Focus on Success

Focus on Success Aharon Aharon Key Messages for the Entrepreneur Master your market place (on top of your solution) Understand your company’s strengths and weaknesses Do not underestimate your competitors Define strategic goals. Think big, out of the box, challenging though achievable goals Turn it into Annual Operational Plan (AOP) Build a healthy and professional organization to execute on your plan Finance your organization to fit the above ... take margins! Always believe, in a religious way, in what you do. You might be the only one around … The nice short cuts you have heard about - are not applicable to you – on top of the above, hard work is what you should be prepared for, with lots of patience 2 A Company … not just a Technology Market •Size •Growth •Competition •Access Team •CEO •Sales •Marketing •R&D Technology •Innovation •Barrier •Product 3 History Founded in 1982, by Dr. Levy Gerzberg (current CEO)  HQ: Silicon Valley, R&D: Israel Consumer electronics chips IPO late 1995 ($20M), Secondary late 1999 ($120M) Major acquisitions - OAK, Oren Semiconductor, Emblaze Semiconductors Offices around the globe  US, Israel, China, Canada, England, Hong-Kong, Taiwan, Japan, Korea ... 2007: $500M annual revenue, $65M net profit, more than 1200 employees 4 WW Leader in Consumer Markets DVD HDTV 35% share in global DVD market 40% share of merchant HDTV market Digital Cameras Leading Solutions Provider Digital Imaging 32% share of merchant digital camera market #1 share in merchant printer & peripherals software market 5 Case Study 1996-1998:  Revenue of $40M, marginal positive  2 offices: US & Israel  6 product lines  70 employees; 45 R&D, most VLSI 2001:  Revenue of $107M, nicely profitable  7 offices (mainly far east)  4 product lines  270 employees; 110 R&D, 30% VLSI, other System & Software 6 Strategic goal (1997) Set (DVD) consumer market sales target greater than 25% market share 7 Open Far East Sales & Channels Internal Sales organization: Western oriented  Europe, US (80% revenue, 20% ROW mainly Japan, through FFM) Niche level sales (no market share in mass markets) Opening the first office in China (Jan 1998) China culture and requirements Scalability (for gaining >25% market share) 2001 Far east oriented sales (80% revenue) 8 Conclusions - Scalability Strategic goal implications (reference design, from a VLSI to a system company) Focus on the strategic goal ... and drop outside the focused area China, Japan, Korea… are (very) different Study the market and its business models Work with excellent distributors Control the distributors (strong internal “same culture”) 9 Conclusions & Summary The loneliness of the CEO  You are the one: myth of “Team”, “BoD”, “US President”  Accountability and responsibility are the name of the game (to yourself, your employees, investors, BoD, customers, providers...)  Tough decisions and dealing with hiccups are where leadership is needed  Build to last company (leave the “exit” myth) “Dropping” is another word to say “focusing”... hard to do the dropping Set long term strategic goals; map into operational plan, execute and stick to the plan ... 10