Two events of interest in the coming weeks – interactive lunchtime sessions in the NSC Boardroom: (limited seats available)

1) Tuesday June 9th 11:30 – International Services Success with Pat McGrath of PM Group and Jim Costello of SouthWestern (SWS BPO)
register on the it@Cork website – http://www.itcork.ie/index.cfm?page=events&eventId=156

2) Tuesday June 23rd 11:30 International Product Success with Denis Kennelly of Tivoli at IBM and Richard Cooke of Lincor
register on the it@Cork website – http://www.itcork.ie/index.cfm?page=events&eventId=157

I thoroughly enjoyed Jerry Kennelly’s talk last night at the it@Cork Summer Event in Murphy’s Brewery.

In StockByte, Jerry established a clear vision and opportunity early on and went after it fabulously and whole heartily with great success. That is $135M worth of success when Jerry sold his companies last year.

With the vision at the very start and quickly establishing that they were ahead of the market, Stockbyte established themselves as market leaders and acted accordingly. StockByte were innovative on business model, marketing, delivery of their offering and collecting feedback from the market.

I really really liked:
1) how they marketed the ‘personality’ of the business to set them apart.
2) the constant objective to drive more streamlined scaleable business across the entire business
3) the fast response feedback loop to generate new product directions
4) the focus on high quality, high value and premium service at a relevant high margin price
5) the fast pace
6) the fun of it all, constant innovation coupled with constant business growth, there’s nothing better!

Well done Jerry.

This story and how Jerry delivers it should be bottled and used by Enterprise Ireland as one potential model in building an international successful business. BUT it’s definitely a lesson that it’s well achievable with the right mindset to start with.

I’m going back to work.

also see great write-up on the event at http://www.waveson.com/itcork-and-jerry-kennelly/trackback/

This is in response to, or to add to, Annette Clancy’s post “Costing and Pricing” about an exercise with artists.

But first, I enjoyed Jeff Nolan’s presentation on “Emerging Trends in Pricing & ROI” at the IT@Cork conference recently.

What is the relationship between how we price our product or service and what it costs us to deliver?

To point out the obvious: Price – Cost = Profit

So which is most appropriate for calculating the cost of your product or service?

1) Price = Cost + Margin (where Margin is % profit you decide to earn on each sale)
2) Price = The perceived value to the buyer adjusted according to competitive forces
3) Price = X% of Return on Investment – where X% might represent one year’s savings as a result of your offering