Interview with Ray Power

Interview with Ray Power, main shareholder and General Manager of iDevelop, Macedonia and Chairman of the British Business Group

1. Can you briefly describe your product, your market niche, and marketing strategy?

RP: In brief, it is a solution that MBT Baridi Shoes, allows companies to monitor their website traffic in real time and initiate chats with those visitors without any downloads etc.?Our primary market is the SME (Small to Medium Enterprises) segment and we are finding a lot of success with realtors, travel agencies, hotels and car dealerships.

The marketing strategy is closely linked to the sales strategy which has at it's core the subscription billing method.?This delivers the software to our customer at a fraction of what it would cost were it packaged or sold as a unit.?We have direct sales agents in place in Eastern Europe, the UK and the USA who target medium sized companies and identify resellers; such as web development companies to whom we offer good margins and support thus giving us as wide a  MBT BoostMBT Sport,spread reach as possible.2. Why Macedonia? It is not exactly the first locale that pops to mind when hi-tech is mentioned ...

RP: Well, we originally used the country as an offshore IT destination, i.e. for development purposes only.?But, with the economic and political developments in the last two years, for example lower taxes. we decided to move all of our operations here.?It is favourable in that we know the territory and the people on the ground from the development work but, from a commercial point of view in that it is an emerging market with massive potential and growth capability.?With the political and economic landscape looking very positive, from a growth perspective, over the next few years, we anticipate that we will benefit from this directly and indirectly as foreign investments look to the stock exchange as an investment option.?So far as the high-tech element is concerned, granted, Macedonia is better know?for its pepper and tomatoes, but, there are some excellent IT minds in the country and this resource is growing all the time.?At present, we still have the pick of the best as don't have to compete with the recruitment campaigns of the likes of Oracle and IBM etc. as they don't have a presence here.營n fact, none of the big names MBT Shoes Clearance,have any substantial development operations, (such as what they have in Romania, Poland & Bulgaria for instance), in the country making our lives that little bit easier.3. You are on the verge on an IPO in Macedonia's stock exchange. What would a dot.com issue or flotation do to the local capital markets? Wouldn't it serve to enhance volatility and thus buttress the market's reputation as a substitute casino?