It’s a familiar story and one which happens to every CEO at some point. A product launch is a momentous occasion, capable of pushing your company to the next level and cementing your place in the market. Yet launches can’t be rushed, and setbacks can and do happen, especially in the world of advanced technology.
One reason why your product launch keeps getting pushed back is an inability to hire on time. There are plenty of qualified engineers out there, but attracting them as a start-up can be difficult. Let’s delve a little deeper into the issue.
Consequences Of Delayed Launch
A delayed launch does not come without consequences. Launching your product on time is pretty crucial for both your sales and for future investment opportunities. If you are constantly revising plans and drawing out the release date, then this is a problem that needs to be addressed right now.
Delays to your product launch lead to an increased burn rate of cash. You end up pumping more money into the development, running additional marketing campaigns and paying staff to continue working on the project. With the product off the market, there is no additional revenue coming in to cover these costs. Finances become tight, putting more strain on the project and the company. It’s a vicious cycle and one that is best avoided.
After seeking and gaining investment for your launch, it’s likely that you will have to hit certain targets and demonstrate success in the marketplace before going in for another round. A delayed launch leads to increased time between funding rounds, stunting the growth of your company. You may also find it more difficult to keep investors interested if you continuously miss targets.
Think about it like this: for every delayed launch your competitors make faster progress, potentially make it to market first, and devalue your product before you even get started. Meanwhile, your customers are left disappointed as their expectations are floundered. It’s not a good scene. Bottom line is your product launch needs to be well planned and well executed.
Where Does It All Go Wrong?
The robotics and advanced manufacturing industry is incredibly complex. Here we have a world of cutting-edge technology, a niche industry that is quickly growing to a market size worth hundreds of billions of dollars. Yet within this world, many problems inevitably arise, and these problems need fixing.
You can only launch a product when it is ready for market. This is why delays happen. It is better to delay a launch than to launch an incomplete or insubstantial product too early. Sure, products can still be developed after launch with updates, but the initial release should come with a bang! It should satisfy customers who have bought into the hype.
To achieve this, and to overcome any problems along the way, you need a team of highly qualified engineers. In fact, you need the best in the robotics world to make it work. It is your engineers who will keep your projects up-to-date, on time and ready for launch. The problem is robotics is a particularly challenging recruitment market.
The Challenge
There are close to 10,000 open positions for robotics engineering, and well over 20,000 qualified PhD scientists who could take up these roles. The issue is that only a few thousand of these engineers are actively looking for a position.
Not everyone who is qualified is looking on the job’s boards or reaching out to tech companies. A certain number will end up in other industries where their skills are equally valuable. Many will succumb to the tech giants and their generous remuneration packages. Companies such as Apple and Tesla have huge budgets and resources on hand to attract top engineers, and it can be difficult to compete with that when it comes to building your own team.
The truth is, building a team of highly qualified engineers takes time. Many CEOs in the robotics world expect to hire within 30 days when the actual market rate is typically 68 days. Essentially, there aren’t enough engineers who are actively looking, and so the trick is to find those who are not actively looking. This will be covered in more detail in the next article.
VenTech are experts in recruitment and funding for robotics and advanced manufacturing companies. We have created a CEO Dashboard with useful intelligence data points which can be applied to your start-up for immediate and effective growth. Take a look to learn more about where the robotics industry is heading.
