THINK IT Services

Among the strategic partnerships which THINKstrategies established in 2009, was our decision to team with Renovatix Solutions to add a new online marketplace capability to the SaaS Showplace.

Adding an online marketplace to the Showplace was a natural extension to the fundamental mission of the site of helping IT/business decision-makers identify SaaS solutions to meet their corporate objectives, and giving SaaS vendors a forum to promote their capabilities.

My decision to team with Renovatix Solutions is part of my larger vision that the go-to-market strategies of SaaS companies and developers are also evolving.

While many SaaS companies have built their initial success on a variety of direct sales techniques and affiliate marketing tactics, I believe they are now poised to start leveraging an emerging channel of enterprise companies who want to use branded online marketplaces to enhance their customer relationships and providing new levels of value beyond core services.

For example, computer hardware companies have been reselling computer software online for many years. Last year, Dell entered into an agreement with Salesforce.com to become a reseller of a broader set of business applications listed on the AppExchange to provide Dell’s customers with a ‘one-stop’ shop for hardware and software solutions.

Expanding the portfolio of software products promoted by computer companies is ok, but not earth-shattering. In fact, online marketplaces have been commonplace since the idea of eCommerce emerged during the dot.com era.

However, what if non-traditional players started offering SaaS solutions to enhance their customer relationships and strengthen their competitive position within their own industries?

Renovatix Solutions is nudging the world in this direction.

A case example is the new online marketplace it has implemented for Bank of America (BoA), based on the Etelos platform suite for SaaS distribution. The MyBusiness Solutions Store is aimed at helping small- and mid-size businesses (SMBs) “succeed by providing high quality Web-based business applications from a variety of vendors — in one convenient place.”

The logic is simple. In today’s increasingly tough economic environment, financial institutions, such as BoA, need to do all they can to mitigate lending risks and provide new layers of value to their customers. So, offering SMBs a broader array of business services in the form of SaaS applications gives BoA more tools to help its customers and more reasons for them to be loyal to BoA.

By offering monthly subscriptions to these apps, BoA is helping its customers reduce their operating costs while they better manage their business. These customers also obtain consolidated access to the online apps through BoA’s branded marketplace with a single sign-on.  It is likely that these apps will become a vital part of running their business and increase the likelihood that they will remain loyal to BoA, return for more products, and view BoA as a trusted business supplier. As a result, the online marketplace can give BoA an important competitive advantage.

Clearly, this is not a program built on the premise of “if you build it, they will come”.  BoA is utilizing various marketing channels to promote its new online marketplace, such as statement inserts, banner ads and links at relevant SMB-oriented sites. 

As the marketplace serves as a central repository to access of the SMB’s web apps, this destination becomes a key venue for messaging, marketing and means to interact with their customers, in a non-invasive fashion, regularly.  The awareness campaigns are expected to have significant impact since BOA ranks in the top 50 sites ranked by US-based web visitors daily.

Renovatix Solutions is charting new territory through its network of enterprises who’ve applied the marketplace functionality to their branded environments. These companies are creating unique value propositions for their customers via their marketplace solutions. In many cases, these companies are also offering their own loyalty programs (i.e., currency) with their corporate credit cards or in-house accounts. 

They are also offering a continuously expanding array of SaaS apps from companies like Google, Citrix, MS, WordPress, Sugar CRM, Box.net, and HyperOffice. The enterprises can select the SaaS apps that best suit their customers from a menu of many more. 

Renovatix is also enabling the enterprises to offer other products and services, including non-SaaS based products of their own, or through their affiliates, previously linked to their branded environment.

The BoA store is just the most recent in a series of similar online marketplace deployments Renovatix Solutions is implementing for various enterprises which are yet to be publicly announced.

The adoption of these online marketplaces by major financial institutions and other enterprises lends greater credibility to the SaaS model. SMBs who may not have heard of these ‘on-demand’ solutions or were apprehensive about using them, will now be more comfortable trying them when they come from a well-known and trusted source.

This trend illustrates how the SaaS market is evolving and becoming more mainstream. It also shows how the SaaS market is sparking new channels to market, and redefining the role of the value-added reseller (VAR) and systems integrator (SI).

Earlier this month, THINKstrategies and Datamation teamed up to conduct a quick survey to get a reality check regarding current Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) adoption, satisfaction and expectations.

The results are in. Click here to read about our findings.

As you’ll see, our quick survey has found that SaaS acceptance, deployment and utilization are rising. It also confirmed that most SaaS users are satisfied with the benefits of these solutions.

However, the handful who are not pleased with their SaaS experiences raise important issues which every IT and business decision-maker needs to keep in mind.

Fortunately, the overall SaaS industry is doing a good job satisfying the expectations and needs of customers. As a result, our survey suggests continued growth for the SaaS market, and broader cloud computing services industry.

