Case Study

Introduction: The Knowledge Capital Group Inc. (KCG) is the global leader and foremost authority in Industry Analyst Relations. KCG is the first and only firm that was founded and run by both former industry analysts and vendor executives with deep practical business experience in sales, marketing, and executive management. KCG's balanced insight into the Analyst Relations business is built on this width of perspective.

KCG combines over a decade of domain expertise and thought leadership in enterprise software and industry analyst relations with deep practical experience in vertical specific markets to deliver the strategy development, positioning, and actionable advice to quickly improve differentiation, reduce sales cycle times and give sales forces the tools they need to close deals.

Challenge: KCG's management team were looking to grow their International Business and had identified India as one of the key growth markets because of the emergence of the outsourcing players.

Proquest Solutions Advantage: The team understood the entire KCG offering and mapped the same with the current set of requirements of the clients. They were able to get immediate sales with some of the leading technology players to mark KCG's position and subsequently enter into the mid market as well. Stephen England (President of KCG) stated "We were pretty impressed with the contacts that Proquest Solution's Biswas Nair brought to the table - with the clients, software associations and the Indian partner ecosystem. They were well respected in Industry and quickly built their understanding of our business model. I can say without doubt that if it was not for this relationship we would have struggled in this very complex market. We would recommend working with Proquest Solutions for anyone who is looking at an accelerated entry into India". Today KCG's subscription and project based services have a very high retainer-ship of around 95% and India contributes to around 8% of the overall revenue of the company.

Introduction: Brightidea.com is the market and technology leader in Innovation Pipeline Management. Nearly 300 businesses around the world use its software-as-a-service suite to convert their employee, partner and customer ideas into a reality. The Brightidea.com platform is an integrated set of Web 2.0 and social networking tools specifically designed to simplify and accelerate the innovation process, allowing users to collect, organize and rank ideas, then evaluate ROI and track the progress of each resulting product or project. Brightidea's software has been successfully deployed at Experian, Cisco, Harley-Davidson, Bosch, Thomson Corp, British Telecom, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Honeywell, among others. Founded in 1999, Brightidea.com is privately held and headquartered in San Francisco, CA.

Challenge: As a leading player in the Innovation space Brightidea realised that India is a hub of innovation and one market they can't afford to miss out. Most of the clients they were working also had some innovation centre in India.

Proquest Solutions Advantage: Brightidea's innovation pipeline management solution was ahead of the curve for most of the Indian players as they were managing their innovation process through excel sheets. The Proquest Solutions team created a concept selling methodology to excel in this initiative. Within months of starting this process Proquest Solutions team was successful in getting two paid pilot projects from leading Indian players. Vincent Carbone the COO of Brightidea says "We were really encouraged with the enthusiasm and fast learning curve of the team at Proquest Solutions. We were impressed with the reach and access of the Indian market and we would have really not got the success that we have achieved without them. We are currently also experimenting the Middle East market with the Proquest Solutions team. Brightidea with the help of Proquest Solutions aims to get 10% of their global revenue from India by 2009 end and this is just the start of a great relationship".

Introduction: Northern Light has been providing strategic research portals, business research content, and search technology to global enterprises since 1996. During that time, Northern Light has built and deployed over 200 custom research portals and enterprise search applications for large enterprises. Northern Light's current clients include one or more of the top five companies in each major technology sector of the Fortune 1000, such as Cisco, Hewlett-Packard, SAP, Sprint, and Unisys. Headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts, with a development center in St. Petersburg, Russia, Northern Light Group LLC is a profitable, privately-held, self-funded company with more than 50 employees.

Challenge: Northern Light desired to develop markets for their strategic research portal services in Asia Pacific and had identified India as an initial area of focus.

Proquest Solutions Advantage: Proquest Solutions team did a market diagnostic study on the potential market for strategic research portals, business research content and technology search for corporate data in India. The initial report was convincing enough for Northern Light to move forward with Proquest Solutions in developing sales opportunities in this growing and un-tapped market. The Proquest Solutions team was trained and provided with access to Northern Light's management team to gain expertise in the services offered. Within a few months of the start of the relationship, Proquest was able to present Northern Light with a break in one of the Top 5 software vendors in India. Priscilla Seuss, Northern Light's Vice President of Sales, says, "all of the interactions with Biswas Nair and Proquest Solutions team have been stimulating and creative in terms of new business development in India. He is well connected with the technology industry in India and has been able to get Northern Light services in front of leading players in India. We have been quite happy with our partnership. I am sure there is success to be shared in the future with Proquest Solutions."

Introduction: LivePerson (Nasdaq: LPSN) puts the world’s experts at your fingertips. Founded in 1995, more than 7,000 Small & Midsize Business (SMB) customers are using LivePerson’s award-winning live chat and contact center solutions to improve online sales, deliver live help and manage interactions across all channels: chat, voice, email, and self-service/knowledgebase. Live Person helps clients in following manner:
Increase conversion rates: visitors who chat are three times more likely to buy, and their average order sizes are 35% higher than non-chatters

Improve customer satisfaction: chatters are twice as likely to return to the same website within a day, and exit surveys reveal that 85-90% of chatters rate their service experiences as “good” or “excellent”

Lower service costs and improve productivity: Shifting service requests from phone to chat can reduce the average cost per interaction by 80%.

Challenge: Considering that the E-commerce market in the Indian market was still at the initial stage it was difficult to get the clients on board for a Livechat solution. Also, the market believed in a face to face relationship so the concept of online support through chat was a alien concept.

Proquest Solutions Advantage: Liveperson livechat solution was introduced into the Indian market and found immediate acceptance. The solution selling proposition created and implemented by Proquest Solutions along with partners gave immediate results with clients in on-line travel and online marketing companies. Gilad Komorov from LivePerson says”In a short time of partnering with Proquest, we have found them to be a great business partner. Their immediate understanding of our technology and business needs has ensured a fast start for them into the market. We look forward to a continued relationship with a great team”

A leading US based Web Conference Software

Introduction: This US based Web Conference Software was the # 3 globally in terms of their web conferencing client base and was actively looking at the International market.

Challenge: The initial focus was on Europe but soon realised that they need to look at Asia and India was identified as a key driver of growth for the Asian market

Proquest Solutions Advantage: The Proquest Solutions team identified through a market research diagnostic study that there were two leading players in the Indian market - Webex and Microsoft. Proquest Solutions team helped them identify the key gap areas to position competitively along with the pricing inputs. Within the first quarter Proquest Solutions was able to get major breakthrough with leading Indian corporates and helped make inroads. Subsequently, Proquest Solutions helped them find a TELCOM company as a distributor of their services and localise the product.

A leading Expense Management Software

Introduction: A leading US based expense management automation company who after their domination of their US market wanted to enter International market

Challenge: They did not know how to approach the Indian market and also the potential for the same. They also wanted assistance in searching a partner as they did not want to set up their own office.

Proquest Solutions Advantage: The Proquest Solutions team was trained on the expense management solutions and the right positioning in the market space as per the US market expectation. The Proquest Solutions team undertook a market diagnostic study and realised that there is a huge requirement as it is only large ERP players like SAP & Oracle who are currently offering a solution and that also a huge premium. Based on the research results the board took a decision to enter into the Asian market and initially start with India. In second phase Proquest Solutions team also helped them with their partner search activity and helped them narrow down on a distributor. The CEO and the board members have been thrilled with the project and a second project with Proquest Solutions has been initiated for another software product which they intend to launch in the Indian market.