The Hotline Magazine
The Redefinition of Customer Support
The SaaS & Success Project

Thursday September 9, 2010




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It’s Not About the Software Anymore

When the features and functionality of Product A are essentially the same as those offered by Product B, what will truly distinguish one software company from another?  For a time, SaaS manufacturers held an edge over their on-premised perpetual license based competitors, but those days are swiftly passing.  The rumors of a coming shakeout in the on-demand market are steadily becoming observable reality, with SaaS vendor pitted against SaaS vendor with survival at stake.  To succeed in this pres

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A Conversation About Customer Retention

[Amsterdam, NL]  As the Moderator for a plenary session of the Software & Information Industry’s (SIIA) On-Demand Europe conference here in June, I put a number of questions to the panelists about the meaning and practices of customer retention.  Although the conference was designed for Software as a Service technology manufacturers, the questions and the responses are equally pertinent for any software vendor.  The full video of the session is available here. The Decimation of a Customer B

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Lighting the HotLine Magazine

For more than 30 years, I've been working with companies across a very wide range of industries and types/sizes of organizations on all aspects of their sustainable profitability and customer retention efforts.  While the engagements were usually described as being about fixing broken customer contact centers and optimizing working ones, the essence then as now is about success through keeping profitable customer relationships. I started writing about the world of customer support & service

More on page 6

Customer Centricity & The Contact Center

For some time now, there has been a lot of discussion in business journals and conference agendas about Customer Centricity. Amidst all of the claims and descriptions of the benefits to be gained, however, there is a key element that is missing. What is the definition of the term "Customer Centricity?" A quick search will turn up a link to the Wharton School of Business, who use the label as the trademark for one of their graduate programs. Their definition is precise and very powerful. It's als

More on page 67

SaaS/Cloud & Support: The DNA of Success

There has been a lot of talk over the past couple of years about corporate DNA in the SaaS ecosystem. In various ways, the point has been made that in order to truly succeed in the new model, you have to have SaaS-thinking embedded in the very DNA of everyone at all levels throughout the company. But what does SaaS-DNA look like? Under the traditional model, a company selling perpetual licenses to use a software application at a customer's own premises is a software company. The employees descri

More on page 52

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By Mikael Blaisdell

binocular telescope Seeing Beyond Software to Success
There is an inevitable shakeout coming to the SaaS ecosystem, increasing the pressure on corporate leadership over and above that brought by the economic downturn.  More and more companies are entering the market with SaaS offerings, spurred on by the growing successes of the forerunners and the inherent advantages of the new delivery method.  The increased competition, however, is not the true concern.  The real challenge facing SaaS CEOs is how to transcend an unnecessarily limited business model.

“We’re a software company.”  The invisible constraints in that self-definition will have profound effects upon the corporation’s potential for success.  Focusing on a narrow view of  what a company is and does invariably conceals significant avenues to enhanced profitability.  The willingness to look past the definition of a software company that is still festering underneath the SaaS paradigm and sapping its vitality — and to take appropriate action — may well be the determining factor of long-term corporate viability.

Software As A Vehicle

market share report sm Seeing Beyond Software to Success

There is a vital lesson for every SaaS company CEO to be learned from the examples of software companies such as Google and Intuit.  Both have been exceptionally successful in terms of revenues and market share by not insisting on living within the boundaries of software thinking.  Google’s software is freely available worldwide.  Intuit, at one point in its history, earned far more money from selling paper than it did from their software.  Those who consider themselves and their companies as being about the production and distribution of application code are missing the point.  The real value is not in the software but in addressing the need of the customers to increase their own effectiveness, productivity and profitability.

Opening the Door to Opportunity

sign open neon 300x148 Seeing Beyond Software to SuccessIt’s time to revisit/broaden the business plan, identify and question the core assumptions that have been made about your company, chosen market and product definition.  The potential of channel partners to contribute to your success should also be thoroughly explored.  The analysis will take courage and commitment, but the potential rewards of market share, leadership and long-term profitability are more than worth the effort.

Surviving the coming shakeout in the SaaS community is one issue.  Rising above that wave to become one of the leadership examples is yet another.  I’m here to help; let’s talk.

This is the first of a new series for The HotLine Magazine, Beyond Software to Success.

Published: November 11, 2008

Revised: February 14, 2010

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