THINKstrategies announced today that Jigsaw has been named the latest winner of the Best of SaaS Showplace (BoSS) Awards program, which is aimed at promoting the measurable business benefits being delivered by today’s Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) solutions.
 
The BoSS Awards program was announced in January 2009 by THINKstrategies as an initiative aimed at bringing greater attention to SaaS and cloud computing companies that are producing tangible business benefits for specific user organizations. These benefits include increased sales, lower costs, higher customer satisfaction, faster operations and greater profitability.
 
Jigsaw is a leading provider of business information and data services that leverages user-generated content contributed by a global business-to-business community of over one million members to give users access to contact information for 21 million business people and profiles of 3 million companies. Jigsaw provides data-as-a-service (DaaS) through a variety of low-cost and easy to access data acquisition and management services for sales, marketing, recruiting and customer service purposes.

Click here to read about the measurable business benefits which earned Jigsaw the latest BoSS Award.

Click here to read more about the BoSS Award program or to apply for an award.

Based on the success of the BoSS Awards program which focuses on SaaS solutions, THINKstrategies as launched a new Cloud Computing Business Value (CCBV) Awards program to recognize companies which are delivering Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) and Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) solutions producing measurable business benefits for their customers. For more information regarding the CCBV Awards, go to http://www.thinkstrategies.com/cloudcomputingawards.html.

In a previous blogpost, I suggested that a new breed of consulting and professional service firms are in a very good position to capitalize on the transformation of the technology industry from a product-centric to a web-based services orientation.

Now, even established players are beginning to recognize the importance of their consulting groups in today’s rapidly changing market. No, I’m not reversing my view that companies like Dell and HP are on the wrong path by trying to fortify their wholesale outsourcing businesses with their acquisitions of Perot Systems and EDS respectively. Instead, I’m referring to more specialized consulting units of domain/subject matter experts who can serve as ‘trusted advisors’ to customers, and are a subtle channel-to-market for the broader vendor’s products and services.

This point was brought home yesterday during Iron Mountain’s annual analyst day. I reported on the company’s first annual analyst day three years ago, when I suggested that Iron Mountain had an unusual opportunity to ‘cross the chasm’ from the physical storage business to the brave new world of digital services.

While the company has made progress over the past three years in building its digital services business, it hasn’t fully realized its vision of a highly integrated portfolio of physical and digital services because of a combination of external and internal factors.

The company realigned its executive team in 2010 and is now putting more emphasis on the value of its consulting capabilities as a catalyst for the delivery of integrated physical and digital services. This move is also being driven by the new corporate leadership’s bolder mission for Iron Mountain of becoming the leading provider of information management services rather than its narrower focus on data storage alone in the past.

The timing of this move could be very advantageous given the explosion of data, escalating compliance concerns, uncertain economic climate and confusion surrounding cloud-based services. Organizations of all sizes, but especially mid- and large-scale enterprises in specific industries, are grappling with these issues. Rather than turn to the technology leaders who are viewed as biased product vendors, many of the IT and business decision-makers in these organizations are more comfortable asking their trusted service providers for help.

Putting more emphasis on the company’s consulting capabilities will be particularly timely for Iron Mountain in the healthcare and other industries which are plagued with inefficient systems, tightening budgets and changing market requirements. This was illustrated during panels sessions at the analyst briefing which included Iron Mountain customers at Biogen Idec, CSX Transportation and the New England Baptist Hospital.

(Disclosure: I have published whitepapers on behalf of Iron Mountain and participated in Iron Mountain webcasts.)

THINKstrategies announced today that Deposco, Inc.  has been named the latest winner of the Best of SaaS Showplace (BoSS) Awards program, which is aimed at promoting the measurable business benefits being delivered by today’s Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) solutions.

The BoSS Awards program was announced in January 2009 to bring attention to SaaS companies that are producing tangible business benefits for specific user organizations. These benefits include increased sales, lower costs, higher customer satisfaction, faster operations and greater profitability.

Deposco offers next-generation supply chain solutions to manufacturers, distributors, retailers and 3PL’s. Past supply chain solutions were limiting due to their expense, closed architecture, lack of mobility, and inability to share information with trading partners. Deposco’s SaaS delivery model, rapid implementation and easy configuration of customer specific business processes drive quick return-on-investment (ROI) with minimal up-front investment.

Click here to read about the measurable business benefits which Deposco’s customers have gained from the company’s solutions which have earned Deposco a BoSS Award.

Click here to read more about the BoSS Award program or to apply for an award.

Based on the success of the BoSS Awards program which focuses on SaaS solutions, THINKstrategies has launched the Cloud Computing Business Value (CCBV) Awards program to recognize companies which are delivering Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) and Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) solutions producing measurable business benefits for their customers. For more information regarding the CCBV Awards, go to http://www.thinkstrategies.com/cloudcomputingawards.html.

