Software-As-A-Service Demand Generation : Position a Single Call to Action (6/7) and Measure, Refine, Repeat (7/7)

You have chosen and defined the personna of a Single Customer you would like to attract.

You have found that single customer online.
You have answered one burning question that single customer asks.
You have made a landing page where you speak as the customer listens.

You have engaged in a web conversation.

 

It is now time to position a single call-to-action.
Usually this call-to-action is a Trial proposal which is what best value a SaaS solution, or a Buy proposal if you are not offering a SaaS solution.

You must now Measure, Refine and Repeat:
The beauty of this 7 steps walk is that you can monitor the customer through the steps.
Your monitoring must be checked daily and used to refine the needed steps if not enough conversion ration is measured. You can revise the vocabulary, the value proposal, the impression selling positioning, the learn and learn-more processes.

You can and should repeat these steps with an other single customer, wether it may be an other target for the same offering or a new and different solution.

Apple patent : a step to cloud computing for the IPhone: Sync with AnyThing, from AnyWhere

Apple is investing billions in cloud platforms and this week's "Grab & Go" application filing with the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office suggests a scenario where a user is sitting at their desk working on a document, when they are called into an unexpected meeting. While the user may have a number of personal applications running, they would only want to bring their work-related content with them. The preferences would allow the user to "grab" only files and data related to work from the computer.

The "simplified data transfer" method is also said to dynamically adapt to the fastest available connection, and provide security methods. The software would decide whether to connect using the Internet, or to use encryption schemes, or to require a specific proximity to the hardware when syncing. It would also keep a list of "trusted" devices with which to share.

Apple has worked on a software syncing system that would give users great flexibility in deciding which files to share between devices, all while aiming to simplify the process of syncing. The described method would not only take personal files, but content within specific applications, allowing users to continue their current activities no matter where they are and what device they are using.

Add the recurring rumors about a new Apple internet tablet device and you might figure out a path to a great subscription based business flow, the next step of the appstore?

Microsoft opens a cloud computing center in Taiwan

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer praised Taiwan and said the cloud computing center is aimed at continuing the strong relationship between Microsoft and Taiwanese companies built over the past 20 years.

"We wouldn't have low-cost, high-availability computing today if it wasn't for companies here," he said. The center will be a first for Microsoft in Asia. It aims to give Taiwanese computer makers a place to test out new hardware and software made to work with Microsoft products, including new cloud computing applications and services, a joint statement said.

Companies in Taiwan like Quant Computer have already started developing new hardware for the cloud. The company has been working with the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) to develop new cloud computing and mobile technologies, a partnership called Project T-Party.

Taiwanese telecommunications company Chunghwa Telecom also signed on with Microsoft on Wednesday to adopt the Windows Azure cloud services operating system, and to offer cloud services such as Microsoft Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, Office Live Meeting and Office Communications Online.

Biggest verticalized SaaS portal launched in Paris at BATIMAT

I recently talked about the SaaS appstore deployed by the US government as being a major shift.

But what could be described as the first biggest vertical SaaS portal has been launched this week in Paris during the BATIMAT fair - the world's leading construction exhibition.

e-bat is a portal dedicated to the building industry and aims at providing software and services subscriptions to 60 000 small and medium French construction companies, that is more than 500 000 end users!

The portal has been initiated by the French Building Federation and is dedicated to helping face the dematerialization challenges by providing its users a comprehensive set of dedicated services ranging from Microsoft Exchange collaborative emails, Microsoft Office Suite applications, secure documents management, up to human ressources, financial mangement or payment solutions.

The users can customize their portal, subscribe, manage their online software services, and use those software solutions from anywhere, at any time, through a secured internet connection.

The portal is built upon Microsoft technologies - IIS, SharePoint, Exchange, Office, Remote Desktop Protocol, virtualization, and is hosted, and managed by YouSAAS, also being linked to this pure SaaS player's white labelled appstore information system. The portal embeds the OpenPortal meta directory component and its customization was developed by Decade.

The project not only offers a fully operational SaaS portal and ISVs connectors easying the integration of new solutions, but is also providing local support teams and assistance to conduct the needed change management and help the end users to catch this opportunity of being more profitable and performant.

Strategic investments in Cloud solutions should not be a technologically driven approach

By reading that Gartner is citing Cloud Computing as the Number 1 technology area that should drive strategic investments I both agree and rise a warning flag.

I agree that this is where a company should aim at driving its strategy, Cloud Computing Adoption Jumps 320% This Year Alone, also relayed in Top 5 things about this years gartner symposium.

I disagree that this should be foreseen as a 'technological area'. Of course there are architecture design, security assessments, delivery capabilities that relies on technological bricks. But a company willing to successfully drive its business on using cloud based and Software-As-A-Service solutions should first think about it as a strategic and business area.

Technology is mature enough to let you build the solution you need.
The first step is thus to be sure about what your 'needs' are.

