Enterprise IT vendors goal is to operate in the WW stage. Besides the financial rewards, other market realities drive this goal: information about technology vendors could be accessed from any corner of the world; large banks, telecoms, retails, airlines, etc., are found in all regions of the world; innovating companies with sophisticated customer engagement processes are doing business in all major metropolitan areas; and the skipping of technology waves in less advanced economies that allows then to catch-up faster to new technology models. Many times, these market facts run ahead to the vendor’s implementation plans.
Although, there are exceptions for some specific solutions due to factors such as cloud infrastructure and very larger deployment size, in most cases, after initial validation in markets like the US or Europe, most information technology vendors have a solution ready for a world-wide roll-out.
IT vendors’ strategic intent to go global is slowed-down by the efforts needed to operationalize their business model in a new region, which results in a “linear” implementation of a commercial strategy, that in the case of US-based firms, is to address the local market and Canada, then expand into Europe plus major markets in Middle East and Africa first, then ASIA, and finally Latin America. This linear, slower commercial approach reflects the real complexity and risk associated with entering a new regional market, but leaves the door open for a competitor to establish itself first and build a market moat.
Is it possible to accelerate WW revenues adopting a more flexible, multi-regional, coextensive commercial implementation? Besides the not very effective trial and error, reactive approach, IT vendors have different ways to pro-actively answer this question:
- Develop a web-based B-B solution to gain new customers world-wide. This approach requires solutions that have been defined from the ground-up with this objective in mind in-order-to avoid the support of any direct sales and/or partners in the sales cycle. Atlassian, a provider of solutions for software developers, is a good example of this model.
In Latin America, even this “sales-free” approach, may require partners and business development resources to accelerate industry acceptance rates, transact in local currency, and provide services like installation, consulting, training, managed hosting, and first level support with local resources and in the country’s language. - Rely on a business development/consulting company, with deep knowledge in the region, to ensure the optimal implementation of the IT vendor business model in the new market. The business development/consulting company execution will include doing the initial market validation, choosing and implement the route-to-market and selecting the right players, and developing the first customer references. Preferable, the relationship with this third party should be correlated to revenues to avoid any major financial exposure. At one point of this relationship, 12-24 months into the engagement, IT vendors will have gathered enough market intelligence and have a known business run rate to next level business decision on the region.
LinkIT LATAM’s support IT vendors regardless the approach they take; our value proposition fits both:
“LinkIT LATAM provides Information Technology vendors with sound business decision making and flexible commercial capabilities to generate revenues faster with low cost and risk in Latin America.”