THINKstrategies announced today that Rosslyn Analytics has been named the latest winner of the Best of SaaS Showplace (BoSS) Awards program, which is aimed at promoting the measurable business benefits being delivered by today’s Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) solutions.
 
The BoSS Awards program was announced in January 2009 by THINKstrategies as an initiative aimed at bringing greater attention to SaaS and cloud computing companies that are producing tangible business benefits for specific user organizations. These benefits include increased sales, lower costs, higher customer satisfaction, faster operations and greater profitability.

Rosslyn Analytics’ pre-built applications run on Rapidintel, a web-based automated spend analytics (SaaS) platform that aggregates data from multiple sources, such as accounts payable, procurement, travel and procurement cards, into a single online view of all organizational spending activity. Rapidintel automates the collection, categorization, reporting and monitoring of enterprise-wide spend data.

Click here to read about Rossyln Analytics’ award winning business benefits.

Click here to read more about the BoSS Awards program or to apply for an award.

Based on the success of the BoSS Awards program which focuses on SaaS solutions, THINKstrategies has launched a new Cloud Computing Business Value (CCBV) Awards program to recognize companies which are delivering Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) and Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) solutions producing measurable business benefits for their customers. For more information regarding the CCBV Awards, go to http://www.thinkstrategies.com/cloudcomputingawards.html.

I’ve been suggesting for years that the IT system management (ITSM) market is ripe for a new generation of Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) solutions, and a widening array of emerging players are finally fulfilling my vision.

Up until recently, IT departments have been plagued by the same frustrations which permeated most large-scale enterprises contending with overly complex, cumbersome and costly business applications.

In the case of the business units, it was trying to implement and maintain enterprise applications, such as CRM or ERP, which drove them crazy and in the direction of SaaS alternatives from companies like Salesforce.com and NetSuite.

Now, IT organizations are starting to migrate away from the ITSM platforms offered by IBM, HP, BMC and CA in favor of SaaS-based alternatives from Service.now and others.

Why are IT departments moving in this direction? For the same reasons as their business unit counterparts,

• Frustration with the costs and complexities of traditional, on-premise ITSM has reached a breaking point.
• In today’s tough economic environment, IT departments have to do more with less and can’t afford the inefficiencies associated with legacy ITSM.
• Traditional ITSM wasn’t designed with today’s highly dispersed workplaces, mobility and cloud computing resources in mind.
• Technological advancements are making today’s SaaS-based ITSM solutions more viable alternatives to legacy systems.

So, just like in the broader business environment, there is a ‘perfect storm’ of economic, technological and attitudinal forces which are driving IT professionals to adopt various SaaS ITSM solutions.

My latest commentary in Ecommerce Times discusses these drivers further.

But, it is worth noting that between the time I submitted this column to the online publication and when it was posted the following industry announcements and SaaS-based ITSM vendors crossed my radar,

• CA announced its intention to acquire Nimsoft after previously announcing that it would acquire 3Tera.
• Citrix acquired Paglo to strengthen its SaaS-based GoToManage capabilities.
• AccelOps is rolling out enhancements to its integrated datacenter monitoring and ITSM software.
• ManageEngine continues to enhance its ITSM suite which sells for a fraction of the cost of legacy platforms.
• France-based, Staff&Line, is opening offices in the U.S. to offer its ITSM, IT asset management, configuration management database (CMDB) and automatic inventory capabilities here.

These are just a handful of the numerous companies targeting this market. THINKstrategies has over 150 companies listed in the HelpDesk, IT and Application Management categories of its SaaS Showplace. And, this is probably only half of the total number of companies targeting the ITSM market!

Just like in the overall market, these SaaS ITSM vendors are successfully penetrating large-scale enterprises as well as small- and mid-size businesses (SMBs). We’ve recognized many of these players with our Best of SaaS Showplace (BoSS) Awards.

And, the ITSM legacy vendors — IBM, HP, BMC, CA and others — are desperately trying to respond to this significant challenge in the same way as their enterprise application counterparts — Microsoft, Oracle, SAP and others — have done … with a combination of acquisitions, alliances, internal development and external PR.

It is for all these reasons that I identified ITSM as one of the key battlefields for 2010.

There are many myths that are propagated by legacy software vendors to discredit the insurgent Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) and cloud computing movements. But, the SaaS industry has also harbored its own myths for many years as well.

For instance, many SaaS vendors aren’t truly ‘on-demand’. You can’t acquire and utilize their web-based applications instantaneously because they lack the automated provisioning capabilities. And, in many cases they don’t want you to use their online applications ‘by the drink’ because it undercuts the predictable revenue stream which is essential to the SaaS model.

