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Interview with Bob Potter

Posted on February 16, 2007
Filed Under Articles, Marketing |

On 4 March 05, I interviewed Bob Potter, CEO of Kalido. We spoke about head to head competition, flexibility and the impact of alliances on a growing company. At the time, Kalido was a provider of adaptive data warehousing software for enterprises. Customers include Unilever, Royal Dutch/Shell Group, Labatt Breweries of Canada and Owens Corning.

BRADLEY: What was your biggest mistake?

Potter: My past experience didn’t allow me to understand the value of partnering with giant companies. When I worked at Unigraphics we slugged it out with like-size companies in the CAD/CAM space such as Computervision and Intergraph and finally prevailed as a survivor. The company eventually became a $1B division of EDS. When I was at Object Design we battled other startups in the object-oriented database market and became the number one provider, never having to compete against the likes of giants such as Oracle and IBM. So when I joined IONA Technologies, which was already the most successful CORBA vendor, I approached new markets – particularly the emerging application server and B2B integration sectors – the same way I had before. I applied those same principles of direct competition without seeking out the partnerships with larger companies that could have helped us better succeed, and we got slaughtered.

BRADLEY: How did you fix this mistake?

Potter: We didn’t have a chance to fix it at IONA. I tried too late. As a result, BEA and IBM captured the J2EE application server space, while TIBCO, IBM, and WebMethods ate up the integration space. IONA was forced to retreat back to our CORBA roots and related high performance middleware. Today, the company is doing fine again, but is a much smaller company compared to what it was in 2000/01.

BRADLEY: What would you do differently now that you know better?

Potter: Seek out larger companies that understand your competitive advantage. Partner early and earnestly with them in such a way that creates a real win for the bigger company. At Kalido, the DNA was already receptive for such a strategy when I got here. These days, Global 2000 corporations aren’t eager to risk buying from small best-of-breed software companies whose software solutions aren’t validated by customers and partners. We at Kalido have brilliant software technology aimed specifically at that market, but we needed credibility and validation from established players. As soon as I arrived, our senior management team put a strategy in place to go to market with bigger technology companies and established systems integrators. It has taken us two years to get the formula right, but we’re finally seeing it pay off. This is really hard work. It’s easy to get out a nice partner press release, but it it’s far more difficult to make the partnership truly sing. It’s painful to get companies with different products, business models and goals to work together well every day to the benefit of the customer.

BRADLEY: What was your biggest, most successful gamble?

Potter: We needed credibility as a new innovative enterprise data warehouse software company. I called the CEOs of Business Objects and Ascential Software and asked them to partner with my company. As it turns out, I knew them from my IONA days, and they knew about Kalido before I joined, so were amenable to my phone call. They met with our executive team and after proper due diligence agreed to sign significant partner agreements with us. They both involve joint development, joint marketing and sales teaming. Both companies were involved in acquisitions at the time, and they are both behemoths in the Business Intelligence and Data Integration space and getting bigger. To their credit and the credit of my team, we worked hard to get the right partnership agreements and plans in place. In order to ensure success with these partners, I needed to be faithful and not go do similar deals with their competitors. At the same time, however, we needed to ensure that Kalido’s software worked with software from Cognos and Informatica. I couldn’t discriminate against them when it came to product integration because our customers wanted us to play nice with these companies, particularly if they had standardized on their software. This was a huge gamble for us. If our partnerships did not work out we would look foolish, would have wasted a lot of time and money, and lost an opportunity. We have and are all working hard to make these partnerships return results.

BRADLEY: What advice would you give others about growing their businesses?

Potter: Don’t go it alone unless you absolutely have to! Every business has a compelling value proposition – otherwise you wouldn’t have gone into business in the first place. Develop, nurture and grow partnerships with companies that are already well-established to help tell your story.

For Kalido in the enterprise software business, we’re now focused on systems integrators, like Atos Origin and SAIC. These are huge companies that have a lot more clout than we do with executive decision makers in Global 2000 companies. Based on our strong technology and partnerships, we’re now crafting very specific business messages and value propositions to show senior business people how they can get consolidated business views of business performance in an ever changing environment. Our business benefits are so incredible no one believes us. But if you are a partner of a well established systems integrator, and you let them tell the story, the customer wants to hear more and wants to see the solution in action. Also, we do almost all our lead generation with these systems integrators, Business Objects and Ascential. Not only do we get more combined marketing wood behind the arrow, but we get recognizable names singing our praises. Oh, and one last thing: Don’t underestimate how much harder it is to do these things in coordination with your partners rather than doing it by yourself. These partnerships take a lot of sweat to get right. To be successful, partnering should never be an afterthought of your marketing & sales strategy, but rather a core element of it.

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