Uncategorized
Partner with the IIA and deliver top quality training courses
Benefit from being associated with the IIA brand and reach over 550 organisations and more than 6,000 IIA followers. Further to the survey of our members, the IIA is now inviting tenders for its training partners 2010. Download the Tender Document from the Resources section and submit your tender by Friday 27th November 2009. Training partners will be selected by 11th December and all tender applicants will be notified directly of the outcome thereafter. All those tendering must be fully paid up members of the IIA.
As well as hands-on courses, the IIA is constantly seeking speakers for our seminars, breakfast and evening events around the country. If you would like to be added to our speaker panel, please fill in the Call for Speakers 2010 form and email it to Irene (events@iia.ie) by 27 November 2009.
Anonymised results of our events survey will be released to members in November. Thanks to all who participated!
And finally the lucky winner of 2 tickets for both Congress and the Net Visionary Awards 2010 is Facundo Villaveiran of Channelship Ltd.
Uncategorized
Special offer for IIA.ie readers: Free advertising on Mugurdy.com, the visual search engine
To trial their ad platform and for research purposes, Mugurdy are planning to place graphic advertising on the search results page. They are seeking trial advertisers. The trial advertisers will receive reports on the number of impressions, click through rates, geographical breakdown etc. The trial will run for a month and there is no charge to the advertiser for the ads or reporting.
If you would like your company to participate in this trial at no cost, all that is required is a 160px by 600px graphic, the landing page the user is brought to, and the geographic regions across the globe (or everywhere) the advertiser wishes to target. Please send this information and the graphic to jimmy@mugurdy.com or contact for further details.
Congress 2010
Stick your oar in! Share your views on Events & Congress 2010
Many of you have completed our recent survey (and there’s still time – it remains open until 5pm today) where we picked your brains on what kind of events, formats and prices you would like to see in our events calendar in 2010. Our events manager, Irene Dehaene, in particular would like to thank you very much. She and I would also like to remind you that there’s not only still time but also a chance that you might win two tickets for the 2010 IIA Congress & Net Visionary Awards taking place next May.
Speaking of which we would also love to do a bit of online brainstorming with you, our resourceful readers, here on our blog. What themes would you like to see addressed at next year’s Congress? What are the biggest opportunities for online business that you would like to hear more about? What are the biggest pitfalls that you need more information to avoid? What have you been reading, watching, hearing about that you think more businesses here need to know about? Have you had a revelatory experience using a new technology that you think would make an awesome case study? Have you heard an inspiring speaker that you think all Irish online business people should have an opportunity to hear? What other questions could I possibly ask to get your brainstorming buds a-tingling?
Don’t worry about what themes we addressed in previous Congresses, don’t worry about whether you’ve attended before or not, just speak (write) your mind.
I have a ticket for next year’s Congress for the best comment below so please stick your oar in!
Uncategorized
WebsiteSpark: Microsoft’s new support programme for small web design and development shops
In the last year, over 300 companies in Ireland and Northern Ireland have benefited from business and development support from the Microsoft BizSpark program.
WebsiteSpark is Microsoft’s new program to help small web design and development shops by providing them with three things essential to their success at no upfront cost:
- Visibility through a marketplace and well as connections through marketing and business networking programs
- Support of all kinds, from tech support and training to a network of other development shops, hosting partners, developers and designers, and
- Tools to build products for your customers: Windows Server and IIS, SQL Server, Visual Studio, Expression and more.
If your company’s primary business is providing web development and design services and it has 10 or fewer people including owners and employees, it’s eligible for WebsiteSpark ! You’ll save money on tools and technology, benefit from support and training and gain an advantage through opportunities to meet new customers and technology partners. It’s visibility, support and tools — what a small web shop needs — all in a nice little package.
The IIA is a Network Partner on WebSiteSpark so please feel free to contact info@iia.ie to get involved.
For more information about WebsiteSpark , visit the WebsiteSpark site and see how Microsoft can help your web company succeed!
This initiative was launched at the last TechLudd Social Networking event where Microsoft celebrated the success and growth of the organizations involved in Bizspark and the plans for WebSiteSpark.
