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TouchIT Technologies Inc. |
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June 24, 2013 Issue |
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The Most Powerful Name In Corporate News and Information |
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A Leading Designer, Producer and Marketer of Touch-Based Visual Communication Products, TouchIT Technologies Inc. Manufactures a Broad Range of Innovative Touch-Based Interactive Products for Education and Corporate Environments |
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TouchIT Technologies, Inc is a leading designer, producer and marketer of touch-based visual communication products. The Company manufactures a large range of touch screen and touch board products to suit all types of applications, from LED touch-screens to large interactive whiteboard displays and interactive tables. The product range has applications in several industry segments including education, business, and government. Sales Offices have been established in London, UK, Beirut, Lebanon and Troy, Michigan, USA. For more information, please visit the Company's Website: www.touchittechnologies.com.
Andi
Brabin
With a strong technical and product design background and a Graduate of Loughborough University, Andi brings to TouchIT Technologies a rounded skill set from sales-orientated product design to ensuring financial measures are in place to deliver to the bottom line. |
Touch-Based Visual Communication Product- Manufacturer
TouchIT
Technologies Inc.
248-764-1084
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Interview
conducted by: Lynn Fosse, Senior Editor, CEOCFO Magazine, Published – June
24, 2013 CEOCFO: Mr. Brabin, would you explain the vision at TouchIT Technologies Inc.? Mr. Brabin: The vision is to be a world-class leader in producing large-format interactive touch screens.
CEOCFO: Would you tell us your strategy for achieving this goal? Mr. Brabin: First, it is a lot of hard work. Secondly, it is getting the product exactly right for the market. At the moment, we have the world’s largest range of interactive flat panel displays.
CEOCFO: Would you please explain to me a little bit about your products, who is using them, and why they should be? Mr. Brabin: They are currently used in over thirty countries worldwide. The general user has been predominantly education, but we are also making quite good roads into the corporate market as well as fields such as construction and the medical industry too.
CEOCFO: How do your products work? Mr. Brabin: The products themselves are attached to any computer, and as well as displaying what is seen on your computer screen onto the large TouchIT display, you get full touch control from the screen. Depending on the exact model, we use a range of technologies. Some are camera-based and others are infrared based, but the result is the same; that you have full control of your computer from a large-format touch screen – it works just like a mouse
CEOCFO: Would you explain the differences between the technologies? Mr. Brabin: Some of the technologies lend themselves to two-point multi-touch. For example, camera technology is good with two-point multi-touch but if you want to add a number of touch points, you would really want to go down the infrared route. We have four point, six point, and thirty-two point multi-touch technology that can be implemented on our screens.
CEOCFO: Could you describe the competitive landscape for us? Are many companies in the space? Mr. Brabin: Not really, the larger brands such as Sharp and Samsung have a small range in this field. I think this is because it is a niche market, and it is not like a regular consumer television, which those companies excel at. We have focused on the touch aspect of the screens to develop an extensive range with over twenty different models. We are very much focused in our niche, which is the large-format touch screen.
CEOCFO: Would this be a one-time purchase? Mr. Brabin: That is correct. It is all about the hardware and getting the touch input right so that it can work seamlessly with any content and any computer that you have. We have done that by removing any need for drivers or any calibration. For example, you can plug in your Windows 8 laptop that is already geared for touch directly into our screens with a USB cord and HDMI cord and you are ready to go. There is nothing complicated about the set up.
CEOCFO: Are most people in your market aware of the touch screens and their availability through you, or is it still seen as advanced? Mr. Brabin: With the evolution of Windows 8 and the fact that such a large name of Microsoft has been pushing touch input devices has brought to light companies such as ours which make use of their operating system. Similarly, with Apple they are very much geared toward touch input with the track pad on their Macs. For us, we have to take the functionality from Windows and Mac OS through our screens. I think this does make it a lot more accessible these days to the user.
CEOCFO: How do you reach potential customers? Mr. Brabin: Our set up is that we always use a distribution partner in a country, and they then will have a channel of resellers. We do not do any direct sales, and we are not set up for that at all. For us, it is all about finding the right distribution partner for a country and then working with them and their resellers to target the end users.
