Cathy Lalonde, VP Sales & Marketing
The Problem Our biggest problem? Biggest? Hmmm. The R&D department in general and Scott Bell in particular. They have a big ‘R’, little ‘d’focus. The commercial market needs us to be small ‘r’ and big ‘D’. That’s where our future is. Commercial Market Our current commercial customers are extreme users. They want the most technologically advanced product on the market (which ours is) and they will put up with quirky interfaces (which we have) and they don’t care if it looks ugly (which many of our products do). But the extreme users are a small segment. What we have doesn’t cut it for the majority of commercial users. Competitors They’re smart. They’ve mimicked our technology and repackaged it for the commercial market. We still have a significant technological advantage but our two major competitors have designed sexy products with many new features being added all the time. Many of those features we’ve suggested to R&D and … nothing. Obstacles to Change Scott Bell. He’s old school, not used to the commercial landscape…which is where we have to be if we’re going to survive. His perception is that the military market is stable and they give us the opportunity to do basic research, which he loves. Your Future Plans If we don’t get a big shakeup in the next few months, I’m going to respond more positively to the calls I’m getting from recruiters and go elsewhere. I like the company, believe in its potential, but …
Marketing Department My first priority when I arrived at GlobalTech was reorganizing Marketing along product lines: Commercial as well as Military. We finished doing that three months ago. We’re still experiencing growing pains. Fingers crossed we’ll get past it and see the opportunities that are there. Military vs. Commercial We’ve been an R&D-driven company. That’s been a result of our history of developing state-of-the-art technology for the military market. Today’s opportunities are not the same as we move to the commercial space and develop aesthetic and user-friendly features that customers value. Department Relations In a word, not good. Two words actually. We have a confrontational relationship with many departments. Especially R&D. They’ve experienced cutbacks; we haven’t. We’ve hired a lot of young and talented people lately and I think they resent it. And they hate hearing from a 30-something that their product isn’t cutting it.
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