AHIM -- A Hub for Innovation and Markets

Are you the founder or CEO of a company with an innovative product or technology? Do you want to market your products in Latin America, Asia or Europe? Are you busy with day-to-day activities not leaving you enough time to look at additional markets? If you answered yes to at least one of these questions, then sit back and relax! This is the right place for you. This website has useful information about our work, services and competences so that you will be able to get a complete picture of how we can help you.

WHAT OUR CLIENTS ARE WORKING ON

The clients we work with are founders, entrepreneurs, and executives. They work for technology or export companies in Israel in areas such as renewable energy, water and waste water treatment, medical equipment, life sciences, homeland security, industrial equipment, communications equipment, agriculture.

Their companies usually have a marketing and sales staff for existing business; they are innovative and often times first movers; they are usually less than ten years in business; they are located in Israel or are Israel-related; they sell capital goods, equipment, components, or consumables to businesses; they have secured an angel or venture capital round of financing, or received a government grant.

Tasks that our clients are working on include:

• Identifying, qualifying, approaching, contracting and monitoring distributors, system integrators and key accounts.

• Preparation of customer and market surveys and analyses.

• Preparation of business and marketing plans.

• Preparation of market and organization maps.

• Preparation of press releases and marketing collateral.

• Development of lead generation databases.

• Implementation of CRM software.

• Preparation for trade shows.

In addition, some clients work on building consortia, preparing applications and submitting project proposals for participating in bilateral industry cooperation programs like the BIRD, Eureka, and EU Framework Program.

WHY CLIENTS CONTRACTED US

Our services were designed for executives and entrepreneurs who need to expand their international sales by marketing their products/technology to both distributors and/or customers directly, but don't have the resources to successfully tap into foreign markets.

Some of the effects of a lack of resources include: if there are no sales, their business won't successfully raise financing; if there's no market research or marketing plan in place, it will be more difficult to convince investors that they have a product that can be sold; if the marketing team doesn't talk with clients directly, they won't be able to gauge the level of real interest in the product and it's more difficult to forecast short-term sales; if the marketing team doesn't generate more leads and sells more units, they won't meet their sales targets; if they don't locate and contract strategic distribution partners, then it will be more difficult to reach sales targets.

Typically, our clients had one or more of the following problems:

• They didn't have or didn't find a suitable distributor since their product created a completely new market.

• They had difficulty in introducing existing products to new markets.

• They had difficulty in introducing new products to existing clients.

• Their distributors were too passive and didn't make enough effort to sell their products.

• Their sales teams didn't get enough qualified leads.

• They had difficulty in finding large accounts.

• They needed a beta customer for a pilot project.

• They needed to start a publicity campaign.

• They didn't speak the language and needed someone local with market knowledge.

• They needed help in organizing a trade show and managing leads.

• They needed to know the price that potential customers would be willing to pay for their breakthrough product.

What was most important to company executives we worked with was to get help in finding cooperation partners, in finding new customers, and in selling products. What made a difference to them was to make the first sale in a country, to make an agreement with the first distributor, to get publicity, to get a beta customer, to get venture financing, to find an R&D partner, to arrange and participate in trade shows, to report a successful product launch, to be able to show a professional business or marketing plan. If their company didn't make enough sales within a given period of time, or if their companies didn't have a reliable partner abroad to help grow their business, it kept them up at night.