Do your company’s legacy apps make sense as Software as a Service (SaaS) offerings? Find the keys to a successful transition to SaaS in this article.
The rapid growth of the Software as a Service (SaaS) market is attracting a host of new players, ranging from an endless stream of startups to a widening array of existing independent software vendors (ISVs). Each has recognized the need to convert their legacy applications into more competitive SaaS solutions.
But few companies possess such an advantage. Yet all of them pursue one. One route to getting that upper hand on the competitors is to be more advanced than them in terms of your best practices processes and your thought leadership. Enter market research. This is one domain where there are a lot of advantages in having elite execution. According to Leonard Murphy, market research maven, the three variables that will shape the future of…
Knowing where to compete is as important as the product you’ll be competing with. Competition is almost unavoidable whenever you enter a market. If you’re not in direct competition with multiple companies, there will still be behemoth businesses encroaching into your space and profits. Regardless of the directness of the competition, you’ll need to have the right platform. You can gain a competitive advantage by competing in ways that your foes can’t duplicate. Iterations allow you to slightly alter the rules of the game with every successive release. And that can very well be a winning company strategy for many. By experimenting…
Sales representatives that are used to operating in a fixed price environment can often struggle to understand the changes that follow a departure from fixed pricing.
To be certain, sales methodologies and the sales processes do change drastically. You will no longer be selling a commodity; instead, you are selling a tailored solution that will range in cost depending on your client’s needs. Not every client has identical needs, as such, they shouldn’t pay the same price for a custom solution. Another less discussed issue created by fixed pricing is the…
Innovative design often boils down to creativity. If you’re interested in creating another cookie-cutter design, innovation will not be necessary. But when innovative creation is a requirement, then the demands of design change, too. What can companies do to enable their teams to design in this way? They need to promote atmospheres that are driven by dialog, thought, engagement and constant improvement. This idea is encapsulated by the theory of gamestorming, which incorporates all of the pieces needed for creativity. When a company strategy incorporates these components into their operational management, it makes creative design effortless. As companies set out to gain an…
They may have the greatest automation tools and be subscribing to the latest in marketing thought leadership, but they’ve missed critical points in their market segmentation and buyer identification processes. And now they’re preaching to a disinterested bunch. It’s clear for the outside viewer to see where they went wrong, but unless marketers continually audit their efforts, they may never see this substantial blunder. How do you overcome this? By returning to the beginning and…
All too often a company will think that it has a suitable best practices process for creating value for their products. Yet they readily take steps that are counterintuitive to this logic by markedly devaluing their products. Here are the most common mistakes being made: Within your marketing segmentation, there should be a customer role. Identifying the market that your customers reside in is one step, while profiling your customers is an entirely different step.…
A lot can be learned from the minds at MIT. Recently, April Dunford had a chance to chat with the folks at the MIT Media Lab, and from that experience learned 6 Pitch Lessons. Here’s a look at how April’s time spent at MIT can help your startup with product design research and the marketing strategies that’ll be your fuel. It Isn’t Real Until You Can Show Me Something “Talking about it just isn’t the same as showing it,” April writes. Every pitch she witnessed at the MIT Media Lab was accompanied…
According to Gopal Shenoy, product managers shouldn’t concern themselves with how many licenses (“size”) a company has, but rather the frequency of issues and complaints. He writes: “Innovative ideas typically come from one individual (think about all the great inventors—many of them invented things in their basements individually) and not from organizations. So before you ignore your small customers, think twice. Instead worry more about the ‘frequency’ of the issue.” This is not to say that product managers and developers should ignore the big issues and risk falling behind in a competitive…
Slowly but surely, the discussion is now about the company that offers the most customization. Customization has permeated every industry sector, from retail to software. Of course, customization has been available for quite some time. But as evidenced by the car tuning culture, people want options. They want to differentiate the item they own from the item someone else may own. And that can really drive the consumer culture. Whether the discussion is about one-off customer support services or a completely…
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