Like most firms that become BYG Advantage clients, HortonWorks was dealing with a hot new area in technology at the time. HortonWorks introduced a unique means to handle big big data and Hadoop specifically. The latest craze was offloading enterprise data warehousing. Organizations were looking at downsizing their internal Oracle load, and they were interested in keeping important transnational data for longer than the previously acceptable three years. This was particularly relevant to financial service companies like banks. 

The rapid growth led to international expansion. HortonWorks went through the arduous motions of setting up their own person in Asia. As is often the case, that person was technically capable and could accurately represent HortonWorks services, but he lacked the sales background and strong relationships with local prospects to truly accelerate the expansion. He could not get the right audience with decision makers to close deals quickly or to evolve client relationships into more secure and profitable partnerships. In addition, when demand for services like HortonWorks surged, this individual was unable to handle the inbound demand rapidly enough to convert clients before competitors. 

HortonWorks sought help from BYG Advantage. We were able to fill in the gaps straight away. Our representatives knew the right people to close deals directly as well as to grow local awareness of HortonWorks as a viable option in the market. Through inserting thought leadership into the right forums, we made HortonWorks a recognized name in the industry. In our first year representing HortonWorks, we went from zero to $1 million in sales.

Offloading data warehousing quickly became an area of consolidation, with a shrinking number of service providers capturing increasing market shares. With this in mind, HortonWorks expanded our region of focus. We began to replicate our success from Korea to Japan, China, as well as South and Southeast Asia. Our people in Singapore covered India through Indonesia. While we had relationships with local prospects throughout these regions, we worked to develop additional partner and customer relationships. In the first quarter of our second year, we achieved a further $1 million in sales. 

Following such accelerated growth, we reviewed options and costs to help HortonWorks decide on their next step. We determined that they had the necessary traction to successfully manage their Asia development in-house. They agreed, and we set to work standing up their regional office for them. We took care of the legal processes, the recruitment and hiring, along with setting up the office. At first, we found the right person for them to hire full time in Sydney, where they were eager to build out a regional headquarters. Our view, however, was that Sydney would not be the ideal place for their headquarters in the long term. We played a key role in helping to prevent them from throwing their weight behind their original commitment to Australia. With such a strong regional emphasis on in-person meetings, Sydney’s being 12,000 kilometers away from the next closest active market presented a challenge. For example, to get to India, their people would have to fly 12 hours to Tokyo and 8 hours to Singapore before transferring to a final 5-hour flight to New Delhi. Ultimately, we helped them transition their regional headquarters to Singapore. In late 2014, HortonWorks surged in trading after a fantastic $100 million initial public offering on the New York Stock Exchange.