By ADAM GIFFORD
If you are going to expand into the United States or any other export market, go in hard.
That's the advice from Sun Microsystems marketing manager Andy Lark, an expatriate New Zealander who is on the advisory board for the Government's Beachheads initiative, which aims to help New Zealand companies expand overseas.
"Too many New Zealand companies half go," says Lark.
"They fly up for a couple of weeks, schedule a few meetings, perhaps generated from leads from a trade show, they come by and seek some sage advice, and then two years later you hear from them again and they've been preoccupied with the business back in that tiny market New Zealand."
Instead, he says, they need to set clear goals and persevere - "flying in the back of the plane in coach, staying in cheap hotels and fighting for the next deal".
"If you have limited resources in cash and people, it is often better to pick a place like southern California or Texas, somewhere you can get a base and a presence, and from that decide what to do next rather than try to cover the whole US market - which doesn't exist anyway."
Two persistent Kiwi faults are underselling and undercharging, Lark says.
"I tell them whatever price you have, triple it, because they are always way underpriced.
"They don't understand the real costs of sales channels, of underwriting, and they don't understand the difference between disruptive and sustaining technology."
Lark says companies which really want to do business in the US must be "bloody aggressive".
He learned that as a vice-president of telecommunications equipment company Nortel, where representatives of a new company would wait in his car park at 6am so they could pester him for the next purchase order.
"Those of us who have jobs in this industry are busy, busy people. You have to get in their face and in their place."
Fellow advisory group member Charlie Minter, whose background is in healthcare technology start-ups, said New Zealand companies had contributions to make in that area.
But they needed help to navigate its small and complex markets.
"The challenges they run into is the introduction of this technology into key niches, getting through the regulatory and reimbursement processes, going after the right reference site customers," Minter said.
"We can facilitate that by making the key introductions to help people capitalise on it.
"It is invaluable to have someone like Andy on the west coast, who can get on the phone and call almost anyone ... "
He said many companies should think not about building themselves into major businesses, but about getting big enough to be attractive acquisition targets for market leaders, such as the recent purchase of New Zealand's iHealth by healthcare software heavyweight iSoft.
The Silicon Valley Beachhead advisory board includes experienced industry professionals.
Beachhead firms can use the services offices New Zealand Trade and Enterprise has established in San Francisco and the New York area, reducing some of the costs of doing business.
Five companies benefiting from Beachhead are:
* Business intelligence software firm Descisys, creator of the leading edge TeraSolve data warehouse, which is 5 per cent owned by IBM.
* EMS Global, which makes software for telecommunications companies and service providers, including the Safecom service used by Telecom.
* Xenacom, which makes software to help seed breeders, growers and distributors track their data and improve their business.
* Right Hemisphere, which makes software to help companies use design data and use it for downstream such as training, marketing and customer support.
* Turners Netresult, which is marketing vehicle inspection software to the US automotive industry and is about to introduce an auction management system.
Lark said companies such as Right Hemisphere, utility billing software maker Peace, health software company Orion and phone billing software company Argent were the first wave of New Zealand companies which could become major forces overseas.
But many businesses needed to lift their sights, he said, and the Government's aim of creating $100 million companies was short of the mark.
"The issue is how to build $300 and $400 million-a-year companies which are born out of New Zealand, and have large R&D, engineering, development and technical support hubs here.
Tech firms get the hard sell
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