Business development
@imveurope
www.imveurope.com
Best practice for SMEs to build business
Dominique Bonnisseau and Corinne Tsamba from Tematys advise on the questions technology firms should ask in order to grow their business
T
he majority of photonic and imaging SMEs will, at some time, experience sales being
below the expectations set in their business plan. Except for a few early adopters, the majority of potential customers take a long time to adopt innovative products. CEOs and sales managers oſten struggle with this self-assessment: ‘I don’t understand – my product is perfect, innovative, but sales are below forecast and are taking much more time than I expected!’ Tis article recommends a set of
best practices for SMEs in photonics and imaging and machine vision, to ask the right questions and make decisions with a thorough understanding of their situation.
Some prerequisites To minimise risk when launching a product, your company should not only be prepared with a business plan and market studies, but the offer should be immediately understandable to your target audience. Te product should be solution-oriented with the right pricing policy. In business development, your technology counts, but so does the human side of the process.
What is your short-term projection? Firstly, define where you want to be in the next three years;
then, establish a business plan. Market studies will provide some information to help get a clear vision of your company. Having a clear vision of your
objectives will make day-to-day decisions much easier. As a matter of fact, setting goals is part of any business development project, as well as defining your targets. As such, your objectives should be very specific and include a list of desired customers. We strongly recommend selecting a minimum of 30 commercial targets in your prospect plan. Of these 30 targets, on average 10 to 15 will not be available, five to 10 will not be interested, and two to five contacts will be interested and will require follow-up action. For startups, it is not realistic
to aim for a world-leading market position as a short-term goal. A short-term priority might start with
14 Imaging and Machine Vision Europe • Yearbook 2019/2020
focusing your efforts and actions with the aim of becoming profitable. In addition, the different time-
related constraints should be considered. For instance, a company diversifying from engineering activities to camera production ought to take into account the time needed to explain the change to existing customers, but also to convince new ones that the company is indeed ready to deliver industrial products – on time, with the requisite quality and associated service.
What does the market demand? Your decision to launch a product might be driven either by your competitive edge or by the ‘disruption’ you bring to the market. In this regard, potential customers should be able to understand
immediately the benefits to be gained from using your product. Tose advantages might be: lower price; better performance; smaller footprint; smarter control; better service, such as delivery or aſter-sale services; or lower cost. Terefore, any communication
should be oriented for solutions with the new performance in mind. For example, let’s imagine a company providing high resolution cameras with a high frame rate, which has developed a new frame grabber with fibre optic transmission. In this case, the solution promises the user the full performance of the sensor, which is not provided by its competitors.
Remember a pricing policy Oſten side-lined, a pricing policy should be integrated in a strategic decision. In the context of photonics and imaging markets, advertising the price alone is not enough. Te price should be associated with other factors, such as the advantages the product brings to the customer, the company’s service, and the sale conditions. It is important to remember that
the customer ought to understand how they benefit from buying from you, which is not only related to the technology. Pricing should be defined before discussions take
Human interaction still holds a
significant place in business-to-business purchasing, particularly for SMEs and startups
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