iRobot 2005 Annual Report Download - page 8

Download and view the complete annual report

Please find page 8 of the 2005 iRobot annual report below. You can navigate through the pages in the report by either clicking on the pages listed below, or by using the keyword search tool below to find specific information within the annual report.

Page out of 88

  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
  • 6
  • 7
  • 8
  • 9
  • 10
  • 11
  • 12
  • 13
  • 14
  • 15
  • 16
  • 17
  • 18
  • 19
  • 20
  • 21
  • 22
  • 23
  • 24
  • 25
  • 26
  • 27
  • 28
  • 29
  • 30
  • 31
  • 32
  • 33
  • 34
  • 35
  • 36
  • 37
  • 38
  • 39
  • 40
  • 41
  • 42
  • 43
  • 44
  • 45
  • 46
  • 47
  • 48
  • 49
  • 50
  • 51
  • 52
  • 53
  • 54
  • 55
  • 56
  • 57
  • 58
  • 59
  • 60
  • 61
  • 62
  • 63
  • 64
  • 65
  • 66
  • 67
  • 68
  • 69
  • 70
  • 71
  • 72
  • 73
  • 74
  • 75
  • 76
  • 77
  • 78
  • 79
  • 80
  • 81
  • 82
  • 83
  • 84
  • 85
  • 86
  • 87
  • 88

Strategy
Our objective is to rapidly invent, design, market and support innovative robots that will expand our
leadership globally in our existing and newly addressable markets. Key elements of our strategy to achieve this
objective include:
Deliver Great Products and Continue to Expand Our Existing Markets. Our success is built upon our
ability to deliver innovative products rapidly at economical price points and to offer a broad product line to our
customers. Within the consumer market today we offer floor cleaning products for various surfaces at multiple
price points, as well as a number of product accessories. We are extending our military robot offerings from
small, unmanned ground vehicles (such as our PackBot line of robots) to full-scale autonomous vehicles such
as R-Gator. In addition, we intend to leverage our increasing installed base to expand our revenues from
recurring sales of consumables, services and support.
Innovate to Penetrate New Markets. Our goal is to develop innovative robots to perform dull, dirty or
dangerous missions. We develop robots with functionalities that are adaptable for use in a broad range of
applications. We intend to target new markets, such as law enforcement, homeland security, commercial
cleaning, elderly care, oil services, home automation, landscaping, agriculture and construction, where robots
can create high value and can provide a better way to complete complex tasks.
Leverage Research and Development Across Different Products and Markets. We leverage our research
and development across all our products and markets. For example, we use technological expertise developed
through government-funded research and development projects across our other product development efforts.
Similarly, expertise developed while designing consumer products is used in designing products for govern-
ment and industrial applications. This strategy helps us in avoiding the need to start each robot project from
scratch, developing robots in a cost-effective manner and minimizing time to market.
Continue to Strengthen Our Brand. We intend to continue to enhance our brand image and corporate
identity. The iRobot brand is designed to communicate innovation, reliability, safety and value. Our robots'
performance and uniqueness have enabled us to obtain strong word-of-mouth and extensive press coverage
leading to increasing brand awareness, brand personality and momentum. We intend to continue to invest in
our marketing programs to strengthen our brand recognition and reinforce our message of innovation,
reliability, safety and value.
Continue to Invest Aggressively in Our Business and Our People. We believe the best path to
maximizing long-term profit is to continue to invest significant resources in our business and our people over
the next several years. We plan to invest in research and development and sales distribution channels to extend
and expand our market. We intend to also continue to hire top talent and invest in our people through training
and on-the-job experience. We believe this aggressive reinvestment in our business and our people will help us
maintain our market leadership.
Complement Core Competencies with Strategic Alliances. Our core competencies are the design,
development and marketing of robots. We rely on strategic alliances to provide complementary competencies
that we integrate into our products and to enhance market access. For example, our alliance with The Clorox
Company, through which Clorox manufactures cleaning fluid, allows us to integrate world-class cleaning
technology and know-how into Scooba, our recently launched floor washing robot. Our alliance with Deere &
Company allows us to integrate our robot controls, navigation and obstacle avoidance systems with rugged
vehicles manufactured by Deere & Company. We outsource other non-core activities, such as manufacturing
and back-office functions, which helps us focus our resources on our core competencies.
Develop a Community of Third-Party Developers Around Our Platforms. We have developed products
around which communities of third-party developers can create related accessories, software and complemen-
tary products. We intend to foster this community by making our products into extensible platforms with open
interfaces designed to carry payloads. For example, our robots are designed to allow third-party designers to
add sensors and other functionalities, such as acoustic sniper detection and web-based control.
4