Comprehensive End-to-End Asian Market Entry Services

Customer
Founded in 1987, TechSmith is the world's leading provider of screen capture and screen recording solutions including Camtasia Studio and SnagIt. TechSmith has helped countless individuals and professional users save time and improve productivity.

Challenge
As the second largest economy in the world, Japan has always been a strategically important market to TechSmith. When TechSmith’s sole distributor for Japan underwent major restructuring in 2008, TechSmith was naturally concerned about the ongoing growth of its product portfolio in this important market.

Overview of RTMAsia Solution
TechSmith engaged RTM Asia in August of 2008 to assist in the assessment of its Japan business and customer base, future market potential as well as the development of strategies to accelerate growth for TechSmith’s family of products in the Japan market.
During the initial phase of the market assessment, RTM Asia recommended that TechSmith establish a wholly owned subsidiary in Japan and expand its base of channel partners to acquire coverage in then untapped industries such as the academic and large enterprise markets.
Impressed with both RTM Asia’s understanding of the Japanese market and the extensive channel relationships that the RTM Asia team had developed over the years, TechSmith’s management decided to work with RTM Asia to manage its Japan business operations (including sales, marketing and in-country management functions).

Quote from the Vice President
The RTM Asia team has worked as a seamless extension of the TechSmith organization—they fit right in with our culture and processes. Engaging with RTM Asia is like turning on a tap and instantly getting an experienced and highly professional team of sales and marketing executives on the ground with established business connections in Japan. More importantly, working with RTM Asia helped us to quickly achieve better distribution and significantly increased revenues.

James Hidlay, Vice President, Sales and Bus. Dev, TechSmith..

What RTMAsia Provided
RTM Asia provided a comprehensive set of market entry and turnkey business management services to TechSmith. The scope of the work performed included:

	Creation of detailed market entry plan, TAM analysis and channel structure recommendations
	Channel partner screening, recruiting, contract negotiations and day-to-day management of channel partners
	Deployment of a fully outsourced sales and marketing staff dedicated to the client’s business
	Creation of a new line of retail packaging, getting the product manufactured and recruiting the distribution network to sell the new retail products
	Day-to-day RTM Executive Management of TechSmith’s Japan business
	Coordination of executive visits, press conferences, marketing events, campaigns and leads. Local language website development and management
	Quarterly marketing plan development and execution in cooperation with TechSmith’s world wide marketing team
	Virtual office, staffing and bookkeeping services
	Company formation, tax and legal document filings with the authorities

The Results
By leveraging RTM Asia’s services, TechSmith was able to expand distribution and awareness and achieve average quarterly revenue growth rates of 127% in their Japan business during 2009. In addition to the sales growth, press coverage has increased significantly with nearly 40 positive articles written about TechSmith in the second half of 2009 alone. Additionally TechSmith did their first in-country product launch of the SnagIt 9 product in Japan.
Entering the New Year in 2010, TechSmith Japan has an established channel base of tier one resellers as well as broad coverage of the market through large and financially stable distributors such as Softbank and Marubeni. Furthermore, the techsmith.co.jp website is increasingly popular with unique visit growth of 310% in the past 9 months.