When? October 20th, 7pm.
Where? The Guinness Storehouse, Dublin 8
International Strategy Working Group
International Strategy Working Group Case Study: RevaHealth
Case study compiled by the IIA International Strategy Working Group reviewing the success and experience of Irish based entrepreneurs internationalizing their Businesses.
This case study is also available to download as a a PDF from the Resources Section of IIA.ie
Caelen King, interviewed below, is confirmed as a speaker in the IIA International Strategy Working Group’s upcoming event. Information about this event will be made available as the details are confirmed. Please see our events page or sign up for our Monthly Digital Digest and regular Events Alerts.
Company: www.RevaHealth.com
Interviewee: Caelen King, CEO
Date: September 27, 2009
Written by: Una Coleman www.codegaconsulting.comSynopsis of company
RevaHealth.com is a healthcare search engine – a web portal gathering and providing information about health clinics around the world, displayed comparably. In e-business terms, it is a pure play business – a company that originated and does business purely through the internet. There are lower barriers to entry but the internet affords smaller companies the ability to compete with much larger brands due to typically lower overhead and marketing costs.
Its revenue generating customers are health clinics, such as dentists, cosmetic surgery, medical tourism, laser eye care, chiropractors, fertility treatment to mention a few. Through the RevaHealth portal, clinics all over the world can have their services listed. The benefits to the customer are:
- Lead generation
- Building their brands online
- Savings in time and money
RevaHealth also takes care of the ultimate customer. The patient search is made easy. In the offline world, customers approach to information gathering is interruption based and time restricted. The prospective client rings the clinic, is often put on hold, asked to ring back later, or given information based on the time the clinician has between patients. And, it all happens during clinic hours as opposed to at the customer’s convenience. RevaHealth’s domain rich portal provides the customer with all the information he/she needs right there and then. It is a 21st century proposition responding to the demands of today’s customers.
RevaHealth has already aggregated all the relevant information for the patient by checking the clinics’ own websites: for instance to determine if they advertise their prices – they even phoned some clinics to see if they have parking, and they let patients share their experiences of the clinic. RevaHealth are experts in SEO and SEM (search engine optimization and search engine marketing).
RevaHealth is the technical online marketing partner of health clinics globally. It was set up in 2007 and now has over 110,000 clinics in 99 countries listed.
- Why internationalize – what were the drivers?
- the productization of healthcare,
- a growth in medical tourism,
- a socialized healthcare environment,
- demands by the consumer for greater choice and information,
- a fragmented market place.
- What markets did you focus on?
- What needed to be in place?
- A good enough back-end system.
- “A sound Business Plan that we returned to and iterated as our market knowledge grew”.
- No sacred cows: the business model evolved and significantly changed in the first trading year.
- What were the main challenges / obstacles? How did you overcome them?
- What activities were most successful in achieving success?
- Measuring everything.
- Following up on leads.
- Assessing the leads as prospects or not.
- Learning how to identify a “hot” clinic.
- What are your most effective routes to market and why?
- How did you win your first client?
- How influential was winning your first client in developing the market?
- What marketing initiatives have you used to support your internationalization?
- What were the key learnings? (legal, tax, language, culture)
- If you were doing it again, what would you do differently?
- What is the one piece of advice you would give companies starting out on internationalization?
RevaHealth was “Born Global” a term used to describe small technology oriented firms, targeting niche global markets as opposed to wide international markets and many industries, with little or no domestic market. The international experience of the founders weights heavily on the success of such companies.
RevaHealth’s proposition from the start was to become a global player. Its market opportunity in Ireland was always going to be small. It has operated in the international space from the start.
Caelen King also fits the profile to lead a “Born Global” company. He has previously worked with Baltimore Technologies, one of Ireland’s internationally successful indigenous technology companies.
A number of key market factors and drivers combined to create the opportunity for a new business offering to healthcare clinician providers:
The global healthcare market size is greater than €6 trillion.
