Why Innovation Can Be Let Down By Poor Commercial Strategy

So you may believe you have a great product, a vision, something that is going to change the world, or something that will simply improve some part of someone's day a little (arguably the same thing)

The problem is, everyone who is in business believes this. Starting a business, tech or not requires a considerable leap of faith, so whilst you believe your product may be the latest game changer, guess what? So does everybody else.

Even if your hypothesis is proven correct, well, again, so what? Great products can and have been let down by poor commercial strategy and average products can and have excelled through great commercial strategy.

Do you ever look at traditional tech big boys and think, how are they selling billions when they don't even do anything innovative? It's quite simple, they have a huge sales network, with years of experience and most importantly trust and reputation which means they can add a feature, repackage it with an existing product and launch it into that strong sales network and post another years profits.

The more innovative your product, the newer your company, the more perceived the risk on behalf of the customer. Even if it does everything it says on the label, you can't go into that all-important meeting undercooked, because frankly, your business depends on it.

I believe these days there is a keenness to look at how tech start-ups have blown up in the consumer space (Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram, etc) and conclude "well they spread like wildfire and they didn't need a sales arm", but two counterpoints are important to think of here.

Firstly, a consumer can download an app, and whether they stay active all depends on usability, there is very little risk on their behalf here, not so in the B2B space. It has to add business value.

Secondly, all these organisations have grown into the B2B space and have built commercial arms accordingly.

Don't build a great tech product only to be let down by an undercooked commercial strategy, come speak to us today.