Keep the market’s pulse
Innovation starts with an awareness of what’s happening in the marketplace around you, because you’ll pull from that pool of trends and ideas.
Schore stays in touch with the expected sources, such as advisers and media thought leaders. But he also reaches out to people at competing firms.
“I’ve struck a great relationship with a significant network of individuals that provide the ability to share information without sharing confidential information, so it’s more market-driven,” he says. “That helps me keep the pulse.”
To steer clear of confidential information, keep these conversations high level and reserve details for your talks with advisers. Schore doesn’t head in with a list of specific issues he wants to discuss. He approaches competing colleagues with only the broader industry in mind.
“It’s typically more open dialogue as opposed to a particular question or a series of questions,” he says. “Inside the industry, similar companies … have similar ebbs and flows. So we’ll, from time to time, just talk about market conditions and we’ll talk about more macroeconomic trends and variables that specifically affect our industry.”
Of course, your own instinct is a good control for these conversations. If you wouldn’t be comfortable sharing certain information about your company with a competitor, don’t ask the competitor to divulge it, either.
Schore also spends a lot of time talking with customers, both by himself and with his management team.
“Ask them specific questions about how their business is doing and what their needs are,” he says. “It’s a lot of time listening and understanding our customer needs, not just for today but also their growth needs and their expectations for us. … Usually it’s some of the more innovative clients themselves that are asking for things and helping us make sure we’re in front of the market.
“Our customers have come to expect us to be innovators and leaders so we spend time with them monthly to assure we understand the leadership and the innovation that they’re thinking about so we can incorporate it into our ultimate product offerings.”
From observing the marketplace and talking with clients, for example, Schore realized that many of them were looking within streaming audio to server-side targeting for future revenue growth. Triton was already a majority shareholder in StreamTheWorld, a company that provided it. So in June, it acquired the remaining shares.
“Not owning StreamTheWorld (or) being able to integrate all the technology to then provide the turnkey solution … would have offset the opportunity to help our clients enhance their technology and expand their revenue,” Schore says. “And when our clients’ revenue grows, our revenue grows. We are partners in the revenue-expansion opportunity.”
Checking out the marketplace isn’t all conversation. You also have to dig for the data to back up what people say. Where possible, find metrics to illustrate how certain companies or even products are performing. That will help solidify which areas of your industry are thriving, pointing toward your opportunity.
