To succeed at exporting, you've got to get out there and do the hard yards, clock up the airpoints and face up to potential clients. This was the overriding theme of the Trekking the Time Zones' cover story in the June 2007 issue of NZBusiness, which featured Zephyr Technology business development VP Steven Small and CEO Brian Russell on the cover. These gentlemen represented New Zealand's rising new export hopes at the time. And they still do today.
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Zephyr Technology has made a good deal of progress over the past three years. Maybe not as much as Small and Russell might have hoped for in 2007, considering that the global recession had not yet arrived - but significant nevertheless.
You may have heard of Zephyr's bio-harness technology - pressure sensors attached to the body via a specially woven, 'smart fabric' strap that deliver information on the wearer's vital signs. It's a product pitched directly at the health, sport, defence, first responder and medical markets and, as the 2007 story explained, "another example of a company taking an existing product out of the laboratory, adding value, finding the applications and markets - then the tough bit: finding the right partners to strike OEM and licensing agreements".
You may also know that Zephyr Technology signed a contract with the US military to supply the technology to its troops stationed overseas. And more recently, you may have noticed the extensive international publicity the company received when it made its technology available to the people charged with rescuing the trapped Chilean miners.
Russell admits that the Chilean mine disaster generated a huge amount of interest in their product worldwide - although he makes the point that it's absolutely not why they offered the technology to the rescuers in the first place. Nevertheless, it has kept the sales team in the US busy since, and with the story still disseminating around the world, Russell admits the whole episode has taken the brand name up a tier. He also says it brought home to the Zephyr team how much potential there is for saving lives with the bio-harness technology.
However, the most significant development over the past three years for the company has, without doubt, been the arrival of the srnartphone.
The srnartphone has enabled the process of turning data into useful information so much easier, says Russell. Utilising Bluetooth (and soon WiFi) technology to connect to the Internet, via a srnartphone, has made data capture and display, and the whole user experience, significantly richer. The outcome is that people are now talking about the technology more than ever, and the brand is gaining real traction.
But despite all this, Russell says they still took a big hit from the global financial crisis - particularly in the US market, where reduced funding for first responders had an impact on bio-harness sales. And although US defence budget cutbacks may have impacted expenditure on big ticket items, thankfully the push for 'situational awareness' technology to better equip front-line soldiers has continued. The US is at the forefront of military technology, and along with the Europeans, will use whatever technology it takes to minimise casualties. Russell says they'd love to supply the Australian and New Zealand armed forces too - but that day has yet to arrive.
Looking back over the past three years, Russell says progress has probably been below expectations. "Implementing our channel strategy has been slow; we've come to appreciate that large companies often move slower than you would like.
"That's the difference between large companies and small companies like us. Large companies bide their time in coming up with a winning product, even if it's late to market. Small companies just want to get started with a product and ramp it up quickly to get the jump on the market."
He says that they plan to take more control of the business in 2011 by encouraging Internet sales - so they're not so reliant on the vagaries of defence budgets and the 51 percent local content requirement for new military equipment in the US. Russell says although access to the US market might appear to be plain sailing, there are often hidden barriers to trade and American consumers are very loyal to US-made products.
Currently half of the company's sales are generated through the Internet and there's more consistency in the online channel.
2011 is already presenting a number of opportunities for Zephyr, says Russell. The military market is steadily growing; they've signed a major US retail store to sell their product; and most importantly, the consumer and e-health 'self-diagnosis' market presents a massive opportunity for their third-generation bio-harness (which is a third of the price of the original).
Russell describes e-health as "the perfect storm" for the company, and they want to catch the wave.
"A disturbing statistic from the medical community is that around 50 percent of drugs are wrongly prescribed. We have a solution. All you need is the bio-harness, a smartphone, the programme downloaded from an App store and you can measure your own vital signs, gather data while taking the drug over a certain period and know if you're better or worse off."
The journey for Zephyr has not been without its commercial and personal challenges. People management has been a challenge for Russell personally: "understanding how people above and below you have different perspectives on the business and markets."
But the greatest satisfaction for him has been the ability to really help people - the sight of the Chilean miners emerging from underground will stay in his mind a long time, he says.
As for 'trekking the time-zones', nowadays having a full commercial team on board, including sales and marketing specialists, has taken much of the load off the shoulders of Russell and Small. Having a head office in Annapolis, Maryland, close to market and clients, has also helped - and Russell has been based there, along with his family, for the past two years.
It's all part of the next stage in the journey to getting your brand out there.
