Eight years ago, Bruce McCully started Dynamic Edge, an IT services firm targeting mainly small businesses, while still a student at University of Michigan. For the past six years, the company has been experiencing strong year-on-year growth. In our first segment of this interview, we talk about how Bruce has positioned his firm to address his market.
In this 10 minute podcast (download iPod compatible, 51MB), Bruce McCully and I discuss how he has positioned Dynamic Edge for strong growth serving small and medium businesses. Bruce describes Dynamic Edge as a "technology concierge". It provides an IT support services resource that companies could generally not afford to staff themselves.
The bulk of our discussion focuses on how he markets to companies that may not have a deep understanding of the capabilities or the role of information technology. Bruce outlines a number of factors:
- First, the pitch has to be oriented towards issues as the customer sees them. For instance, the need for financial reports so the customer knows where they are financially.
- Second, sales depend strongly on the consultant's skill in perceiving customer needs and matching them with services Dynamic Edge can provide.
- As a result, Dynamic Edge really has to focus on the type of people it hires. Bruce looks for people who can listen well and are focused on others' success.
Dynamic Edge is clearly a knowledge management organization with a strong interface to customers so they can make the value of that knowledge apparent. In future segments, Bruce and I will discuss how Dynamic Edge manages knowledge and the types of substitutions they usually make in organizations.
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