The second and related myth is that most SaaS solutions are not ‘pay-as-you-go’. Instead, you are often asked to pay for a one-year agreement up front before you can utilize the SaaS app.

Despite these limitations, SaaS solutions have flourished because they are still far more flexible and more cost-effective than their legacy predecessors.

Nonetheless, a growing number of experienced SaaS users, as well as some prospective customers, are becoming frustrated with the traditional sales tactics and increasingly complex contracting policies emerging in the SaaS industry.

RightNow issued a “Cloud Challenge” this week to counteract the SaaS industry’s dark side, and make SaaS vendors more accountable and user friendly, while attempting to reset the competitive playing field based on more flexible contracting practices.

The centerpiece of RightNow’s new initiative is the Cloud Services Agreement (CSA), a user-driven approach to SaaS licensing. The CSA provides:

• Annual Usage Alignment Up or Down
• Three-Year Price Commitment, Plus Three-Year Renewal Price Cap
• Annual Termination for Convenience
• Annual Pools of Capacity
• Cash Service Level Credits
• Unlimited Capacity for 90-Day Pilots

Click here to find more information regarding the key elements of RightNow’s challenge.

RightNow made its announcement via a live Internet feed that included strong customer testimonials by Ken Harris, CIO of Shaklee Corporation, and Jim Huser, CIO at Guthy-Renker. The Cloud Challenge video is at, http://www.rightnow.com/resource-video-cloud-challenge.php.

RightNow’s challenge not only raises the bar for legacy software vendors who are still struggling to migrate to a SaaS model, but also some of the SaaS industry leaders who have succeeded without fully meeting all the expectations of the ‘on-demand’ terminology. In particular, RightNow was happy to single out Salesforce.com for criticism.

(Disclosure: I’ve done work for both firms.)

There has already been plenty of discussion and debate regarding cloud ‘governance’ issues. Now, SaaS contracting practices are going to be added to the controversial questions surrounding the market.

The good news is that if other companies meet RightNow’s challenge they can reduce another point of ‘friction’ in the SaaS adoption cycle. By standardizing and simplifying the contracting process, and making it more transparent as well, SaaS companies are able to alleviate a lot of the uncertainty customers have about the unknown aspects of SaaS procurement.

In my opinion, RightNow’s challenge represents a healthy new step in the maturation of the SaaS market and cloud computing industry. Its challenge will be keeping up the drumbeat to keep its competitors’ feet to the fire. I’m sure the legacy software vendors and many SaaS providers are hoping this topic fades away.

Everyone is talking about Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), but we want to know what you or your clients are really doing with SaaS…and why – and if people like the results.
 
So, Datamation and THINKstrategies are teaming up to conduct a quick SaaS survey to gauge the level of interest and use of these online, ‘on-demand’ services.
 
 We’re conducting this survey because we’d like to learn what types of services are being used or considered, and why or why not organizations are using these services. And, we’d like to know how SaaS users feel about their experiences, and what SaaS providers must do to convince others to take advantage of these services.
 
 The survey consists of eleven (11) quick questions…and a short set of optional demographic questions to help us understand your views based on your company size, location and industry. We are also looking for SaaS users will are will to talk about their experiences using SaaS solutions.
 
So, click here to tell us what you think about SaaS or how you’re taking advantage of SaaS solutions. We’ll keep your feedback confidential and will report the results of our survey in the coming weeks.
 
Thanks for your help and support.

Despite the down economy which has decimated the traditional conference business, escalating interest in Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) and cloud computing continues to fuel the growth of forums focused on these trends.

THINKstrategies is supporting the following upcoming events,

• Xchange Service Provider, March 8-11, Los Angeles, CA.
• SaaScon, April 6-7, San Jose, CA.
• Under the Radar – ‘Commercializing the Cloud’, April 16, Mountain View, CA. (Friends of THINKstrategies get $100 off their conference registration by clicking here.)
• AlwaysOn ‘OnDemand’ Conference, April 19-21, Palo Alto, CA. (Friends of THINKstrategies receive a special 50% discount on a conference registration by clicking here.)
• CloudSlam’10, April 19-23.
• SaaS University, hosted by SoftLetter, April 20-22, Washington, DC.
• Telecomms Cloud Services Summit, April 22-23, London, UK.
• All About the Cloud, SIIA Conference, May 10-12, San Francisco, CA. (Use promo code PRMTHINK to get $100 off the SIIA non-member regisration rate. Discount does not apply to current registrants.)
• Gluecon, May 26-27, Denver, CO.
• 2nd Annual Cloud Computing World Forum, June 29-30, Olympia, London (Use promo code TStrat for a 20% discount on the conference registration. Attend Expo and Workshops free.)

Let me know if you’d like me and THINKstrategies to participate in your conference or corporate event.