RevaHealth selects territories based on market research and assessment. This is primarily desk research that it completes inhouse. It has broken down its markets as follows:
It also looks at markets where it can add value. Based on the outcome of its market research, it scrapes[1] data from the web on local clinics to post on its site. For example, take a look at their list of plastic surgery clinics in the UK or dentists in the UK. “Traffic comes to our site in unpredictable ways” according to Caelen King. Understanding the value in a territory is a discovery process. “Hot spots” emerge. A market is formed when consumer traffic reaches a critical level.
Human Resources: recruiting and attracting staff. It was not about the money. It was a challenge to attract seasoned and experienced staff on both the sales and technical side: to bring that mature level of expertise to jump-start the business. Seasoned and experienced people were not interested in giving up job security and stability to join a start-up. The entrepreneurial drive exhibited by early stage applicants was low.
Revahealth went to the universities and sought graduates hungry to learn in a short period of time, in an entrepreneurial environment. Now, its growing public profile in the Irish market place, particularly in the technology community and the positioning of its founder, Caelen King, as an online technology guru, guarantees interest from prospective employees for the future.
Competition (lack thereof): “We didn’t have any real competitors in our space. In fact we would have almost paid for serious competition.” Competitors not only validate a business proposition and market – they also help build it. “We were bringing something new to our niche. Our clients and prospects were unfamiliar and wary of the model. We didn’t have the actual business case to substantiate our proposition. It was theoretical”.
“We gave away stuff for free. We clearly articulated this was another route to market for our clients – we would not be cannibalizing their existing business. We provided compelling feedback and demonstrated measurable ROI (return on investment)”.
Building domain knowledge: RevaHealth differentiate itself from other information portals through focusing on a niche and really understanding that niche. Its travel budget is spent almost entirely on building domain expertise about the territories in which it operates.
Initially, it had to pay for traffic to the site through google ads. SEO initiatives can take up to 18 months to build decent google ranking. Now, it has almost no google ad campaigns.
The sales process is roughly 2 months with 4 – 6 phone calls and 4 – 6 emails. Its sales staff are 3rd level graduates, young, smart and tech savvy. They are Dublin based and they speak at least two languages.
All sales activities are measured and visible. Peer performance is a good motivator. The key driver in the sales process is early completion.
RevaHealth is now looking at identifying Channel Partners as a route to market to support its sales and market growth objectives.
RevaHealth’s first client came about from a Belgian customer query about weight loss. The €500 spent on champagne celebrating that first and early win (after the site was up for just 3 months) far outweighed the €10 subscription fee. The client is still with them, now on an annual subscription of €1,500.
More than anything else, it gave the team a great confidence boost at that early stage. It also validated the business model, provided the business case and reference site to attract new customers. Winning early was enormously influential.
In the tradition of a pure internet play business, most of RevaHealth’s marketing is online: SEO and SEM with metrics underpinning all activities. Google is the 2nd most trusted form of information for consumers. Link building is also a key marketing task.
It is now looking at Channel Partners as a route to market and is starting to create marketing material to support its positioning as online technology experts delivering niche business processes to business driven healthcare providers. This will be a mix of offline and online marketing.
RevaHealth uses social networking platforms. Follow @revahealth & @phil_revahealth on twitter: it uses its blog, http://blog.revahealth.com/ to comment on technical issues and build its profile as online business process experts.
It has not localized either its website or marketing materials. However, all its sales staff speak at least two languages.
Concentrate on what you need today rather than focus on building for tomorrow.
The earlier and more frequent you make those sales calls the earlier revenue flows: the earlier you have reference sites to leverage and the sooner you learn and adapt the business model to client and market needs the more successful you will be.
As an international online business relationships are different. However, a lot can be done over the phone. While a script can be an aid to the sales staff, calls are almost never the same. Hire smart people, provide them with support and an environment to learn and be successful.
Stop worrying about the long-term and focus on what’s needed now.
Pick up the phone and make the sales calls – in volume and frequently. Close the deal in the shortest time.
[1] Web scraping transforms unstructured web content, (in HTML format for instance), into structured data that can be stored and analyzed in a central database. Web scraping is also related to web automation, which simulates human web browsing using computer software.
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