You start seeing communications about private versus off-the-shelf cloud architectures. This communication is driven by technology-focused providers.

Read back my first blog entries about the key success factors you have to focus on.

• You should see this as a challenge on finding what is the set of services that will differenciate your company from your competitors and allow you to generate growing recurring marging revenues;
• You should focus on micro-marketing this set of services;
• You should think about industrializing the provisioning of these services;
• You should aim at satisfying the SLA which you defined on each service;
• You should behave as a 'services operator', looking at Average Margin Per User and Churn rates;
  
• You should enventually rethink your channel management strategy.

Then and only then you may and should start thinking about technology. And if you are really business oriented and want to shorten your go-to-market with efficient margins you will enventually find that off-the-shelf SaaS pure players will offer you both the set of solutions you need and the capability of assembling these cloud services in the way you designed it !

ISVs: Yes You Can develop a successful SaaS business in weeks!

• Some ISVs think that their solution is not adapted to developing a successful SaaS business model because they deploy it over months of dedicated customer projects.

• Some ISVs think that their solution is too far complicated to be delivered within minutes as a full Software-As-A-Service solution.
  
  
• Some ISVs think that their solution needs so many customizations before being used by their customers that they wil not be able to create automatic SaaS trial versions within minutes.

Fortunetly there are ISVs who go beyond these first thoughts and overpass them to make the jump.

• They discover that by understanding the key SaaS success factors - and it only take days - they can rethink their business model, their communication strategy, their marketing action plans.
• They also find themselves very adaptive and capable of rethinking their provisioning processes so that their complex solution can be delivered as a great trial version within minutes.
• They also understand that they can adapt their architectural design to better fit the scalability and security goals that SaaS drives.

If you still doubt please read this Octave case study!
SaaS Support Helps ISV Target New Markets and Launch Service-Based Products in Weeks
And Go SaaS Now!

Now even the government has an appstore!

The United States have deployed an application store which aims at helping agencies to benefit from cloud computing software-as-service applications.

The push to promote cloud computing is part of the Obama administration’s effort to modernize the government’s information technology systems and to help reduce the $75 billion annual budget for federal I.T. in the process.

I whish that other countries would also create such an appstore and promote the SaaS solutions as both a green contribution and an IT optimization solution! This may be the spark which will enlight the SaaS market growth.

Software Startup? Go SaaS Now!

Why Sartup software solutions editors must develop a SaaS strategy:

Time-To-Market is important.
Time-To-MaximizedMarginAndMarketBreadth is even more important.

• SaaS allows to reach a broaden audience in a shorten time frame.
  - By cutting out deployment issues (when onsite integration of software components is mandatory you usualy find that most of the customers are geographically close to the startup location because you need to optimize the travel time and cost for your technical people...)
  - By allowing a Try-To-Buy sales conversion process.
  Giving a potential customer an easy and immediate way of testing your solution increases the probability of catching him up when he is searching for a solution to its business problems. If he/she is happy with your solution there will be less probability - an time - for this prospect to think about looking around for other solutions than yours...
  
• SaaS brings differenciation towards well established software vendors
  - Established software brands have developped sales channels, by developing a SaaS business model you will be able - at first - to skip this long, risky, and costly process. Established onsite local distributors are not likely to invest in learning how to sale a new startup developed solution, they are conservative at first.
  - Established software solutions were developed over years. For maximizing the development cost versus the sales volume those software are complex, they hold hundreds of great functions, they were conceived so that a single software solution would be saled to the largest audience. They thus are complex, their training phase is long and costy.
  - SaaS solutions are light, easy to understand, they do not handle hundreds of functions but the few which are asked by some vertical markets. The SaaS solutions are easier to maintain, they can be very quickly adapted to changing business needs.
  
• SaaS eases cash management!
  - On Demand power and virtualized hosting of your SaaS solutions allows your startup company to spend OPEX cash as you grow. As your customers base grow you rent more power.
  - SaaS recurring revenues is a more predictible stream of cash which helps your startup company in growing up.
  
• SaaS is about up-sale and cross-sale
  - By partnering with a SaaS dedicated services platform you will be able to resell other SaaS solutions within your solutions portfolio. You will up-sale and increase the margin per user. You will prevent other distributors to get in your customers budget and compete with you.
  - By partnering with a SaaS dedicated services platform you will be able to partner with other solutions vendors and integrate more closely your solutions with their solutions to the benefit of the customers, and you will benefit from cross-sale strategies.

Software Startup? Go SaaS Now!

SaaS offering will eventually satisfy SaaS demand

SaaS is about simplifying its everyday's life. To achieve this goal a company needs to have a coherent governance strategy. Which means that once you have tried - often by starting with a SaaS based emailing solution - and perceived the benefits - no hardware nor onsite maintenance services issues, higher level of services quality, ubiquity, no inhouse upgrading issues etc. - you want more solutions to be available.

