blogging
“It’s the best damn marketing tool”
Thanks to IIA Member Oracle‘s Frank Bradley for bringing my attention to the following short video.
I’ve been blogging since 2003 (not here on my personal blog) and much of that blogging was, I presumed, never read by anyone. But every once in a while someone would mention my blog to me in conversation or I would receive a comment and it would all click into place and inspire me to keep going. As more people use social media tools and more of those tools help us broadcast our content (e.g. Twitter, Facebook, Friendfeed) and help us collect, sort, digest and engage with others’ content there will be less blogging in the dark. Some fear that there will be just less blogging and I understand this fear. However I think that a blog should be the backbone of your social media presence, allowing you to expand on the ideas that attract people to you (and your brand if you’re representing a business) in other social media. It also allows you to develop ideas and conversations in your own space.
However reading about Disqus, “a real time comment system”, makes me realise that services like this will give commenters just as much control and ownership of their content as the bloggers who inspired the comment. This acknowledges the importance of commenting and rightly so. It’s been a while since I used a comment management system. I tried one maybe two years ago and it was very clunky but I must give this a go again.
Anyway over to Seth and Tom!
Uncategorized
Cloud Computing in Ireland: share your experience
If you don’t know what SaaS, PaaS and IaaS mean and you want to find out, please complete our quick survey by clicking this link www.readydynamics.com/survey (it really does only take 5 minutes to complete).
All respondents will receive a complimentary copy of the working group’s Whitepaper (working title: Cloud Computing in Ireland) which is being written in collaboration with all the major cloud vendors (Google, IBM, Microsoft, Salesforce, Supplierforce, etc.) and some major Irish enterprises.
One respondent – chosen randomly – will receive 2 tickets for the IIA Cloud Computing Working Group event to be held in the Autumn. Details will be posted on the Events section of the site as they are confirmed.
This research has the potential to be a valuable indicator of Ireland’s adoption of cloud computing, whether its potential is living up to its promise, and identifying the barriers to greater adoption. Your participation in this survey is appreciated and will help all Irish businesses benefit from the cloud.
Guest Blogger, International Strategy Working Group
International Strategy Working Group Case Study: VigiTrust
Case study put together by the IIA International Strategy Working Group reviewing the success and experience of Irish based entrepreneurs internationalizing their businesses
Company: VigiTrust
Interviewee: Mathieu Gorge, Founder & CEO
Date: August 14, 2009
Written by: Una Coleman, Codegaconsulting, member IIA International Strategy Working Group
Synopsis of company
Mathieu Gorge is CEO of VigiTrust, a specialist solutions provider in security assessments, compliance and security e-learning. Founded in Dublin in 2003 by Mathieu, VigiTrust is rapidly building a global reputation as a niche leader specialising in Cyber-crime, the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) and ISO 27001 focusing on human aspects of security including social engineering and awareness training. VigiTrust already works with and leverages references from Blue Chip clients. It advises numerous tier 1 banks and retailers as well as government departments on how to design, develop and implement durable security strategies. Mathieu’s articles are published in the ISSA Journal and Computer Fraud Security Journal
VigiTrust is based in Dublin with US offices in NYC.
1. Why internationalise – what were the drivers?
A desire to be an entrepreneur
Mathieu’s and VigiTrust’s story is not unlike many other entrepreneurs and start-ups. He had an overriding drive to set-up his own business, coupled with a passion to bring something new to the security market. He had spent several years in the corporate world, acting as a sales person, project manager and product manager in the security re-selling space building a reputation as an industry expert.
Responding to market demands
VigiTrust started out as a service provider, with a focus on data protection. Back in 2003, there was much less emphasis on data protection, more on firewalls and anti-virus software and solutions. As Mathieu leveraged his existing network and reputation, he quickly found he and VigiTrust were being sucked back into the security re-seller space. It would take another few years for the market to mature to the point where VigiTrust could offer a differentiated service around its initial ambitions for data security.
A global play
In the meantime, VigiTrust was generating revenue and gaining a reputation as a thought leader. VigiTrust was delivering security workshops in Dublin and London and consulting on governance and compliance.
At the same time, the market was moving to greater demands for governance and compliance – driven in the very early years by the Worldcom and Enron scandals, more recently the Bernard Madoff debacle. It was clear that VigiTrust would need to have a global reputation and be a global player if it was to be successful in this space and give itself a future exit option. The US was leading the field of governance and compliance: it would be a key market within which to gain a reputation as a solutions provider and the launch pad into other countries.
