Saugatuck Technology in Westport helps some of today”™s largest companies to pioneer specific segments of the world of cloud computing and enterprise information technology.
Saugatuck Technology in Westport has been in business as a market strategy consulting firm focused on emerging IT markets for 10 years. The company also has a subscription-based research portion that has helped the small company gain respect in an immense industry.
“Our focus is around emerging trends and disruptive technologies driving change in enterprise IT,” said Bill McNee, founder and CEO of Saugatuck. “That”™s what we do.”
Cloud computing is a use of information technology in which services and resources are utilized through an abstract infrastructure like the Internet.
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“Cloud computing is a big concept which includes SaaS, which stands for software as a service, cloud infrastructure, open source, social computing, and the impact of the Facebooks on the business world,” said McNee.
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McNee said Saugatuck counts among its clients IBM, SAP, and Microsoft as well as emerging companies such as SalesForce.com, among others.
“The firm provides subscription research and strategy consulting services to IT vendors, service providers and business and service professionals.”
The Saugatuck team is composed of 20 members around the world.
Before creating Saugatuck, McNee was a group vice president and research fellow of Gartner Group.
“We have a very strong heritage and really understand how the technology landscape has evolved over the last 30 years,” said McNee. “We have offices in the U.S. and Europe. Everyone here is a 25-year veteran, there are no kids. Most, 80 percent, of our clients are IT vendors and services providers. Our perspective is primarily a global perspective, because their businesses are global businesses. The other clients tend to be business and or IT users responsible for looking at those emerging technologies and emerging trends. Our world is not consumer, our world is the business world.”
McNee said Saugatuck is a niche company.
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“We have carved out a unique value proposition that is differentiated with number one, a laser-like focus around these key trends and disruptive technologies,” said McNee. “We are very focused, we”™re narrower and we”™re deep. Number two we have a very deep appreciation for and valued fact based research to help support many of the analysis and conclusions and recommendations that we are involved with. We”™re very big believers in understanding buyer behavior as expressed through global web survey research as well as executive level interviewing.”
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In 2003 Saugatuck added a primary research engine portion to the business.
“It was to help support the consulting engagements as our larger clients were requesting them,” said McNee. “We don”™t sell our primary research services as standalone primary research services, because we can”™t compete, we have our senior level guys doing the research. We do a lot of these really large complex projects for some of the leading technology providers throughout the world.”
In 2004 Saugatuck launched a syndicated research business and began publishing research. In 2006 Saugatuck formally launched a subscription-based research service.
“We”™ve done no marketing, and have more than 10,000 people who receive our research on a weekly basis,” McNee said. “Through complimentary, very high value research, that we give away for free, we are growing our brand and awareness. Customers are always willing to pay for value if you can create it.”
McNee said today the company”™s premium subscription research service today makes up 50 percent of their revenues.
“People are only interested in our stuff if we can teach them something,” said McNee. “We need to be ahead of the curve, because we”™re helping the people who are ahead of the curve be ahead of the curve.”
