I have sold to port authorities across Southeast Asia for eight years and the gap between what we prepare to present and what they ask about remains reliably wide.
We arrive prepared to talk about satellite-derived bathymetry, revisit rates and depth accuracy. The first question is almost always about dredging budget cycles, and specifically about being able to defend a dredging programme to a board that approved a different one nine months ago.
That reframes the product entirely. The value is not the depth measurement. It is the continuous trend that shows when and where shoaling accelerated, which turns a budget conversation from an assertion into a chart.
The second most common question is about berth occupancy, which we originally built as a minor feature. For a terminal operator, dwell time by berth is an operational KPI they currently assemble by hand from three systems.
The lesson I keep relearning: technical buyers evaluate the measurement, and the people who sign evaluate whether it helps them explain a decision.