Bruce La Fetra

PROFESSIONAL BACKGROUND

Bruce La Fetra is a consultant focused on driving growth and profits for high technology clients via marketing, channels, and ecosystems. Specifically, he focuses on creating a better understanding of channels, customers, and business models, optimizing pricing and licensing, and improving positioning and segmentation. His experience as a practitioner and consultant spans software, hardware, service programs, financial services, and materials. Prior to becoming a consultant, Bruce held key marketing roles for a number of technology and market leaders, including: Docent (now SumTotal), First Data, Cornerstone Imaging, and Raychem (now Tyco Electronics). He also spent eight years as a Business Strategist for Rubicon Consulting working with clients such as Adobe, Autodesk, Logitech, Symantec, and Openwave.

REPRESENTATIVE EXPERIENCE

• Bruce grew a client’s existing product revenue by $28M with an optimized license program that increased ASP 20% without customer backlash or unit sales drop. Using existing products, knowledge of user segments, and creative licensing-based solution he developed an innovative solution to drive penetration of the price-conscious broader market without cannibalizing “extraordinarily healthy” profits from core users.
• Bruce grew corporate profitability for a SaaS solution client by indentifying a niche where with modest investment unit revenue and margins outpaced the core business.
• For an Enterprise software client Bruce identified barriers to sales and revenue with a six point plan to revamp customer entitlements, reduce discounting, improve sales flexibility, and defuse customer complaints for a highly configurable enterprise solution.
• Bruce recruited and managed a developer program with 60+ workflow and imaging vendors. This initiative was central to Cornerstone’s value proposition and enabled the company to dominate its market with 45% share while charging a significant price premium where ISVs fully supported the capabilities of Cornerstone’s proprietary video ASIC. The deployed program included four 3rd-party toolkit vendors as integration partners supporting the solution developer partners. He maintained an exceptional technical relationship with the toolkit vendors, and targeted and recruited ISV partners, provided first-level support during integration, and ensured that partners saw on-going value in partnering with Cornerstone.
• He championed the first product and service offerings to span major First Data subsidiaries: merchant processing, card issuing, Western Union, and TeleCheck. Bruce worked fluidly across subsidiaries to develop product and service concepts and with internal and external partners to define needs, establish capabilities, and develop channels for new merchant solutions. He initiated business partnerships with Yahoo!, Verio, and Microsoft, and owned all aspects of relationship development, including revenue sharing, referral and resale contracts.
• Bruce transformed a weak customer base into a strategic asset by engaging customers as full partners in the success of Docent’s enterprise learning management system. He led a team that identified, nurtured, and rewarded participants while managing program assets and processes. Specific individuals at key customers were targeted for the program based on current or anticipated sales needs and opportunity.
• Bruce’s writing has been featured in print in The Pricing Advisor, Pragmatic Marketing Magazine, and Soft-Letter, and online at Sandhill.com and ManageSmarter. A representative list of articles is at brucelafetra.com/publications.asp.

EDUCATION & CERTIFICATIONS

Bruce La Fetra holds a BA in Economics (cum laude) from Claremont McKenna College and an MBA from the Amos Tuck School of Business Administration at Dartmouth College. He is certified in Essential Facilitation by Interaction Associates and is a Computer Technology Industry Association, Certified Document Imaging Architect (CDIA).