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Innovation is one clear theme at the company responsible for world’s leading integrated IT service management platform. Alistair explains: “We have been making product improvements on an ongoing basis and in the past year have added a service management product and the ability to manage mobile devices and cloud-based services. Over the years, additional products and pieces of functionality have been a strong driver of our growth.”

International momentum

Looking to markets abroad is another key to success. “The contribution to the business of global markets has been a major factor in our growth. When we started we were very UK-focused. Now our UK revenues are only about 12% of our global total. If we had not gone international, we would not have been nearly as successful as we have been.”

The company has also made substantial investments in digital marketing and big data analytics in the past 24 months, helping to capitalise on the value of the information already within its system. Such product innovation has been fundamental to being able to grow from being a new entrant to the market to surpassing the incumbents and being acknowledged as a world leader.

If we had not gone international, we would not have been nearly as successful as we have been.

Dr Alistair Forbes, LogicNow.

Going Dutch

Most recently, this has led to brand new developments, such as investing in the Dutch market and setting up new offices in the Netherlands.

“We have been operating in international markets from an early stage, with sales in North America, continental Europe and Australia and New Zealand within our first couple of years. Our investment in setting up the new Netherlands office was driven by the fact that we have a significant volume of business there – one of the companies we acquired was based there and so we already had a team in situ. So we have invested to build that team and operate directly in that market rather than through distributors.”

Wide-ranging support from Scottish Enterprise

In reaching out to embrace new and more widespread markets, LogicNow has benefited from support from Scottish Enterprise over the years.

“This has taken a number of forms, including funding assistance to help us build products, support for marketing programs as we expanded internationally, support for people development and access to market intelligence for potential new markets as we have looked to enter them,” said Alistair.

“The nature of the assistance has varied over time, reflecting our growth as a business and the account management process of Scottish Enterprise has enabled us to access the right type and level of support at the correct time. This support undoubtedly helped us to achieve the success we have.”

Embracing change

With such additional backup, LogicNow has risen to the primary challenge faced by many of its peers: whether due to a lack of ambition, risk aversion, a fear of failure or simply a lack of knowledge, many Scottish companies seem reluctant to embrace change – despite the obvious potential to grow and blossom.

Often the underlying ‘cultural’ challenge within some parts of the Scottish business community is the belief that opportunities in foreign marketplaces cannot be found as easily as here in Scotland. 

Alistair counters: “I think it depends on the nature of the business – in our case, with a software product delivered via the cloud and in which potential new customers can trial the product themselves without requiring any on-site presence from us, very much so."

“We operate infrastructure around the world to support our service delivery and we have staff in many countries, but we have no physical distribution requirements and our sales process doesn’t involve customisation or lengthy consulting-type engagements. With these characteristics, I would say international markets are something that can be addressed even by relatively young companies."

"Critical mass in a country certainly helps, but you can start from small beginnings and build from there.”

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