I liken the current status of the market to building a profitable channel. That is, just as it takes a while to build an efficient and profitable sales channel, it's taking a while for the electronics industry to discover where to optimally position itself for the next big growth spurt. As living hockey legend Wayne Gretzky once said, "I skate to where the puck will be."

As head of an electronic design automation supplier in an emerging market, I see Gretzky's strategy proven true every day. In emerging markets, time-to-market has always been key. If you are there first, with a quality product that people want, the market is virtually yours. Management consulting firm McKinsey & Co. confirms this and says that the company that is second to market loses 30 percent or more profitability.

In emerging markets, it is also critical to be adequately prepared for the ramp-up to meet demand. Let's say you have correctly anticipated the market and have created a hot product for which customers are clamoring. You can be assured there are at least several competitors lurking, poised to pounce the minute the supply chain runs low.

In emerging markets, it is rare for demand to somehow magically appear. It may take many months or even several years of hard work to prime the market before the buzz is loud enough to be heard by all. TiVo is a perfect example. It has multiple, complex value propositions that do not easily distill into a one- or two-sentence elevator pitch. Although early TiVo customers were universally ardent in their praise, they had tremendous difficulty convincing others they should purchase it, too.

The fundamental problem was getting TiVo into consumers' hands so they would try it. Once they tried it, they invariably loved it. The marketing breakthrough came in the form of creative packaging solutions with cable and satellite content providers. The providers had the potential power to place an initial trial TiVo device into every TV-viewing household.

In our case, we've had to generate our own demand, too. We have created a software product to support the design of complex field-programmable gate arrays. Customer reviews from hardware designers indicate we have a potential hit on our hands. Like TiVo, we are now in the process of figuring out how to get our product into designers' hands as fast as possible, with the lowest cost of sales. We know where the puck will be and are anticipating its arrival.

The electronics industry is largely following the same formula. Companies are creating new products and priming the demand for them. With hard work, perseverance, a few marketing breakthroughs and an underlying anticipatory strategy, we can all be in the right position to get that "puck," turning our prophecy into profit.

Jackson Kreiter, Chief Executive Officer, Hier Design Inc., Santa Clara, Calif.