As the business model matured, VigiTrust exploited the opportunity to productize its offering through its e-learning tools and build real IP (intellectual property) in the company.
2. How did you win your first client? How influential was winning your first client in developing the market?
Winning that all important client (not necessarily the first client) was enormously influential in setting VigiTrust on the path to internationalization and success. Like many others before, it was down to a mix of previously established reputation, hard work and luck. In 2004 it won a tender with the Dept. of Justice, which opened up a lot of doors. In mid 2005, a small German company was looking for security experience to manage the inherent dangers of using multi-functional printers. Mathieu’s reputation and google key word search won VigiTrust the gig. As it turned out this company was the path to VigiTrust’s first multinational, corporate client, HP. A one day consulting contract with HP quickly lead to 100 days to eventually allow VigiTrust to becoming HP’s Imaging and Printing Group de facto external security consultants. At one of those early meetings with HP EMEA, one of the HP IPG’s senior executives said to Mathieu, “This is going to be very successful for your company”.
“Success brings success”, says Mathieu Gorge. VigiTrust leveraged the HP client reference which then helped it win a contract with MasterCard in New York.
3. What needed to be in place?
- A differentiator: technology and subject matter expertise. It’s important to identify your USP (unique selling point).
- Positioning as a thought leader with deep experience in the security field.
- A strong understanding of the competitive environment: your ideal and “no go” customers: the decision makers and decision making process.
- A relevant market offering.
- An understanding of one’s strategic position.
- Understanding the requirement to think about strategic development whilst progressing on day-to-day basis at a tactical level (long term vs short-term goals and ambitions)
4. What were the main challenges / obstacles?
Lack of experience as an entrepreneur and in running a business.
5. How did you overcome them?
Tapping into all the support structures and expertise that is available in Ireland: Enterprise Ireland, Dublin Enterprise Board (mentoring and coaching), Dublin BIC.
6. What activities were most successful in achieving success?
Mathieu is an evangelist for the work of EI and believes the Irish brand, particularly in the space of security and e-learning, positions Ireland (and Irish companies) on the global map for expertise.
7. What are your most effective routes to market and why?
Growth for VigiTrust is predicated on building sales through local Channel Partners. While VigiTrust’s current model has the opportunity of being a pure internet play – doing business through the internet, enabled by web-based applications and SaaS (software as a service), a sales process supported by reputation, client references, white papers, webinars, web demos, VigiTrust believes that it will need to have a physical presence in each of its key markets to substantially build its revenue and support its Channel Partner Distribution model.
The Channel Partners will give you the cultural plug-in.
8. What markets did you focus on?
As previously noted, the US is a key market for VigiTrust. It now has a sales office in New York.
Even though Mathieu is French, he says Enterprise Ireland’s support, in conjunction with the Irish Embassy in Paris, has opened the French market much more so than his French nationality.
Contrary to popular perception, VigiTrust has not found the UK an easy market to penetrate. This is not least due to strong competition and limited resources to dedicate to opening up and maintaining a presence in several countries at this stage in its maturity. VigiTrust believes that the decision making process and buying patterns in the UK are different to that of other western countries.
9. What were the key learnings? (legal, tax, language, culture)?
Localisation
As a small, but growing company, managing marketing materials and websites in several languages is difficult. For now, VigiTrust’s main website and marketing material is in English, with front page local language websites to come shortly in French and German. This includes website translation (at a minimum), localised sales and marketing materials, local SEO, creation of press packs etc.
Mathieu delivers his conference presentations in English and French. For German speaking audiences he uses slides in German and delivers either in German or English. He can participate in conference Q&A in these 3 languages. He believes this gives him a cultural edge.
Channel Partners (CP)
One must be committed to one’s CPs. Continual training and support of the CP is essential as is a CP programme. Mathieu praises Dublin BIC for the support they give them in developing a CP programme.
It is easier to recruit CPs when you have reference clients in their respective markets.
Exchange Rate
The exchange rate can have an impact on one’s sales and marketing budget and the opportunity cost of opening up new markets: eg UK is now more cost-effective to target as it was when exchange rate was GBP 1 = 1.5 Euro. Young organizations need to understand the opportunity cost and not just focus on the size of the market.
