Case Study: Entering a New Market & Preparing the Grounds for Business Development

26/11/15

Yesterday Moshe Sharet and Hillel Porath had the privilege of sharing two case studies with the Hutchison Kinrot's portfolio companies.

(Hutchison Kinrot is a global leader seed investor in water and Cleantech related technologies.)

The case studies were related to Skylimit clients in the agriculture and water tech industries.

Here is one important part of the case study we discussed yesterday.

Introduction:

When a company is ready to enter a new market and would like to begin the process of identifying and connecting with the most relevant partners (reps, distributors, etc..) in that market, Very often they'll find the channel partner research process very confusing and time consuming.

With out relevant and accurate information on potential channel partners - companies cannot move forward with business development efforts.

That's where Skylimit comes in. (Skylimit is the parent company of the IsraelExporter.com)

I would just like to share with you the thought process that goes into the research. Proper research prepares the grounds for business development

Case Study:

A water tech company expressed interest in entering the French market and they approached Skylimit for help

See image below - (and our incredible design skills :)

This is France and we have a water tech company that would like to enter this market.

In order to "organize" the research process we take the following different approaches:

Keywords: probably the most important. How do water tech distributors in France define themselves ..in French? Do they call themselves reps? suppliers? distributors? Having the exact keywords is like having a road map. This will help us navigate the market and find the right people we need.

Competitors: Who are my competitors in France? who are they selling to? Do they have a regional distributor who deals with local dealers? Who are these local dealers? Do they have a regional sales director selling directly to end users?

Local -vs- National: Are their local dealers/distributors selling to a wide range of companies within a specific area? Are their distributors who are covering the entire country?

Crowd Sourcing: If the methods mentioned above have failed - we will use crowd sourcing techniques in order to get the information we need on potential channel partners.

See image here

We know that a distributor exists somewhere in France and we also know that distributors are usually connected to other professionals in their industry and market, such as: consultants, end users, industry professionals etc..

In a nutshell: We will approach those people "surrounding the information" we need and ask them if they could recommend names of distributors. There is a great deal of leg work here - but it can deliver very powerful results and people will often share very valuable information which we would have never found on our own.

Guerrilla tactics/marketing: when all chips are down (although this is very rare) we will engage in an aggressive marketing campaign to attract potential leads.

Moving Forward:

Once the research is prepared - the Skylimit team can move forward with the business development efforts (we have a french speaking manager for projects in France)

Questions? - feel free to ask: hillel.porath@skylimit.co.il

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