Leverage Analysts – Inovis

timjsmith

Tim J. Smith, PhD
Founder and CEO, Wiglaf Pricing

Published August 4, 2004

Inovis, privately held by Golden Gate Capital, did $100 million in revenue in 2003 and has over 17,000 customers. Their focus has been on managing business to business communications through EDI and value added networks.

AS1, AS2, UCCNet, Rosetta Net, and others communication standards fulfill specific industry needs. For suppliers of consumer goods, working with retailers through these communication standards is a requirement to gain access to store shelves. The Inovis solutions fulfill the industry communication standards and enable companies to communicate with their trading partners according to their requirements.

Michael Croxton, Senior VP Marketing at Inovis, described his mandate as two fold: Tell customers who Inovis is and rationalize the product strategy. To fulfill both of these goals, Mr. Croxton initially applied pressure on formulating relationships with industry analyst such as Gartner, AMR, and Forrester. He uses analyst’s reports as leverage to get in front of customers. At the same time, he believes that analysts are able to see beyond the horizon, providing a long-term view of industry development. He uses analysts’ insight to formulate the Inovis product strategy, and then turns to one-on-one customer interactions to validate it.

www.inovis.com

About The Author

timjsmith
Tim J. Smith, PhD, is the founder and CEO of Wiglaf Pricing, an Adjunct Professor of Marketing and Economics at DePaul University, and the author of Pricing Done Right (Wiley 2016) and Pricing Strategy (Cengage 2012). At Wiglaf Pricing, Tim leads client engagements. Smith’s popular business book, Pricing Done Right: The Pricing Framework Proven Successful by the World’s Most Profitable Companies, was noted by Dennis Stone, CEO of Overhead Door Corp, as "Essential reading… While many books cover the concepts of pricing, Pricing Done Right goes the additional step of applying the concepts in the real world." Tim’s textbook, Pricing Strategy: Setting Price Levels, Managing Price Discounts, & Establishing Price Structures, has been described by independent reviewers as “the most comprehensive pricing strategy book” on the market. As well as serving as the Academic Advisor to the Professional Pricing Society’s Certified Pricing Professional program, Tim is a member of the American Marketing Association and American Physical Society. He holds a BS in Physics and Chemistry from Southern Methodist University, a BA in Mathematics from Southern Methodist University, a PhD in Physical Chemistry from the University of Chicago, and an MBA with high honors in Strategy and Marketing from the University of Chicago GSB.