iRobot 2007 Annual Report Download - page 38

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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 a broad range of 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, a gutter cleaning product, a pool cleaning product, and 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 tasks. 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 of 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 government
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, develop-
ment 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 Boeing Company
allows us to accelerate product development of the SUGV, through extensive use of Commercial Off The Shelf
(COTS) components, our alliance with Advanced Scientific Concepts, Inc. (ASC) allows us to integrate LADAR
technology for navigation and mapping applications into our autonomous vehicles, our alliance with TASER
International, Inc. allows us to integrate TASER electronic control devices built on our PackBot robot platforms, our
alliance with Deere & Company allows us to integrate our robot controls, navigation and obstacle avoidance
systems with rugged vehicles manufactured by Deere & Company, our alliance with The Clorox Company, through
which Clorox manufactures cleaning fluid, allows us to integrate world-class cleaning technology and know-how
into our Scooba floor washing robot. 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 complementary
products. We intend to foster this community by making our products into extensible platforms with open interfaces
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