If you use a mix of onsite servers and offsite SaaS solutions you still face integration issues, you still have to pay for the cost of onsite hardware and software which hides most of the benefits of Opex SaaS. Some companies would then think - they often mistake themselves - than SaaS is not the right answer to their daily problems. Other companies follow the right path wich lands to "SaaS is great, the optimum benefits will occur when all the professional solutions my company needs are available as SaaS solutions".

Of course those latter orientations are still fewer than the others, mainly because even if SaaS is becoming more familiar it is still mostly unknown to most of the small companies. They simply do not know that these solutions and benefits exist.

But most of those who tried want more solutions to be available. When they catalog the solutions they use, and search for SaaS based equivalents they do not find a matching offer. Why ?

Because most of the solution providers face a common dilemna: they think that the only choice they have is either keep on developing their software solutions as they always did OR develop a SaaS oriented solution. They face the issue which sticks every market: change management! They have to think in a different way than they always did, their teams have to do so, their resellers channels have to do so, and they conclude that their consumers would not be ready to do so - which is false.

The solution providers should face the reality: they can keep developing their existing software solutions AND start a SaaS stragegy development.

When enough SaaS based professional solutions are available the market will shift. This is a kind of chaos theory behaviour. There is a turn point - which is close to be a reality - when offering will be equal to the minimum needs of companies. There will then be much more companies who will use 90% to 100% SaaS based solutions. These companies will get the optimum benefits out of SaaS. They will let others know about it because they will be able to save more money, they will be much more adaptative to environment changements, and they will be much more efficient than their competitors.

Solutions editors who still ask themselves about a go/nogo issue will then start working on SaaS bases solutions in parallel with their existing portfolio. Offering will be greater than the initial demand and the growth of the SaaS market will be exponential. This will be the sparkling that will light the business market and will eventually change the way we use computers and software solutions. As more solutions are available their integration will be easier. A mass market is based on common criteria - standardization of integration protocols. Companies will benefit from business solutions without having to endorse all the pains of being at the same time the consumer and the plumber. They will pick up the solutions they need, which will integrate and adapt to their needs.

Computing is about to becoming a utility.

A different conception of customer satisfaction

In traditional software business customer satisfaction is a backoffice duty.
You first have marketing, then product development, then support which focuses on listening to lost or unsatisfied customers and do whatever is achievable to keep them using the software.

With Software-As-A-Service customer satisfaction and marketing should be merged in a new highest priority focus: customer partnering.

A customer should be seen as a partner. Who better knows which functions to develop? Who better knows how things should be organized within the user interface ? Who do you think between a marketing team focusing on market studies or end users are the best qualified to help you develop a successful solution?

This is a tremendous shift in how the roadmaps are conceived and developed.

Why this was not already done?
Because in traditional software roadmaps take time.
Because in traditional software the solution is conceived to be as wide as possible, meaning that there are a lot - too much - functions so that each user should be able to find those he is looking for.
Because in traditional software cost of customer acquisition can be compared to chasing for the top 10 chart goal to get enough visibility to sale enough copies.

With SaaS you can - and should - engage a conversation with your potential and existing users.
With SaaS you can - and should - adapt your solution within days and not months.
With SaaS you can - and should - offer different flavours of your solution to each 'niche'.

SaaS is the way to listen to customer's needs and satisfy these needs in a very short term and cost efficient process which can be easily refined.

Customer satisfaction is your top priority! With SaaS perceived quality is an ongoing and permanent process. Do not use traditional marketing anymore, do not guess what the market needa are! Ask them and focus on producing the needed functions as fast and as efficiently you can. This is also why you should delegate and work with SaaS dedicated partners who can help you with a SaaS platform, SaaS information system, SaaS billing system... Focus on what you are the best at!

Why is Now the Right Time for SaaS?

The question is not should I build a SaaS solution as an ISV, sell SaaS integration as a reseller, or use SaaS solutions as a professional, the question could rather be why NOW?

• Pervasive broadband access at a very low cost
  
• Economical context focus on efficiency TCO OPEX
• CIOs need to deliver mission-critical value and will outsource other functions
• Customers trust improved and secured data centers
• Depth and Breadth of SaaS offering meet customers needs

What you will lose if you do not engage in SaaS

If you’re sitting here in 2009 and are not looking to engage in SaaS, you’re going to lose . .

• 79% of IT managers responding to a recent IDC survey have already purchased or are currently reviewing SaaS offerings
• Over 50% of ISVs now receiving funding are SaaS based.
• According to IDC, SaaS spending reached $4.2 billion in 2004 growing 39% year of year from 2003 and is forecasted to reach over $10.7 billion by 2009.
• According to Gartner, 25% of new business software will be delivered as a service by 2011.
• According to the Yankee Group, SaaS sales will be a $20B market by 2011.