Thanks to a leading GlobalScot, what began as merely a promising opportunity for one Scottish company to engage with a telecoms giant rapidly turned into a real catalyst for growth. David Bonner, vice president of marketing at Edinburgh firm Ciqual, explains.
The chance to pitch their product to the senior team at one of the world’s leading telecoms operators is something which most small technology firms can only dream about.
But for Edinburgh company Ciqual, the dream became reality when an initial phone chat with GlobalScot Kyle Whitehill, CEO of Vodafone Qatar, led to an invitation to travel to Doha to meet with and pitch to the telecoms giant’s full management team.
Ciqual delivers customer experience management services to mobile operators which allow them to take quick action to identify and resolve any issues customers are having.
Recognising the potential of the firm’s technology, Kyle’s willingness to open doors to the key decision-makers at Vodafone was a real turning point for Ciqual’s prospects.
David Bonner said: “Tom Walls, our CEO, had a long conversation on the phone with Kyle. There was a definite meeting of minds - Kyle liked what he heard and invited Tom across to Doha to hear the story in person.
“That’s where the relationship with Kyle really paid dividends. Thanks to his sponsorship, Tom was able to pitch to the full senior team of Vodafone including their chief financial, procurement and technology officers.
“Getting all those guys in the one room is the sort of breakthrough that a GlobalScot can deliver. All companies like ours ask for is the opportunity to tell our story to people of influence and for them to make an assessment on whether or not it’s worthwhile doing more with us.
“For me, if an initiative like GlobalScot is working at its best, it should be about people in positions of influence assisting innovative Scottish companies. Enabling them to have their story heard is something that would take far longer without the assistance of a GlobalScot.”
Ciqual’s relationship with Vodafone has developed rapidly due to Kyle’s decision to introduce the company to influencers within his organisation.
David continues: “The type of help companies like ours really value is the opportunity to make a pitch and go for a sale. Small companies find it difficult to get to the real decision-makers and, under normal circumstances, we wouldn’t get access to the board of Vodafone Qatar.”
He admits that getting to the right people can often be a frustrating process. “When you’re targeting a specific company, whether it’s Vodafone Qatar, Orange in France or whoever, you make a sales plan and look to the highest level of responsibility that you can in the organisation and work down from there.
“Of course, the chief executive of a major company is the best possible starting place and it’s very rare for a start up to get the opportunity to pitch to the CEO of an organisation like Vodafone. Typically, you have to work lower down in the organisation, show value and then work on getting higher visibility. But the ability to get in and the first guy you meet is the CEO - that almost never happens. When you do get that opportunity, you want to take best advantage of it.”
In what David describes as a relatively short time, that opportunity has turned into a sale and one which he admits would not have happened without Kyle’s backing.
“We made our first sale into Vodafone Qatar in July 2014 and a follow-on sale to them in early 2015. Kyle’s continuing support has since led to an introduction to senior people at Vodafone India. We’re actively delivering a pilot for Vodafone India now and if that goes well it could turn into our second sale into the group.
“We’re focusing heavily on Vodafone as we see the Qatar sale as the start of a significant amount of business we could do with them across the world.
“Our system gives Vodafone a very clear view of the experience their customers are having – if a customer contacts the call centre to complain that they’re having a bad experience, Vodafone will already know about it through our systems. We tell them about problems customers are having so they can proactively contact those customers. So it’s very much about strengthening the brand relationship the operator has with its customers.
“We’ve got a growth plan for the business - the size of our team needs to double and double again before we’re at a critical mass. If you’re going to be a big player in this type of business, typically you need to grow your team to 100 or more before you’re really credible in the customer’s view.”
David is in no doubt that Kyle’s committed approach to his role as a GlobalScot has been instrumental in Ciqual’s recent success.
“I can’t speak highly enough of Kyle in the sense that he took a risk on us. He wanted to make something happen for us and we’ve done a good job of meeting his expectations of what he thought we could do for his organisation.”
Kyle admits that his interest in working as a GlobalScot grew out of a desire to give something back to the country of his birth.
“I left Scotland in 1984 and haven’t lived or worked there since, but I had felt for some time that I’d like to do more to assist where I could, so getting involved in GlobalScot was ideal.
“I was keen to see what I could do personally and professionally to help a company have a real significant breakthrough and improve its position.
“Ciqual had been going a few years, had received some funding and, despite having an interesting product, hadn’t been able to make that breakthrough so my motivation was to see what I could do to really transform their fortunes.
“When you work on an international basis, there’s a huge amount of time spent on building relationships, networking, facilitation, etc and so I thought that suited me.
“The Vodafone brand helps because it’s such a big door-opener in the global market so I didn’t need to be persuaded to get involved, I just thought I’d love to do it.”
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