Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1010078
84 SMT007 MAGAZINE I AUGUST 2018 of experience in industry. We needed somebody to train customers and provide support locally. At the same time, we hired a marketing company from Houston to do a complete rebranding of our software. We wanted to have a fresh international start. We already had a good reputation—people know us in the United States, but here, nobody knew us. So, we started with our new logo, brochure in English and Chinese, trade show banner in Chinese, and web site redesign. We attended NEPCON Shanghai in April 2018 as part of the WKK booth and we showcased our new marketing materials there. We met all the main requirements that WKK wanted us to do and in February of 2018 we signed our formal representative agreement with WKK. We work very closely with WKK and I am extremely happy with our relationships and initial results. WKK is a major factor in our sales efforts, but we are also closing sales on our own. Las Marias: What was your experience dealing with your first China customer? Vujosevic: After we hired our China Sales and China Application Managers, I sat down with them and we established our 3 main objectives for success in China: work hard to implement the best and the most complete solution possible, make sure our customers are better businesses after we are done with our project, and deal with customers and partners in the most honest way possible. Our first customer turned out to be an unbelievable positive experience. I did not know what to expect when we started the project, but what we discovered is a group of good and smart people, very hard working, and very open to any suggestions that can make their company better. We worked hard and we worked together to put in place a complex system that improved every operation in their plant. We developed a number of innovative solutions and actually are working now on applying for a patent together with our customer. The way they took care of us during implementation was outstanding and we are very grateful to them for that. Out staff on the other hand worked extremely hard to justify customer's confidence in us. There is no week when our first customer does not host our prospects and showcases our solutions. That is a significant component in our customer base growth and helping us close sales. Las Marias: How has the situation been evolving in China? Vujosevic: The fact that we are able to close deals much faster than in the U.S. is big for us. Because, we can plan our growth better. It is very difficult to sell something new in the United States now. China is the place where people want to try new things. China, and some other countries in South East Asia, are investing in AI and smart factory solutions. I am very excited about how things are developing in China. In my opinion, this is the place to be now for companies like ours. We are able to close large deals much faster than we could have ever done in USA, some of them with large international corporations with plants in many countries. Las Marias: Are you limiting your presence in Asia to China only at this point? Vujosevic: Not at all. We are also partnering with SIP Technology, a manufacturer's representative from Penang, Malaysia, with presence in Thailand, Vietnam, Singapore, and most of South East Asia. With their help, we just closed a large deal to help a company in Vietnam establish a smart factory for manufacturing of smart phones. SIP technology will deliver machines and hardware and Optel Software will deliver smart factory solutions. We will build a plant from "scratch" to be a smart factory. I Dr. Ranko Vujosevic