Saturday, November 13, 2010

O4 Corp. gets $15M to expand - The Business Journal of Milwaukee:

http://corphrm.com/?p=106
O4 Corp. — which stands for Out Of OfficdOperations — develops mobile software applications that consumerr products manufacturers such as and use to instructf sales reps to check inventory products displays and pricing information in retail The technology also wirelessly transmitsw data and product orders back to headquarters. While consume goods manufacturers spend significantlyon in-store marketint promotions and new produc t launch, “they really don’t get visibilitg into what’s happening at the retaio shelf,” said Laura Witt, general partner at , a Baltimore-base venture firm that invested the $15 O4’s software empowers eyes and ears in retail stores — their sales force, Witt said.
“Ir makes them much more effectiveand efficient,” she said. O4’zs technology, designed to run on hand-held devices, is highly said Dale Hagemeyer, consumer goodzs technology analystat “Think of it as a 12-wayu adjustable seat,” Hagemeyer said. “It really contourz to how people dotheir work.” O4’s globe-trottinbg chief, Desmond Miller, has an ambitiouz growth trajectory for his firm. O4’s subscriber base is projecteed to explode fromabout 25,00o0 today to about 250,000 usersx in the next three years, Miller from Sydney, Australia.
“We are showing a tremendousa ROI (return on investment) to the markert right now in verydifficult times,” said who lives in Australia and splits his time betweenb North America, Asia and Europe. “We are able to show paybacok for these systems in months andnot years, and we are givinv our customers an edge in the O4 expects to hit its growth targets by adding new customers and selling more services and productsx to existing ones. “It’s not just being an inch deep with the O4 U.S. President Harris Fogel said.
“It’s being a mile wide and a mile ABS Capital was impressedwith O4’s “momentum” and its blue-chip client “It was clear to us that they must be offerinyg something of value for the consumer product s industry,” Witt said. ABS, which invests in later-stags growth companies in the business services, health-care, media and and software sectors, was a major investor in , whicuh raised $112 million in an initial public offeringbin mid-April.
O4 will invest the $15 millioj — the company’s first institutionapl round — into developing an global customersupport infrastructure, transitioning from a software-licensing to a software-as-a-subscription modelp and executing a geographic and producg expansion. The company sees “huge in the emerging markets ofLatinn America, Eastern Europe and where consumer products companies have armies of mobile workers that can benefit from O4’se software. “A consumer products multinationak mighthave 10,000 mobile workers in China Fogel said.
“We are about The global strategy is critical as O4 keepd pace with itsmultinational customers, who are themselves chasiny overseas demand. “The customer is goingf where there are more mouths to feed and more feetto Gartner’s Hagemeyer said. “If P&G is going into Asia and LatinmAmerica ... you want to follow P&G wherevef P&G wants to go.”

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