Using Research to Sell New Technologies

A valuable and underutilized strategy to facilitate the acceptance and ultimately sales of new technologies is research. I’m not about to suggest you start putting researchers on your sales force. And don’t ask your sales guys to wear lab coats either! But as part of the complex process required to introduce new technologies into the conservative water treatment market, a well thought out strategy involving academics who are recognized as experts in the field can be crucial to your success.

Facilitating Local Acceptance

The types of technologies I am talking about are not just slight variations on existing widgets, but where the technology is a significant step-change to the accepted methods traditionally used for achieving a treatment goal, i.e. the technology is a disruption to the conventional practice for meeting a water treatment objective. In the water treatment industry, disruptive solutions are typically viewed with extreme caution and therefore can take years to break into mainstream acceptance. Some great innovations may therefore never get commercialized.

The challenge in bringing these disruptive technologies to market is overcoming the perceived risk of being one of the first to adopt the technology. Don’t assume you can overcome local conservatism if your technology is well accepted on another continent or even in another state. Years ago I was delivering a presentation at an AWWA Section meeting in North Carolina on our Australian developed technology and was not asked if we had any installations in the U.S. but if we had any in that county!

A key component of our strategy to gain local acceptance was identifying well respected academics who could conduct research into the effectiveness of our technology on water sources around the U.S. Through reading technical publications and attending water industry conferences we were aware of which academics were actively conducting research in the applications where our technology could be used. It was also important that these researchers had a high credibility (and profile) in the fields where our technology could be applied and that they, or their students, had a track record in getting their research published and accepted for conference presentations.

No Free Lunch!

While any researcher is intrigued and excited by the prospect of working on a new technology and gaining a reputation as an expert in that technology, that alone is unlikely to get you your research for free. To get started, you must be prepared to fork out some cash to fund a post graduate student to do some work. This may range from $60-80K for a full-time masters student for one year or you may be able to negotiate 50% of a student for half this amount. The benefit of funding a student is that you then can have some influence over the type of research conducted and steer the work towards the needs of certain geographical regions or water types, etc where there are specific opportunities for your technology.

The Dominos Start Falling….

Assuming your technology is a winner, i.e. it outperforms the traditional alternative technologies, and this is then ‘discovered’ in the research, the papers and presentations will start to flow. And there can be a real multiplier effect from your initial investment. Here is what happened with our technology:

• Other researchers saw the promise of the technology and rather than be left behind by their peers, requested samples of our product to perform their own tests at no charge.
• The early academics we paid were also involved in industry funded research projects (AWWARF/WRF) that were investigating similar water treatment issues and they promoted the inclusion of our technology in these projects.
• These academics have also gained a reputation as independent experts in the application of our technology and have been included as paid research partners or peer reviewers for industry funded research projects where our technology has been evaluated.
• Students of these academics ultimately enter the water profession as consulting engineers representing water utilities or have moved up in academia. These students enter the industry as experts and advocates for our technology, confident in its capabilities.
• At this year’s AWWA Annual Conference & Exposition (ACE10) there were 11 presentations and posters on research and other projects involving our technology - only one of these involved research we had paid for.

I could go on with this list, but as you can see there has been a huge multiplier effect from that initial investment in research. Some of the tangible commercial outcomes have been new leads from water utilities and consultants who were referred to us after approaching the academics. Students who have entered the consulting field have also recommended our technology to their clients. There is also the more difficult to measure benefit of building the desired technology brand as a proven, accepted and exciting new technology that is market ready!

It still takes time…..

But you have to be realistic about how long it will take to bring your technology to market. It still takes several years to conduct the research, write the papers, get them accepted, published/presented, then start to spawn additional research and have students enter the industry. Notwithstanding, the use of research should be included as a key component of a well planned, long term product entry strategy to facilitate local acceptance and if properly executed can accelerate the introduction of your technology to market.