lannigan.org

Patrick Lannigan: Business Background

300 Business Pitches, 2% Succeed

Corporate and marketing strategy is humbling. It should be. When providing advice or rendering an opinion I like to reference the 300 or so business plans and company pitches I've seen. The humbling part is the fact that 98% of those companies failed in one form or another. I can't really talk about the details of any one of them, but I can mention names of the companies that have since been acquired or gone public. 

WebLogic, WebMethods, Bluestone, Together Software, Looksmart, Elemental Software

I saw the original business plans/pitches for WebLogic (before they were bought by BEA), WebMethods (since gone public), Looksmart (now public) , Bluestone (bought by HP), Together Software (bought by Borland) and Elemental Software (before Macromedia bought them and the product became Dreamweaver). Those were very successful companies. You'd be surprised to hear how garage-like these companies were at first.

Although I learned many lessons from the companies that succeeded I actually learned more from the hundreds of pitches/business plans I saw that failed. It is interesting to note that the business plans from the failed companies were every bit as impressive as the ones from the successful companies. They referenced Gartner, IDC and Forrester too.  The difference between success and failure was often the focus of a company on making a market , versus the belief that they were selling into an existing market. 

10K's, 10Q's, the EPA, Progress Software, Powersoft, InSystems

In addition to the mergers and acquisitions experience, I've printed and analyzed so many 10K's and 10Q's that I should be on the EPA's most wanted list. The analysis I did was important, but so is gut feel. This is something I've come to trust over time. It's what drove me into Unix in 1983. It's what got me to join Progress Software (before they went public in 1991), Powersoft (before they went public in 1993) and InSystems (before they got bought by Standard Register).  

 

Lannigan Family/Personal

Post-sales (5 years), Pre-Sales (10 years), instructor (2 years++), Mergers and Acquisitions (3 years), Co-Founder of NuSphere (2 years).  Enjoy HTML, CSS, Perl, SQL, Unix, MS-Access, Wall Street Journal, financial analysis, marketing communications, product management, intellectual property law, post-sales, and pre-sales. Don't believe in tight job descriptions. Like to do what needs to be done. Got courage. Got humility. Have worked directly for five Presidents/CEO's,  three of which I admire very much (Joe Alsop, Mike Egan, and Rob Leeming ). I like Mr. Drucker's view. I believe the original Unix papers published by Kernighan and Ritchie (at Bell Labs) are works of art. I've worked for Oracle (Nasdaq: ORCL),  Powersoft/Sybase (Nasdaq: SYBS), Progress Software (Nasdaq: PRGS), InSystems (now owned by NYSE: SR), Concurrent Computer Corporation (Nasdaq: CCUR) and AT&T (NYSE: T). See below for more details.

Currently, I'm V.P. of Marketing for a supplier of Banking Software - Strategic Information Technology. We face a number of critical challenges, and I'm working day and night to address those. In other words, I'm very happy where I am. Our upside potential, is tremendous, and we're getting great near term feedback in the form of new sales. The greatest thing of all, however, is the bet I made on the integrity of the founders.

Lannigan @ Lannigan and Associates

I founded Lannigan and Associates in 2002 to provide research, analysis, and planning for the corporate trailblazer. I was moderately successful. It was bad timing. Seemed like few companies wanted M&A consulting while their markets were melting down. Go figure. A sincere thank you to my clients (John, Rob, Mike and Jean) that kept me going!

Lannigan @ NuSphere ...

Acquired rights for PHPEd technology which was combined with NuSphere Advantage to create NuSphere PHPEd Advantage, which won the Best Software Tool Award at LinuxWorld in 2001. 

Was the visionary for NuSphere's easy to install software platform, which garnered great reviews and feedback from users such as Lawrence Livermore Labs, the CIA and 3M.

Managed the creation of the NuSphere's easy-to-install platform prototype, from concept through to the first demonstration, in less than 15 days.  

Had a key role in all startup operations including budget, hiring, support, education, sales, web site, and product features.  

Lannigan @ Progress Software (third stint) ...

In June, 2000, co-founded NuSphere, a company that was focused on adding value to an open source database.

Reported to Joe Alsop, CEO of Progress Software, focused on merger and acquisition opportunities.

Continued to improve business development process from the prior term at Progress Software by focusing more on key Progress executives' needs, and putting a stronger bias early in the acquisition scouting process. 

Lannigan @ InSystems ....

Led the integration team for InSystems when FastForms was acquired. The integration of the two companies met all goals set by senior executives.

Played an advisory role on acquisition candidates and managed key banking accounts at GE and Chase.

Created the first software system that demonstrated FastForms, InSystems, Adobe, Microsoft, and OpenText software working together.

Lannigan @ Progress Software (second stint) ....

Created and drove a business development process for Progress Software that enabled over 150 companies a year to be considered for acquisition or investment purposes.

Provided key analysis leading to multi-million dollar acquisitions of technology and companies by Progress Software.

Performed due diligence for the Apptivity acquisition (in 1997 for $US 12 million) and played an advisory role during the integration of the two companies.

Lannigan @ Oracle ....

Asked for, managed, and enjoyed, the most hostile challenging Oracle accounts in Toronto.

Took on key competitive intelligence role vis a vis GUI tools.

Managed the HP relationship.

Lannigan @ Powersoft ....

Was chosen to open Canadian operations for Powersoft in a combination sales/technical role.

Drove PowerBuilder to number one graphical development tool in Canada through such activities as cross-Canada seminars which, at their peak, measured 30 seminars per month.

Lannigan @ Progress Software (first stint) ....

Exceeded all sales goals (grew from $US 1.5 to $US 3.5 Million in eastern Canada).

Won President's Club, key bonuses, and pre-sales awards.

Played primary role in founding and startup of local users group which grew to over 125 attendees and was leveraged to close sales deals.

Lannigan @ AT&T Canada ....

Co-founder in the startup of an imaging division for A&T Canada

Orchestrated and taught Advanced Unix and Unix Administration classes across Canada.

Created a student administration system for AT&T Canada that allowed increased funding from U.S. parent.

Won Presidents Club and key contributor awards.

Lannigan @ Concurrent Computer Corporation ....

also known as Interdata and Perkin-Elmer Data Systems

Managed National Support team to provide cross-Canada 24x7 support to key military and lottery installations of real-time mini-computer systems.

Led the adoption of Unix within the Canadian division of the company and supported early adopter Unix customers at the source code level.

Fixed, and managed the process of fixing, key kernel bugs in Unix and OS/32. 

Lannigan @ Home ....

Lives in Markham, Ontario, Canada, with his wife, Marianne, daughter Sarah, age 11 , son Michael, age 7 , and Michael's many imaginary friends. Patrick, in documents like this, will often say that he likes to run and swim. This isn't exactly true. Patrick has to run to have some hope of winning the battle of the bulge. The swimming? That's to counteract the pains left over from the running.

 

Conrad has been using holding companies as a means of leveraging control with a minimal of equity, for most of his business life. As one journalist said, "he wants access to the equities market of a public company with the degree of control of a private company". Sadly, it's the shareholders that lose.

As a Canadian, I'm glad Conrad Black is finally acquiring the reputation he deserves. In many ways I believe Conrad Black invited the current crisis upon himself. Here is a link to a supporter of Sir Conrad Black.