Kiwi hi-tech companies are staying in the start-up stage for too long, the recently released Market Measures study shows.
Conducted by marketing advisory firms Concentrate and Swaytech, and sponsored by New Zealand Trade & Enterprise, the annual Market Measures survey drew data from over 300 New Zealand-based technology companies on their approach to marketing and selling their products overseas.
“Tech is New Zealand’s most exciting industry, but commentators often underestimate the huge challenge of marketing and selling our innovations offshore”, says Owen Scott, Managing Director of Concentrate.
“Our tech companies are developing world class innovations, but too few of them realise their potential as they struggle to cost-effectively scale their sales activity,” says Scott.
Sharon-May McCrostie, Customer Manager at NZTE, says: “We’re seeing more Kiwi hi-tech companies executing competitive and truly innovative strategies and achieving game-changing results. But as the Market Measures study suggests, we still see companies staying in start-up mode for too long. We urge companies going offshore to relentlessly focus and invest in execution to really bring benefits to themselves and to New Zealand and grow bigger, better and faster.”
The Market Measures 2016 report found that while 60% of the companies in the survey were over 10 years old, 35% had annual revenues of less than $1 million and only 2% generated more than $50 million in turnover.
“New Zealand’s hi-tech industry is a few large companies and a long tail of small businesses. The challenge for the small firms is extracting themselves from the long tail of hi-tech exporters by finding cost-effective ways to achieve substantial growth,” says Bob Pinchin, Director of Swaytech.
According to Scott, if hi-tech companies are to mature faster, they need to take a more strategic approach to marketing and sales.
“To break out of the long tail trap, companies need to follow a three step approach. First they have to . . .