Finance & accounting
Get yourself a good management account: an outsource model works well. You must understand the tax system (in different countries).
Cash is king. Having an early understanding of accounting is valuable – P&L, Balance Sheet, Cashflow statements.
The importance of having a Business Plan from the outset and revising at least yearly.
Scale and market credibility
In the US, large buyer organizations like to meet their supplier shareholders. If you are a HPSU, (High Potential Start-up) with EI as a shareholder, use it!
10. What marketing initiatives have you used to support your internationalization?
Building a public profile
Much of Mathieu’s marketing efforts were focused on writing articles and white papers (in English, and French – 2 languages in which he is comfortable), attending conferences, and eventually, being invited to present at conferences in the US, UAE, Hong-Kong, Germany, France, the UK and Ireland.
Participating in the right networks
It’s easy to waste time in the early days networking in the wrong places. Identify the business and subject matter networks for your industry: for instance the PCI council (there are only 3 or 4 Irish members – 79 in Europe).
The Irish American business community and networks are very powerful.
Leveraging client references and testimonials
SEO
Some SEO activity in local markets.
11. What advice would you would give companies starting out on internationalization?
- Recognise where you don’t have skills: work with people who’ve done it before.
- Be mindful of what is realistic for you to achieve.
- Be prepared to make sacrifices but be aware of the impact of your entrepreneurial zealousness on your family and personal relationships: understand family obligations.
12. What are your future plans with respect to internationalization?
VigiTrust has identified its Tier 1 markets as: US and Canada to be followed by Tier 2: UK, Germany and France and Tier 3: Brazil and Australia.
It already has sales and clients in the US, Canada, Ireland, Germany and France.
VigiTrust is building an international business to give itself a 3 year exist strategy.
Guest Blogger, training
What can an iPhone App do for your business?
A guest post from Daniel Heffernan who is the tutor for App School which is run by IIA Member Company SQT Training.
Last month App School was mentioned here on the IIA blog and since then it has had its first run. There was a really great cross-section of students from all over the industry, which included professional developers, a CEO, a third level student and a staff member from an Institute of Technology. Most had never programmed on any Apple system before, and a few did not even own one, but by the end of the week everyone had made a lot of progress. A few days in a couple of students managed to get a 2D physics simulation going, with a button rolling around the screen and bouncing off the edges! On the last day we had a couple of Twitter clients working (and that’s including profile picture support!)
Some of the students were developing their own personal or business applications during the course, and now there are four apps (that I know about at least) on their way to the App Store from App School students. Some of these apps will display information to users that they would normally access through a website, but what can an iPhone app do that a website can’t? Well, there are few obvious ways that the user experience can be enhanced for your customers with iPhone-specific features.
Looking at the very tip top of the iceberg:
- The iPhone can store data to be made available offline. This has worked out very well for Patrick Collison‘s Encyclopedia app, which gives users access to Wikipedia when they do not have internet connectivity.
- Apps can use the iPhone’s GPS location to find information local to your customer. This is core to many travel apps, restaurant review apps, hotel reservation apps, and social networking apps.
- The user can take photos and upload them to you. Yelp‘s app allows users take photos of restaurants and upload these for other users to see. Just about any Flickr app will let you do this too.
- With a bit of effort, the multi-touch screen and the 3D graphics support can be leveraged to allow customers interact with your business in a way not possible on a desktop computer.
While on the topic of interaction, people enjoy using their iPhones and this can really help if you rely on user-submitted data for you service (“Web 2.0”, if you like to call it that). Above, I mentioned getting the phone’s GPS location, and getting access to the phone’s camera. You can go beyond GPS co-ordinates, photos, bits of user-entered text, email address/phone numbers selected from the address book though, and upload data-types specific to your service. Ocarina is one of my favourite apps and allows users play music by blowing into the microphone while pressing “holes” on the screen. This lets the iPhone work as an ocarina, a wind instrument. Music played by the user is uploaded to some server, along with the user’s location. Users than then explore a 3D earth and hear songs played by users from all around the world.
If you allow customers upload this information to you, what could you do with it? Can you think of how that could add value to your service?
There are so many exciting possibilities with this platform. If you don’t have access to an iPhone or iPod touch to try out some apps for yourself, there are plenty of video demonstrations online. There is definitely something there for everyone… after all, the App Store really does have an app for everything!
