By Francis Moran
Ottawa technology entrepreneurs were reminded again this morning that India is the world’s second-fastest growing market encompassing 1.1 billion consumers, 300 million of them middle class and about 500 million of them under 25, and that with a confluence of manpower, money and a can-d0 attitude, it’s a market most technology companies will want to consider.
At the same time, Peter Sommerer, a veteran of Ottawa’s telecom sector who now advises companies on how to do business on the sub-continent, warned that there are still many challenges associated with chasing that opportunity. Quoting his former boss and current investment partner Terry Matthews, Sommerer said, “If it wasn’t easy, everyone would be doing it.”
Sommerer, who heads up consulting firm Erlauf Holding, was speaking to the regular Dollars and Sense CFO’s forum along with Raj Narula, co-founder of TaraSpan Group, which also helps companies explore business opportunities in India. The two also presented what they called a platform that has been developed by TaraSpan and Matthews’s private investment company, Wesley Clover, that technology companies can use to expedite their entry into the Indian market.
By Linda Forrest
At the outset of an engagement with a new client, we have a checklist of materials that we need to develop for the media and analysts to whom we are about to roll out the company, in order for these influencers to gain a comprehensive understanding of the company and its offerings. This includes, but is not necessarily limited to, backgrounders on the company and the technology, biographies of key spokespeople, a fact sheet that provides information at a glance, and a news release to front the information package. Still, there are additional materials that are of great value and that ideally should be available at the time of the launch.
Chief among these additional materials is images. We work hard to ensure that the printed words that we’re sending out on our clients’ behalf do a good job of telling their story, but as the adage goes, a picture tells a thousand words. If your company offers products, have available high-resolution (minimum 300 dpi) images of the product in action that would be suitable for printing alongside your product announcement. If your key spokespeople will be quoted in the media, or if you plan on sending out hiring announcements, high-resolution images of your company’s executive team or that new hire will be requested. It’s also good to have your company logo available to any outlet that might be interested.
Rather than sending all of this information unsolicited to media and analyst targets, just have materials at the ready and when requests come in, they’re easily fulfilled. Another, and perhaps the best approach, is to have a fully stocked newsroom on your web site that houses all of the components I’ve listed above. I’ll address our best practices approach on web newsrooms, and links to some sites that do it particularly well, in a future post.
