John Cheney founded Workbooks in 2008, having previously founded a number of tech start-ups and served as CMO of security software provider SurfControl. This year the company has raised a further £1 million in investment bringing to total since launch to £7 million.
The business acquired its first US customer in 2012, and its new US office – based in East Hartford, Connecticut – will be managed by Dan Collins, an early investor in the company, and head of delivery Penny Lowe.
What makes it the right time to open an office in the US now?
Today we are ranked number one for customer satisfaction based on third-party customer reviews and we grew customer acquisition by 75% last year, so it’s now time to take our successful model into other countries. The US is the world’s largest market for CRM and we already have several customers in the States, so it was the obvious next step for us.
You say you want to challenge Salesforce and Microsoft on their home turf – what makes you think a small British company has a chance against these two US titans?
We are already competing with Salesforce and Microsoft here in the UK and winning.
What’s key is our focus: we are focusing on the mid-market and have built solutions for specific industry sectors. We aren’t looking to compete with the big guys in every deal. Our platform has been developed with mid-size companies in mind, from a pricing and functionality perspective. We have created a very compelling value proposition, combining a world-class cloud platform and a unique approach to implementation.
Why base yourself in Hartford, Connecticut rather than a tech hub like Silicon Valley or Denver?
As a management team we have an existing network of people we have been able to recruit in Connecticut. For any business having great people is key to success. We believe we’ve got the right team in place to drive our US operations because we have worked with them before, we know their strength and expertise. It’s also easy to service both New York and Boston from our offices.
Focus is key. We are going to focus our US sales strategy on mid-size organisations in the North East of the US and not try to ‘boil the ocean’ to start with.
The US is a huge, diverse marketplace. How have you ensured – as many businesses that try to crack the US – that you haven’t bitten off more than you can chew?
Focus is key. We are going to focus on:
- The major business areas in the North East: Boston and New York.
- Focus on the mid-market and;
- Focus of the verticals we are having most success in: Publishing, manufacturing and retail, IT and professional services.
What does the move to the US mean for your marketing strategy?
We have done research to identify the target organisations we want to focus on, what their needs are and how best we can meet those needs. We have also reviewed the competitive and influencer landscape to drive an effective strategy.
We are putting more effort and investment into our brand, reviewing brand messages and identifying appropriate communications channels. We are building new partnerships to ensure we develop local and vertical expertise, which will help us with our go-to-market strategy. And like you would expect, we have internationalised further our demand generation, leveraging UK successes but adapting and tailoring them to fit the US market.
How do the needs of US prospects and customers differ from those elsewhere?
John: When we developed Workbooks we always had the US in mind, so the product already supports things like state and federal tax, US dollars and US timezones. We also have localised Workbooks into US English.
However in the US we expect to see requirements to integrate with different ERP and accounting platforms, for example QuickBooks is much more common in the US than Sage. That’s why we support and work with integration platforms like Zapier, which give us the ability to integrate with a wide range of solutions.
What does this new focus on the US mean for your existing customers in the UK and elsewhere?
For our existing clients in the UK it means we can better support their US/international operations. For many of our clients, they are using Workbooks to grow their businesses. We can now provide local support and training if required. Our customers are welcoming the move, which demonstrates to them they have made the right choice, they have selected a technology that is expanding, growing and being further invested in. They are part of a success story. Who wouldn’t want to be?
