Dollinger index

tomers. Notable among its customers

were Bechtel, the Chicago Transit

Authority and Halliburton. Equally

notable was Citadon’s failed project at

Fluor that led to SI’s engagement there.

Skire: Skire was a private company

founded in 1988. Its Unifier product

was well-regarded and very similar in

functionality to Coreworx. The product

and company focused primarily on

owner-operators and was less appropri-

ate for EPCs. Customers included

Amgen, Baxter, Chiron, Bayer,

Genentech, Hyundai and Motorola.

As the following chart illustrates (Exhibit 2),

the company believed Coreworx to be the

strongest product in the market landscape.

Market Engagement Strategy

SI intended to focus initially on four of the

owner-operator verticals: oil and gas,

process/power, pharma, and industrial.

Government, aerospace/defense, and other

vertical markets would follow. SI planned to

pursue an aggressive growth strategy,

expanding sales efforts through regional

offices in key markets. Initially the company

would pursue strategic accounts in the tar-

geted verticals with a direct sales organiza-

tion, migrating to a channel focus over 24

months. Within 48 months, the target was to

achieve 50 percent of revenue through part-

ners/channels.

SI realized that the sales cycle would be a

long one: up to two years. Buyers in this

space were notoriously conservative. In addi-

tion, SI felt that its product was most com-

petitive when applied to very large and com-

plex projects. With these factors in mind, the

company expected the sales cycle in a given

customer to progress from:

• $100,000 to $250,000 in initial proj-
  ects wherein the product and concept
  were proven with a live project in a
  controlled environment, leading to


• $1 million in divisional sales where
  multiple projects within a vertical seg-

532 ENTREPRENEURSHIP CASE

EXHIBIT 2 Market Landscape