iRobot 2009 Annual Report Download - page 38

Strategy
Our objective is to expand our leadership globally in designing and building practical robots and in developing
robotic technology. Key elements of our strategy to achieve this objective include:
Continued Growth through Profitability, Operational Excellence and Customer Focus. Our ability to
continue to grow, to delight our customers with innovative products, and to deliver value and exceed end-user
expectations depends on our ability to improve profitability and operating processes and to provide best-in-class
service. We intend to consistently improve our profitability through disciplined allocation of resources and by
reducing costs of materials, adjusting prices, optimizing our product and channel mix, focusing on our discretionary
spending and reducing our seasonality. We will continue to focus on improving the scalability and efficiency of our
supply chain process and our purchase and supply practices, and on mitigating single source supply exposure. We
will identify, develop and enhance product features and functionality, as well as our ability to efficiently service
customers who have problems, by enhancing customer outreach and surveys, and investigating and aggressively
focusing on product reliability.
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, 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. 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 design and build innovative robots that make a difference.
We develop robots with functionalities that are adaptable for use in a broad range of applications. We intend to
increase the penetration of our products in existing markets, expand existing products into new markets, and
develop and launch new products into current and adjacent markets. For example, we are fostering the emerging
UUV (unmanned underwater vehicle) market and continuing to grow our international presence by entering new
markets. In addition, during fiscal 2009, we announced the establishment of a newly-created healthcare business
unit, committed to exploring the potential of robotics as an assistive technology to promote wellness and enhance
quality of life for seniors.
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.
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, and our alliance with Advanced Scientific Concepts, Inc. allows us to integrate LADAR
technology for navigation and mapping applications into our autonomous vehicles. 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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