I attended a meeting in the City of London yesterday with a potential supplier together with 3 or 4 other of their potential "very large" customers. In this Blog, I like to explain what a change our OSM strategy has made to our story. I'll do this by comparing what happened yesterday with what might have happened 1 year ago....
If I travelled back in time 1 year or so and had attended this meeting then, my personal introduction would have been as something like this...
"Hello I'm Tim Marshall, VP of customer operations at Psion Teklogix, - , no not Psion technologies, Psion T.e.k.l.o.g.i.x. You may remember us from 10 /15 years ago when we made hand held computers & PDA's (at this moment making an impression of a "clam" by opening and closing my hands). Well we are not in that market anymore but today we make rugged computers for use in warehousing and for field workers....."
Apologetic, unimaginative and uninspiring....yawn....
Leap forward 1 year to the meeting yesterday.
"hello, I'm Tim Marshall VP of customer operations at Psion, we are experts in rugged mobile applications with a long heritage in mobile computing. We compete using a strategy that we call Open Source Mobility. This breaks down into 3 driving forces we believe provide our end customers with a best in class Total Cost of Ownership solution. 1) Product Modularity (brief explanation of what it is and what the benefits are...), 2) Open Innovation (explanation of Ingenuity Working and our values and our partner lead culture) 3) Customisation of solutions (describing how pulling modularity, "open" thinking and partners together provides a way for us to address thousands of niche & often unique markets with exactly the solution the end user needs). We've recently rebranded under the name of Psion - here is my business card. Oh yes those pictures on the back of the cards? well they provide a view of the different markets we operate in and reflect our adaptability as a business and as a provider of Rugged mobile applications.....
I tell you, I was representing by far the smallest company in that room - but the questions, interest and participation into the discussion about Psion made me feel that I worked for the most interesting company present.
OSM is a great story, easy to tell and I love sharing it...
A very positive meeting.
I did the same thing yesterday a few times at the Social Media World Forum in London. Each person had lots of great questions and liked what we are doing! One guy attended an event last year that John did not long after we launched the strategy - he said he was by far the best speaker with the best story there (he recounted some of it to me!).
Thank you Tim and Lee for sharing your experiences with us. I too had the pleasure to tell our story many, many times to our key freight and customs providers.. and granted, I am a 'chat-box'; but with such a strong story to tell, I felt very comfortable telling it. Our 'wall of fame'-who we were, who we are; and how we are transforming the industry and address new niches -; our solid strategy; our biz. cards... Love it; live it and lead it.. the rest will follow.
Hi Tim, Indeed a big difference compared to some time ago!
Great post Tim and good feedback. It is interesting - rather than some boring story about how our MHz beats "their" MHz we can talk about how our business model is creating more value for customers and partners alike via OSM. I'd echo what Emmanuel said - the rest will surely follow as we continue to gather steam.
Funny but very true about the name Psion Technologies....Indeed my experience has been the same with the name. Old name created confusion and gave pre-conceived notions. Good to hear that this new strategy is making difference on the ground.