Understanding the market: the number 1 success factor
Understanding the market: the number 1 success factor
What is the main key to success for Israeli mobility innovators targeting Europe? Luxembourg smart mobility expert Joost Ortjens and Daphna Brunshtein-Frucht from the Luxembourg Trade & Investment Office speak about the importance of understanding the complex European market and investing in having people on the ground who can work together with multiple customers and optimise technology products to meet clients’ real needs.
EcoMotion Week 2023. The place to be for anyone who wants to meet the Israeli ecosystem of mobility innovators. “Israel is on the radar for everyone working in the technology segment of the mobility space,” comments Joost Ortjens, Head of International Business Development – Smart Mobility at Luxinnovation, Luxembourg’s national innovation agency. “The country’s innovators have an outstanding track record of taking a range of cutting-edge technologies, often stemming from the defence field, and applying them to the mobility sector.”
He attended EcoMotion Week together with Daphna Brunshtein-Frucht, Senior Trade and Investment Advisor at the Luxembourg Trade and Investment Office in Tel Aviv, in order to meet with companies looking for the best way to scale on the European market.
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The Luxembourg Team (Daphna Brunshtein-Frucht and Joost Ortjens) with EcoMotion’s Executive Director Jennifer Schwarz
(LTIO)
A high potential, complex market for smart mobility
Europe is a very interesting market: economically, it is on par with the US and there is much interest in smart mobility solutions. However, there are also challenges. “Israeli companies often underestimate how complex the European market is with so many different countries, cultures and languages,” says Mr Ortjens. “The EU is not the ‘United States of Europe’! If you come with that expectation, you will most likely be disappointed.”
According to him, many companies make the mistake of working with a single, potential customer in Europe – a large OEM, for example – and adapting their products to its requirements, thinking that once they have gained the first contract, they will set up a local team and scale across the continent. “This is fraught with risk: if, in the end, the customer says no they stand there empty-handed. But even if they get the contract, they still do not know the market except, perhaps, the local ecosystem where their customer operates. They are not in a good place for scaling to other countries and clients.”
Local team, local use cases
For Mr Ortjens, having a team of people established in Europe at an early stage is crucial for success. “Mobility companies need to invest a substantial part of the funding they raise from investors in developing the market, and not spend it all on product and technology development,” he points out. “Having people on the ground even before you have your first client is essential for developing that in-depth knowledge of the market. And choosing to open your European office close to one potential big partner is not always the best option – it can be wiser to choose a more neutral location that gives you access to several of the EU’s biggest consumer markets.”
Another essential factor is to make sure that products match the actual needs of the market. “Israeli companies are extremely strong on technology, but a technology-wise fantastic product is not always the best solution for the market. Doing the last 10-20% of the development work together with customers who can provide use cases from the target market is often what makes the product perfect.”
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Joost Ortjens, Head of International Business Development at Luxinnovation presenting on EcoMotion's Mobility 360 stage
(LTIO)
Luxembourg: a living mobility lab
This is where Luxembourg can come in. “Many of the Israeli mobility innovators that we spoke to at EcoMotion Week were very interested in hearing that Luxembourg can be used as a living lab for mobility solutions,” says Ms Brunshtein-Frucht. “Luxinnovation has a very extensive network among the Luxembourg innovation ecosystem, and when we guide companies interested in using Luxembourg as their base for expansion in Europe, we always try to connect them with potential partners that can provide real-life use cases.”
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Joost Ortjens, Head of International Business Development at Luxinnovation on the panel with moderator Smadar Itskovich (Founder & CEO at Israel Living Lab) © EcoMotion
(Noga Shadmi Van de Reep)
A good example of this is self-driving bus shuttle manufacturer Ohmio Automotion Ltd, with roots in Australia and New Zealand, which recently opened its first European office in Luxembourg after winning a key contract with national railway company CFL. “We met Joost Ortjens, who introduced Luxembourg to us, in Copenhagen in 2018,” says Ohmio’s CEO Dan Zabrieszach. “He told us that it is a very progressive country interested in implementing autonomous vehicles. This gave us the opportunity to show our vehicles and later, to respond to the CFL call for tenders.”
Ms Brunshtein-Frucht invites any Israeli mobility company interested in knowing more about the opportunities to use Luxembourg as their launch pad to Europe to get in touch. “Our role at the Luxembourg Trade and Investment Office is to provide you with free, neutral information and help you explore whether Luxembourg could be of interest to you. We will also assess whether there is any potential use case partner that would be relevant for your specific mobility solution.”
