budgets involved, which the customer will need to have, to be able to procure this item from you.

The reason I brought this issue up, in this episode, is because if the product or service is “new” for you, but has been existent in the market for a long time, then people will be aware of the technology infrastructure they will need to have. For example people have been so used to using mobile phones, now, they know they will need to carry a charger with them or a battery pack because the battery of the mobile phone can die down with usage.

However if the technology, that you are wanting to bring to the market, is new, then for you to be able to sell it successfully, you will need to see if the market already has the technology infrastructure. A simple example has been the electric car. We have been hearing about the electric car for close to 20 years. But figuring out the light weight Lithium Ion batteries and public infrastructure to charge these batteries has been a big challenge for the mass adoption of electric cars. Another assumption of course, which has not been accounted for, is the availability of electricity to charge the cars. In a lot of developing nations, you still have long durations, when electricity is not available. You may have the best electric cars in the world, but people will not buy the cars if they perceive a challenge in operating the car.

In B2B this challenge is further exaggerated, because multiple people are involved in the decision making and No One wants to be the one with a failed project. That is the most fundamental thing that needs to be addressed in a B2B market.

Whoever is the manager / director/ CXO that you are talking to, at the back of the mind they all have one fundamental question – I hope they can make it work, based on the claims they are making

If the customer you are going to, with your new technology (let us call it level N) and they don’t have technology at level N-1, then they have to think in terms of first coming to N-1, even before they can think of buying your product or service. When they will reach N-1, they would have put in the infra that can be leveraged by your technology. If the technology is new and the base infra that you need is also net new, then you have to fight the battle at two levels, which is much more complex and with a very low chance of success.

Having made the above statement, a lot of people among you may come out with the argument that the mobile phones – when they first cam out needed the “new” phones and new towers, since they didn’t work on “wires”. Well for the mobile phones to succeed, the telecom companies had to invest int he infra, not the consumer. For the consumer, it was just about having a different kind of a phone and it dramatically increased convenience – which is another variable, that I will take up in another episode.

A lot of times my sales people tell me, that the customer was “Wowed” with our solution, but after spending three or four calls, the case is not moving anywhere. One of the key reasons when cases get stalled or prospects stop responding to your calls for a technologically superior (new) product, is the fact that they don’t have the base technology which they can use to migrate to your technology. Leap frogging one technology generation, can be very dangerous and most corporate people don’t want to take that risk.

So one of the base qualifying criteria for you, when you enter into a market with a new technology is to identify the N-1 technology that will be needed for your prospects to have a smooth transition to your technology.

I can give multiple examples from my failures – we thought of coming out with a Virtual assistant with an avatar to which you could ask questions or get a job done, exactly like a person assigned to you. But for that the microphones had to be so good that they would transmit the sound clearly. Most people didn’t have that and we failed.

Sometimes it could be a combination of technologies involved at stage N-1, not just a single one. Taking the same example that I listed above, we also need to have good internet connections and good cloud usage. Since a lot of people did not have a large bandwidth, they were not able to perceive, how this solution would get deployed in their environment.

I hope with this episode of my my blog, you have been able to also get some “Aha” moment on why some of your cases got stalled, even though, initially the customer was ga-ga on your new technology platform.

Till next time then.

Carpe Diem!!!

P.S: In case you are launching a new technology based product/service in the B2B market and you have a time constraint, just ask me for the list by sending me a mail on animeshjmathur@gmail.com.

Single Target Market- once again

B2B, differentiation, Marketing, messaging, Product Management, route to market, segmentation, single target market

This is such a major piece in any market plan that I cannot lay enough emphasis on the topic. I have already written a lot of posts on just this one topic , but there’s so much at stake in your plan with just this one concept that its critical that you get this right.

Some would call this segmentation, some would call it finding a niche. Call it by whatever name, the idea is to start in a minimum viable piece of the market, learn everything and then expand. Never ever try to address all segments at once.

You can segment by geography- so choose only one location to start, or you could look at a vertical industry to start with if you are in the B2B market.

One useful way to find the Single Target market is also by usage. Suppose you have a service and as an example say you decide to focus on New York City. But NYC has 9 million people. So you could then either break it down by identifying the neighborhood because different parts of NYC have different buyers in terms of paying capacity.

You could then go further down to see if your service is for first time users, or for emergency usage, or a a replacement service etc.

Once break it down to such granularity each interaction with a prospect becomes a learning and you can quickly understand and test different messaging, different media etc. so that you can quickly dominate the market.

If you are in anyway responsible for product management and going to launch a new product or service or in marketing in a similar situation first get clarity on this aspect.

Till next time then.

Carpe Diem!!!

Riding the elephant- you still need to market

B2B, Marketing, need, relationships, Riding the elephant, route to market, Symbiotic relationship

While I keep harping about the advantages of using my philosophy of riding the elephant. You need to be aware that, at the end of the day you need to keep your marketing principles in mind over there also.

I have written on some ofvthese points earlier also, but its important to identify the need of the elephant. The elephant has to see the benefits of giving you a ride.

This is a critical aspect, because if you try to tell the elephant about your capabilities to cut branches of trees, then the elephant may not be interested in you. On the other hand if you show the elephant that you can help him get bananas faster, it may become your friend and give you a ride. However some elephants may not be interested in bananas, so you may end up missing judging and spending time in convincing the wrong elephant.

Year before last, we invested a lot of time in building a solution on one of the biggest cloud service providers. We had a unique solution and we thought that the cloud service provider would take us along where they saw prospects. But inspite of spending more than a year we realized that the technology platform that we were working on was not a priority for them in India. So this elephant was not interested in the fact that we could help it get bananas faster, because it was not interested in eating bananas.

So whether you are going out on your own or you are using my philosophy of riding an elephant you still need to identify that one need in the market which you can address.

Till next time then.

Carpe Diem!!!

Riding the elephant- once again

Marketing, Product Management, route to market, Symbiotic relationship

Today’s post is a short one. You all know my philosophy for a small business in the technology space- ride a large OEM (the elephant) and wherever the elephant goes, you get a ride . In case you are interested I had written around 4-5 posts earlier in the year on this whole philosophy.

Today’s post is about how my team has used the same concept. I have trained some of my team members into following this philosophy and while it took them some time to learn the techniques of first learning to give before asking and building long term relationships.

It took about 8-9 months with our technical and marketing working closely with the OEM to keep building solutions on their platforms without any desire for business.

But now that so many of the OEM’s people see the kind of investments we have made and our commitment to their business, they themselves have started taking us forward.

We are still no way near reaching the full potential of what’s possible with the relationship, but if my team does it right then it can have a snowball effect.

Till next time then.

Carpe Diem!!!