This post on Nitro’s research was adapted from an article by David Swan for The Australian. Click here to view the original article.
Research commissioned by Nitro revealed that Australian businesses are keen to buy from local technology companies, but are extremely hesitant to purchase from startups—with just over 6% of 300 surveyed business leaders saying they trust and support startups over established brands.
Adam Nowiski, Director, APAC at Nitro and an Advisory Member on the Victorian Government Innovation Panel, commented on Nitro’s journey from startup to success story, and the challenges the organization faced while seeking to expand it’s enterprise clientele.
“What we saw is the structures you’ve got in place and your reputation, or lack thereof, can affect how people view your organisation and whether they want to buy from you,” Nowiski said.
“Those decision-makers want to see who you’ve done work with, and how widely adopted your product is. They hesitate because they don’t want to have egg on their face, we really struggled with that early on, dealing with the big end of town.”
But, Nowiski commented, some large organizations, including some of Nitro’s larger financial services customers, benefited by rolling out Nitro in lab environments, which allowed them to “then take those risks working with the two and three-man shops, because it’s fenced off,” he said.
“What we found was we had to find backdoor ways of getting into organisations. Using word of mouth and spreading your technology into different units of an organisation, that’s a good way to get some momentum.”
“Start-ups need capital, talent and above all customers to grow. So, without Aussie businesses backing them and integrating their ideas into organisational strategy, we’re at risk of stifling the growth of our innovation sector,” Mr Nowiski said.
“You’d be amazed at the systems and advanced processes in place, even at some of the most early-stage companies. What you see on the surface often doesn’t reflect the depth of capability and innovation when it comes to start-ups of any shape or size.”
Read the original article here.