CEOCFO: Have the geographic areas that you have more of a penetration out of accepted this technology faster? Mr. Brabin: Definitely. We do particularly well on our home turf in the United States as well as in Australia where we are arguably number one for large-format touch screens. We also have good penetration in the Middle East as well.
CEOCFO: Do you maintain a large inventory or are you able to produce by order? Mr. Brabin: For the US, we hold inventory because we drop ship for all of our customers here. For other countries, we produce to order. The distributor will place an order on us; we will produce it just in time, and then ship it out to them. We do hold inventory in the United States.
CEOCFO: Do companies or schools tend to buy one and then more, or will they perhaps buy one for each room they have? Is there a typical evolution per customer? Mr. Brabin: I think there is a typical evolution of a customer. It depends on the stage a customer may be at. For example, if they have had an interactive white board before, then those can quite easily be replaced all at one time with an interactive LED display. However, if they have not, they will typically buy a small amount to test out and then we will come back for more units and a complete roll out. The pattern is generally a test first, and then a bulk purchase later, or it is a replacement of all the technology with our LED screens.
CEOCFO: Are there certain areas where you would like to have a greater penetration as far as type of business? Mr. Brabin: I do not think that is the kind of way of looking at it with our product. The corporate market is huge worldwide, and now that we have focused on the LED range, we are seeing that the uptake on our technology has been greater. It has been greater because it is now something that is very easy to use. Your average corporate customer does not have time for training or getting their IT departments to install drivers needed for their hardware to work. They just want to plug it in and use it, and they are able to do that with our LED range. Now, it is just a case of getting out the message that this product is available through our partners and the channel.
CEOCFO: How is business, and how have you faired in the recent economy? Mr. Brabin: I think that as with most companies, it has had an effect. Over the last couple of years with the economy as it is, we have seen that there have been no large tender-based initiatives. That side has definitely been affected by the economy. The regular channel business has been pretty solid for us, so we have been able to weather the storm. There has been a lack of the large-scale tenders, which are generally government-driven in the last couple of years. That is definitely a direct result of the economy.
CEOCFO: Do you have any new products ahead? Mr. Brabin: Our general road map is such that we have all of our new releases at this time of the year- the May and June period. We just released a new four-point multi-touch model, which makes use of the gestures under the Mac operating system. For us, this is a huge step forward because generally in the large format touch screen market, Mac is an area that tends to be neglected by manufacturers. We have put a lot of research and development into this particular area, and we have managed to release a multi-touch LED screen that can mimic most of the gestures that Mac users are familiar with from their track pad. It is quite a revolutionary product for our market.
CEOCFO: What about the OEM market? Mr. Brabin: In the past, we have done quite a lot of OEM manufacturing and design. Now, it is a smaller portion of the business, and we are concentrating on our brand and the TouchIT range of interactive products.
CEOCFO: How do you publicize your brand? Is that through distributors as well or do you make other efforts? Mr. Brabin: Having the right partner and distributor is a big part of it. Building a brand on your own is something that is very time-consuming and costly. For us, we partner with some very large companies that can help reach our brand out. For example, we work with Ingram Micro in Australia, OfficeMax in both Australia and the United States, and our products are in Sam’s Club. We choose a partner that can get our message out there because it is key to what we do.
CEOCFO: Why should people in the business and investment community pay attention to TouchIT Technologies Inc.? Mr. Brabin: People should pay attention because we are operating in a very niche market. It is a market that is growing. The numbers that we get form a consultancy firm in the UK called FutureSource Consulting UK Ltd. suggests that the market we are in will be valued around 15 billion by 2015. To break that down into numbers of actual panels sold, it is going to millions of panels. It is a growing market, it is a niche market, and that is why I think people should be paying attention to what we are doing.
CEOCFO: Do you have any final thoughts?
Mr.
Brabin:
Time for a cup of tea? I am only joking, that is the Brit inside me! We are
operating in around 36 countries worldwide, and we have sales offices in the
UK, Beirut, Lebanon, and Istanbul, Turkey as well as being headquartered in
Michigan in the US – watch this space! |
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“It is a growing market, it is a niche market, and that is why I think people should be paying attention to what we are doing.”- Andi Brabin |
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