App School is run by IIA member SQT Training Ltd.
user experience
Upgrade your browser pleeeeeeaaaase
On behalf of our members and all the right thinking people of the world if you are going to surf the web try to do it in the newest browser possible. This means, at time of writing, depending on your own tastes and the type of operating system (OS) you are running you should be using Internet Explorer 8, Firefox 3, Opera 9.64, Safari 4 or Google Chrome. Clicking on any of those links will bring you to the latest version. There are also other browser types available but these are the most commonly used. Click here to find out more about Browser statistics.
Now, of course, I am aware that in some larger organisations the end user doesn’t control the software that is installed on their machine. However if your job involves you using a browser you should encourage the powers that be to let you do your job to the best of your ability by installing the latest technology.
Why do we give a hoot what browser version you are using? Here’s why:
- Developers and designers have their hearts broken trying to create brilliant websites that cover multiple browser types. They will generally be realistic and develop/design for the latest version minus one so if you’re using IE6 you’re currently a heartbreaker.
- IE6 in particular is considered a low point in browser history. Don’t just take my word for it. Read this, this, and this for starters.
- This leads to item no 3. Money saving: The Bring down IE6 campaign suggests that the 20% of web users using IE6 are “business users” “who “pressure designers to ’force’ sites to work in IE6, and designers, not wanting to lose business, comply, using hacks and workarounds. This wastes time and money.” That time and money (your time and money!) could be spent more cost-effectively surely?
- Security: the latest browser versions will generally protect you against the latest web-borne security threats. Generally. I’m not getting into a discussion about bugs in browsers and hacks but I’ll moderate one if you wish to leave a comment on this issue. I’m not a security expert but I’m hoping some of our readers might be able to expand on this in the comments below.
- Because browsers are free. It’s nice to get free stuff isn’t it?
- Just to be cool, like. One of the most fun events I attended last year was the Firefox 3 launch party 🙂
Vacancies
Interested in being a CEO of a national organisation?
As anyone who receives our newsletter, reads this blog or our website will know, Fergal O’Byrne, our current CEO, is moving on. I’ve really enjoyed working with him and I’ve learnt a lot from him and I’ll be sorry to see him go. Our loss is definitely Sonru.com‘s gain!
<Long appropriate pause>
However I’m always excited by the prospect of meeting and working with new people so why not apply for the role of CEO? (Note: my interest in meeting & working with new people should not be your only motivation for expressing an interest in this role. Check out the job specification in PDF format.)
The IIA Board are welcoming expressions of interest. Due to the treacle time of summer they have decided to extend the original deadline by two weeks until 6pm Friday 21st August. You can read more about the process in this PDF.
Again these are just expressions of interest so if you think you might be interested, go for it. The subsequent process will help you and the board decide if it’s the job for you.
Please don’t ask me, Roseanne, any specific questions about this opportunity because I am not directly involved of course. However get in touch and I will be happy to direct you to the relevant Board member who can discuss the role in more depth.
And if you do decide to go for it – GOOD LUCK!
Uncategorized
Are you generating sufficient revenues from international markets?
Click here to take a short, 5 minute survey.
The IIA International Strategy Working Group will be holding a seminar in the Autumn to help organisations better tap into international revenues using the Internet. In advance of this seminar, called “Growing international revenues using the Internet”, we are looking to identify how we can best meet your areas of interest. It would be great if you could complete our short survey.
Your responses are private and anonymised and will only be used by the IIA and the working group for this purpose.
Check back later in the summer for more details of this event.
International Strategy Working Group
Going Global
The IIA International Strategy Working Group had their inaugural meeting last month and they were straight out of the starting blocks!
Many Irish organisations are already generating significant revenues from International markets, but could we help you improve on this and how are you performing compared to the market?
Click here to take a short, 5 minute survey.
The IIA International Strategy Working Group will be holding a seminar in the Autumn to help organisations better tap into international revenues using the Internet. In advance of this seminar, called “Growing international revenues using the Internet”, we are looking to identify how we can best meet your areas of interest. It would be great if you could complete our short survey.
Your responses are private and anonymised and will only be used by the IIA and the working group for this purpose.
Check back later in the summer for more details of this event. The Working Group will also post here regularly to keep you updated.