Industry Reports
Select Strategies has carried out research and produced a number of Industry Reports on behalf of The Internet Growth Alliance and the Irish Software Association (now Technology Ireland).
| The Growth Gap Research Findings Research shows that high growth firms play an important role in job creation, innovation and creating wealth in communities. However, only a small proportion of companies achieve high growth or scale up* (see definition) and maintain this over time. Promising companies have international ambitions, have good customers and have secured investment. Yet, there is a significant gap between the companies performance and the expectations of the team and investors. We call this ‘The Growth Gap’.
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New Approaches to Growth The speed of launching new products, the approaches to acquiring customers and the metrics used to measure success are constantly changing. While many of the challenges to building a technology company remain constant - the approaches to addressing these challenges are changing radically. In this report we examine five key areas where these new approaches are happening:
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Mapping the Product Management Minefield Product management strategy is a CEO issue. Until it becomes part of our CEOs DNA, many companies will flounder. There needs to be a radical improvement in the Product Management capability of Irish software companies if their scale ambitions are to be realised. Best practice tells us that scale in product companies only takes place when world class Product Management is in place. Product Management capability in Ireland is limited, resulting in missed opportunities, barriers to scale and wasted R&D.
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Barriers to Growth, Opportunities to Scale With the increasing globalisation in the technology sector, companies need to be of significant size to survive. The Irish indigenous software sector is fragile - as the survey results make clear. To achieve a viable, self-sustaining and vibrant software sector, we need to achieve critical mass, not just in employee numbers or revenue, but in the number of companies that themselves are of significant size in a global context.
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