Client Overview:

DASCOM Americas (www.dascomamericas.com) is a Verona, Virginia-based technology company involved in several distinct business units. The company has corporate headquarters in Hong Kong, but Virginia is home to the Americas’ operation and headquarters for North, Central, and South America operations.

DASCOM (www.dascom.com) has a history in printing and print technology, producing printers, ribbons, and ancillary equipment for abroad range of business applications. The company engineers, manufactures, and markets serial impact, mobile, thermal, and mostrecent card printers for applications such as access control, employee,or participant id badging, and more.

The company also engineers, manufactures, and markets industrial, solar, and marine flood lighting marketed under the SONARAY (www.sonarayled.com) brand.

Currently, one of the primary areas of emphasis for DASCOM Americas is growing the network of value-added resellers (VARs) and integrators involved in the card access industry. This includes working with integrators involved in biometrics, prox card printing,  RFID, and a number of other areas that utilize the printing of plastic cards that may contain sensitive information and can be used in areas including printing of bank cards, driver’s licenses, social program identification cards, hotel or facility access control cards, and a host of other potential applications.

The company is an industry leader in certain areas of the world with these products, however DASCOM Americas is seeking to grow its footprint in the Americas region with particular emphasis on the Latin America Territory (LAT) region of the world.

DASCOM Americas is seeking partners to distribute the card printer products and software  solutions as well as end-user enterprise customers who may benefit from the convenience, security, and advanced features of smart card technology as it relates to printing.

Situation Analysis:

While DASCOM is a leader in select Asian markets with high market share for its card printer products, the company is just beginning to establish itself in the LAT market. The Americas company has limited human capital resources to research and cover certain countries within the LAT region. For this reason, a lack of knowledge concerning potential VARs, a lack of brand awareness in certain countries in the LAT region, and competition, including what DASCOM believes consists of some products with high market share or brand loyalty among VARs within  these markets pose significant challenges and barriers to entry at present for DASCOM. It is the intent of DASCOM to take a strategic and measured approach to reaching this market through face-to-face meetings, trade shows, digital marketing outreach, and relationship-building via networking.

VEDP Role – Proposed Path to Client Solution

DASCOM has had a long-standing history with VEDP, completing its VALET program and drawing upon other resources available to the company as a small Virginia-based entity. The company has participated in “virtual” trade missions to Mexico and Canada but has never attended an “in-person” trade mission – at least not until April 2024.

In April 2024 DASCOM Americas participated in a VEDP trade mission to Panama and Costa Rica.

All missions and projects working with VEDP begin with close cooperation between the client and VEDP. In this case there was a pre-screening overview from DASCOM provided to consultants with VEDP to clearly outline the specific business for DASCOM and to most importantly clearly indicate what DASCOM wanted to achieve by participating in the trade mission.

This is essentially the yardstick to establish parameters and away to measure success for the mission and to make sure that both sides understood what would constitute success versus failure.

After providing initial information and a series of virtual calls within the targeted countries to establish research parameters, VEDP began looking for prospects that met the DASCOM criteria for (1) potential sales and (2) potential distributors or VARs for the products.

At a very minimum DASCOM wanted to use the trip to help establish brand awareness in these markets with the hopes that actual tangible relationships and forward-going sales and export to the countries could be achieved.

Along the way VEDP maintained close contact with DASCOM to make sure that they were on the correct path to achieving the goal of establishing face-to-face meetings for DASCOM in-   country with support from VEDP on-the-ground in those countries where needed.

On-the-Ground Specifics

DASCOM already has some representation in Panama so the goal for Panama was to establish  meaningful meetings with end-user clients who could potentially purchase from DASCOM and the representative VAR for DASCOM in Panama.

In Costa Rica the goal was to establish meetings with potential VARs or distributors since DASCOM had no presence or real knowledge of the Costa Rica market relating to card printing products and software.

VEDP was successful in establishing approximately ten meetings split between Panama and Costa Rica.  These were in-person, face-to-face meetings with potential clients (Panama) and potential resellers of DASCOM card products (Costa Rica).

Outcome/Result

While it is not yet possible to put a dollar figure on the overall success of the mission due to its recency, several important milestones were achieved that DASCOM would consider successful.

First, DASCOM was successfully introduced to clients in Panama who are considering products or have at least agreed to present the products to the appropriate department within the organizations. This is the case with at least two of the companies visited by DASCOM.

Second, and perhaps more importantly, DASCOM was able to meet face-to-face and present DASCOM solutions to several top distributors of card printer products in Costa Rica.

According to the DASCOM Sales Manager for those regions: “ The trip to Costa Rica was useful because those distributors are important in that market. They met with us and received our information concerning our printing solutions. Previously we had tried to contact them but were unsuccessful in getting a response.”

So, success cannot be measured as one where the ink is now dry on deals, but at least doors have been opened and that has been worth the investment from the DASCOM perspective.

As the Sales Manager added: “It won’t be easy to close a deal with them (VARs) soon because they have a long relationship with other brands, but now we have the contact and can continue to work with them in accepting our brand. We are confident with our products and unique software and support that we can be successful. This is something we could likely not have done without the assistance of VEDP.”

Summary

DASCOM finds great value in working with VEDP and appreciates the professional support of the team.

Ron Acorn, President of DASCOM Americas adds this statement that sums up our perspective relative to VEDP:

“As a Virginia based company, we value the support VEDP has provided to us over the years and look forward to a continued partnership in the future.”