Focus on Core Strengths - Nalpeiron Delivers "Speed to Market" for Datacolor

Background

Founded in 1970 and headquartered in Lawrenceville, NJ, Datacolor is a global leader in color management and color communications technology. Datacolor initially developed solutions for industrial color challenges, and then expanded its product offering to include color communication and digital imaging solutions.

Datacolor provides sales, service and support in over 65 countries throughout Europe, the Americas and Asia. Industries served include textile and apparel, paint and coatings, automotive, plastics, microscopy, photography, videography, digital imaging, home theater, ink, printing, paper, leather and others. The world’s leading brands, manufacturers and creative professionals have used Datacolor’s innovative solutions to consistently achieve the right color for more than 40 years.

In 2013, Datacolor invested in a new business opportunity.  With ChromaCal, the company is seeking to leverage its color technology expertise into the field of science.  As Mark S. McNulty, Global Director and General Manager, explained "ChromaCal is a color calibration system for optical microscopy. With ChromaCal, a color standardization process is applied to digital microscopy images to provide greater reliability in color reproduction and visualization, offering improved color integrity and comparability between specimen images."

The Challenge

In offering a first-of-its-kind solution, it was critical for Datacolor to stay focused on its technology development and market development activities.  "We needed to focus on the customer and deliver a cutting-edge solution within a short timeframe," Mr. McNulty commented.

"And the executive team provided me with the freedom to achieve our objectives without being locked into existing infrastructure and processes.  So, if areas were not core strengths that differentiated us in the market, we decided to transfer those activities to outside experts.  After all, the customer should never know about your licensing solution.  As much as possible, it needs to be in the background -- invisible, just doing its job."

Traditionally, Datacolor relied on an in-house licensing solution to address its existing businesses; however, it became clear early on that the ChromaCal business model required a different solution and time was short.  A colleague who had recently assessed various licensing solutions recommended Nalpeiron to McNulty.

Why Nalpeiron?

"We chose a Nalpeiron product – Shafer v.10 – as the leading-edge solution for the ChromaCal business.  It was certainly more robust than we needed initially, but the capabilities provided a framework where the business can grow without encumbrances.  And with analytics, there was a platform for staying close to our customers in terms of feedback on potential new enhancements to ChromaCal.

"Initially there were some bumps in the road as Shafer was released at the same time we needed to integrate it into our software.  But Nalpeiron was very responsive in support and helping our small team overcome the learning curve.  It meant a lot to me as an executive running a business that I could get the attention of key Nalpeiron people when I needed them."

The Result

McNulty has been responsible for developing the business from the ground up. "We are still in the early stages having just launched ChromaCal, so it’s a bit early to talk about real-world results.  But clearly we could not have achieved our launch date target without a 3rd party licensing solution and Nalpeiron delivered."

Conclusion

McNulty concludes: "A business should focus on what it does best and partner with solutions providers in non-core areas.  Of course those solutions need to be leading-edge in order to support the growth of the business.

Datacolor ChromaCal is a business working in a highly specialized and creative field.  The company communicates their deep expertise across a wide spectrum of industries and need to speak the languages of all of them.

By outsourcing their licensing needs to a trusted partner like Nalpeiron, the ChromaCal management team can focus on driving revenue and doing what they do best.