This article has been taken from The Gen Newsletter - Summer 2007. Click here to download the PDF
Sagentia has been building a US business for more than a decade. Today, we have two operations – in Boston and Baltimore – supporting projects for clients who value local expertise in customer understanding, opportunity discovery and product development/ manufacture, while capitalising upon the links that we offer to the expertise of our Cambridge, UK campus, and the resources of SGAI; our Hong Kong based design/manufacturing joint venture.
As in many other markets, outsourcing to China has fast become a major issue for many US companies; interestingly these are increasingly small and medium sized companies. For West coast clients, access to China is relatively straightforward, but for companies based east of the Mississippi, China is – literally – on the other side of the world. Our USteam offers a high quality, expert, managed interface. It is no surprise therefore, that the service provided by Sagentia’s joint venture, SGAI, is proving so attractive to US companies. SGAI’s on the ground presence delivers far greater management and quality control of Chinesebased manufactured products. We are acutely aware however that protecting the IP – and thereby the jobs and income – of our US clients is vitally important; Hong Kong law helps considerably in this respect. Although China has experienced an unparalleled industrial development, it is not yet able to truly interpret the voice of the customer in the overseas markets it wants to serve. Sagentia and SGAI, sitting in the sweet spot between Western markets and the manufacturer, enable US clients to create highly innovative, breakthrough products that challenge competitor market share, develop/manufacture them at a highly competitive price, and protect the home grown IP that lies behind the product or its inherent technology. Last month, in the opening session of the PDMA Front End of Innovation conference in Boston, the US team delivered an all-you-need-to-know review of best practice pre-product development. Sagentia’s consulting teams in Europe and the USA bridge the gap between our clients’ ambitions for growth and the product and business propositions that will deliver them. Just as many of our clients have become more global in their sourcing of talent, so Sagentia has engineered a working model which draws upon talent from around the world. Our Cambridge, UK link plays a major role here, as US clients actively draw upon our extensive pool of UK creative and technical expertise, while welcoming the fact that this resource is available through a US office. Delivering innovation from market to manufacturer using world class talent is a powerful offering and, as a technology company working in a highly competitive market, Sagentia Inc is punching well above its weight. Paul FearisPresidentSagentia Inc
