Right hemisphere marketing strategy (rapid growth phase)

The success of a product is determined by its users and thus to convince potential users Right Hemisphere had to came up with a significant ” pain point”. Pain point is described as an issue that causes significant problems that will cause managers to seek a solution or an alternative. Right Hemisphere’s Marketing Strategy was based on targeting only two key customers in a single market segment in order to maintain its market credibility. Thus they targeted Sikorsky the US helicopter maker and Boeing’s operations in the aerospace and defence industry.

Right Hemisphere’s success in this industry segment allowed their brand to be established and as Lynch described it ” if you can convince them then you can be sure that you have the right product to convince others”. Right Hemisphere’s initial success set the ball rolling as success with Sikorsky led to an entry to the military training market and within a short time the company was awarded with a MT2 Top 100 award from the Military Training Technology magazine for its contribution to the industry.

The next stage in the growth of Right Hemisphere hinged on securing significant venture capital and though this may have been made easier by their initial success it was nevertheless still a significant milestone in the growth of Right Hemisphere. (Dufour, Erakovic et al. 2007)Sequoia Capital is the World’s number one Venture Capitalist (VC) and thus investment by Sequoia Capital further enhanced the Right Hemisphere brand name and market credibility as Sequoia’s portfolio of investments include Google, Yahoo, Cisco, Apple naming just a few of the many successful investments.

The investment brought with Top industry contacts and contributed tremendously in enhancing their reputation in the US. This was best summed up by Thomas ” Sequoia invests in companies that it believes will grow to be worth more than a billion”. This investment opened the door to Fortune 100 executives as well as giving them the opportunity to recruit great people as well. The investment by Sequoia also led to other venture capitalists showing interest as more capital was bought in from New Zealand’s No.

8 Ventures, Sutter Hill Ventures, Graphics – chip manufacturer Nvidia and so on. The deal helped them to target and ultimately clinch other major names including NASA, Airbus, Lockheed Martin as well as others from new market segments such as Halliburton in the Oil field technology and services. The rapid growth of Right Hemisphere’s motivated them further in their quest to make 3D as easy and as accessible as text.

The final chapter of their quest was achieved by Right Hemisphere announcing in 2005 that it had licensed its 3D viewing technology, Deep View to Adobe Systems for use in Adobe Acrobat Reader 7. 0 software that was used by millions of people worldwide. This consequently led to Right Hemisphere’s 3D capability becoming the industry standard and increasing the brand value of Right Hemisphere. Right Hemisphere’s ambition as expressed best by Mark Thomas was ” There is no such thing as being the best in Hamilton, the best in Auckland, the best in New Zealand or the best in Australasia.

The only position with any kind of product, especially with a high – tech product, is the best in the world” and thus to achieve this goal they firstly relocated their Sales and Marketing in 2000 to the US to help them with further expansion as research had outlined that they required to have a static (office) presence in the US in order to succeed further, they also learnt that it would be easier to penetrate the European and Asian markets with prior brand recognition in the US.

The events of 11th September 2001 in New York led to Government authorities requesting Right Hemisphere not to share American technology with non – American citizens. This consequently led to Right Hemisphere becoming a US registered company Right Hemisphere Inc with the head office moving from New Zealand to the US.

The new US registered company also required a new leader (CEO) and thus Michael Lynch who had been recommended to Mark Thomas by two different sources was selected as Thomas felt that there was good fit of personalities and skills between them that he noticed during their discussion / brainstorming session at Shakespeare Bay on the Whangaparoa Peninsula.

Michael Lynch persuaded Mark about the need for a single CEO of Right Hemisphere as well as keeping the Research and development in Auckland. The split structure allowed them to keep the cost and benefits of developing in New Zealand and their market presence in the US allowing them to make further inroads in the US market and subsequently other international markets as well. (Dufour, Erakovic et al. 2007).

Right Hemisphere’s future looks bright with the release of Right Hemisphere 5 platform in 2007 and with further opportunities in medical applications and the entertainment industry things can’t get any better for Right Hemisphere. The threat of new competitors also did nothing to worry Right Hemisphere which was best summed up by Thomas in his own words ” We feel that we’re just in the starting gate of the international market. We are in pole position for a race that’s really just beginning. “