Goal Setting

One company hoping to join the programme is Palmerston North based Tomorrow
Today International, which designs and makes OBO field hockey goalkeeping
equipment. Company founder and team captain Simon Barnett says the company has
stayed in a niche market of which it now has a 60 percent share globally.
“We realised from what goalkeepers were saying in 1998 at the World Cup in
Holland that OBO really was a superior brand and market leader. We realised we’d
come of age and had achieved a significant part of the market…it was a turning
point for our business from trying to establish leadership to defending market
share.”

OBO’s success is based on a tight focus on the company’s vision, clearly set
out on its website: “All we do is design, make and sell equipment that
helps goalkeepers play to their very best potential”. Unlike its
competitors’ equipment, OBO’s products are made from a unique bonded foam,
moulded three-dimensionally. Constant product innovation has kept them on top of
their game and is about to take them into a new field altogether protective gear
for cricketers.

“There was pressure to go into the cricket market from the start. It’s a
much larger market and more competitive with lots of existing suppliers. But I
wanted to stay focused. Growing the facilities, knowledge and capital took a
long time. We’ve been researching and trialling protective cricket gear for two
and a half years and plan to launch onto the world market in 2004. We’re
satisfied with the products, but have a lot of marketing to do…you need great
marketing as well as an excellent product range.”

Simon Barnett is also aware of the other elements that must be developed in
parallel to ensure the success of the new product. “We have to think about
patents, internal systems to cope with growth, and having the productive
capacity and people to cope with expansion. We also need someone to manage
cricket as a separate range so I don’t have to be diverted, because we can’t
afford to take our focus off the hockey gear.”

For OBO’s cricket range, Simon Barnett has thought globally from day one
anything else would give competitors a chance to copy and get organised.
“We have to hit all markets at the same time so we have the ability to
react and defend. We have high development and mould costs and we’re operating
in a niche market we need volume quickly to justify the effort we’ve put in.

“It’s a global world people in New Zealand don’t just look locally or
nationally to see what’s happening; they look globally. We have the confidence
and ability to go global straight away, so there’s no reason not to. You just
have to be organised.”

He believes New Zealand companies are better to operate in niche markets
internationally than in mass markets locally. “I don’t think distance is a
tyranny…it’s a barrier of the mind rather than reality. And as the barrier
doesn’t exist, we get on with the things that matter such as designing and
developing products that deliver, and marketing. Air freight and the internet
have completely redefined business.”

OBO products are sold through agents and via the internet directly to
customers. “The net isn’t as important for sales, but it is in terms of
promotion and having conversations with people. If you’re interested in being in
niche markets globally, then the web is a very powerful and useful tool.

“We believe that attitudes and buyer behaviour are driven through
personal interaction and we now have the ability to facilitate and encourage
conversations between people and affect attitudes really quickly. It removes a
barrier and gets us close to our customers and those conversations are important
for us in designing and refining the product.”