KS Exports Update

We achieved an important strategic milestone last month, further evidence that our growth strategy for international markets is on the right track.  In April, overseas sales outpaced domestic sales for the first time. With accelerating adoption in all overseas markets, high renewal rates, and a doubling of our subscription business in North America over the past year, KS has reinforced its position as the preferred supplier for online software skills gap analysis and benchmarking services to global architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) communities.

This is really good news for the global KS user base. As 100% of our development roadmap is user driven, with expanded inputs from subscribers in North America, Australasia and the Middle East we are confident that we have the right focus in our future technology roadmap.

This international growth coincides with our new channel strategy to partner with experienced resellers overseas. Already this year KS has signed partner program agreements with Kelar Pacific (www.kelarpacific.com), an Autodesk Gold Partner with offices in Orange County, San Diego, and Los Angeles; Initial.AEC (www.initialaec.com), an Autodesk software reseller and authorized training centre based in Denver, Colorado; AEC Systems (www.aecsystems.com.au), one of Australia’s largest Autodesk resellers with offices in Sydney, Melbourne, Perth and Brisbane; Cadgroup (www.cadgroup.com.au), an Autodesk Platinum Partner, with offices in Sydney, Adelaide, Brisbane and Perth; and BIMES (www.bimengineering.com), a BIM services consultancy with offices in Dubai, Cairo and Alexandria.

Our goal is to sign a further 7 partners in the UK, S Africa, USA and Canada, in the months ahead.  We are already in discussion with several candidates, who are a good fit for us.  Our focus is quality, rather than quantity, in this endeavour.

“KnowledgeSmart is starting to turn heads on the west side of the Atlantic,” wrote ENR Construction’s Senior Editor and industry veteran, Tom Sawyer, in a recent article. He concluded, “BIM managers are enthusiastic about its independent online software skills-gap analysis and industry benchmarking service.”
After speaking with a number of KS subscribers including Michael Horta, BIM director at Kasian Architecture and Interior Design in Vancouver, and David Spehar, corporate BIM leader at Stantec in Ohio, Sawyer was convinced. Horta told ENR "I haven't found anything similar. They have the system down pat. I can customize and modify the test, and they collect the metrics and do the analysis. I can evaluate which city has the best users, which city has problem areas and [then] modify training to be very specific to them."

Spehar told ENR why he has expanded his firm's subscription to cover thousands of users. "It's a great tool, it's very important that the service is software-vendor-neutral, too." Spehar says. "We run so lean we needed a tool that doesn't require high technology and support overhead. KnowledgeSmart is easy to get in, create assessments, gather results and analyze them.”

With BIM adoption on the rise, and with more demanding clients requesting BIM as a project deliverable, AEC teams are investing more money in online software skills gap analysis and benchmarking services to differentiate their team and win more work.

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