Value Added Resellers of SaaS

No doubt SaaS and its brethren has turned the world of IT and IT delivery upside down. As a result, traditional VARS (Value-Added ReSellers) have been pushed aside. Certainly at the lower-end of the market where all the exciting stuff is taking place. Simply put when software is delivered as a service there seems little need for a service to deliver software! 

However, there are organisations springing up now who do add value to SaaS and cloud applications. That is the new wave of integrators. Not to be confused with old school System Integrators (SI's), the likes of IFTTT, OneSaas, CloudWork and Bondable focus solely on building (and selling) plug-ins that automate transactions between SaaS applications. They do this by utilising the API each vendor provides to allow secure access to their service.

Integrations and a free public API have always been an essential ingredient in the SaaS go-to-market recipe. Now the sheer volume of services out there is creating a demand for these dedicated integration services. Making it even more important to provide an API with your SaaS product of course. 

But it's early days for these guys. I would suggest they're a bit ahead of the curve. Yes, the market is getting evermore savvy but for the players in this space and their backers it is a long game! But services that offer additional functionality to SaaS are ideally placed to become the trusted advisors to small business customers looking for simple, straightforward technology that does nothing more than help them run their business as efficiently as possible.

I expect to see the integration players start to leverage their position and the relationships they have with the vendors. If done right their domain could be a compelling one stop shop for SaaS customers. For vendors a new, reliable sales channel. For the integrators, extra revenue and greater customer interaction and satisfaction. Trust and added value are a heady mix! Step forward the Value Added Resellers of SaaS.

Will Sony Be The Next Kodak?

I just had to share this hilarious video with you. 'Sony Releases Stupid Piece of Shit' from The Onion, is over a couple of years old now and has had well over 5 million views so there's a good chance you've seen it already. But it's only a couple of minutes long, so watch it again; it's so worth it...and poignant!

Footnote to Fear and Paralysis

This makes a neat third and final(?) post in the series that has, up til now used the SageLive debacle as a vehicle to discuss the phenomena of large, well-resourced organisations being gripped by fear when challenged by upstart competition.

These posts have certainly got a bit of attention. Thanks to all who shown an interest and for your comments and thoughts via Twitter et al. 

Ben Kepes wrote a fine follow-up piece over on his Diversity blog (and syndicated to Cloud Ave and elsewhere). In it, Ben interweaves chunks of (part 2), 'Goodbye SageLive, Hello Same Old Sage', with his own experiences of other incumbents in similar circumstances. In short, he confirms seeing the  same phenomena of fear and 'paralysis', all too often.

And so to Sony

This week Sony announced massive losses, with consequent job losses totalling 10,000 globally! This news is of no great surprise to observers of course. Even Steve Jobs hinted at it, as described in his biography. And of course, Apple are always the yardstick for this kind of discussion.

You'll easily find well-researched, qualified analysis elsewhere. I'm gonna put a stake in the ground, right here, right now! It always comes back to organisational culture and the consequent strategy or lack of! 

The very best SaaS offerings have their own type of great organisational culture which includes an ethos where customer experience is paramount. This is a huge differentiator when the whole organisation is totally behind it. Lip service is not enough. It's a cultural thing! Got it?

But I digest (sic). Sony is one of the world's great companies. Their products in various forms have featured in all our lives in a variety of ways, for decades. Their problem is far from unique, but in sharp relief.

They are a massive organisation that grew quickly in very different times. Scroll forward to today and you have a fractious organisation with multiple silo'd 'departments' all pulling in very different directions.

Any strategy they might have appears to be no better than, do everything. The cliché, left hand not knowing what the right is doing, barely seems adequate to describe the extreme, cultural dysfunctionality that now exists: it is a natural consequence of such direction-less leadership.

It Wouldn't Happen at Apple

What has made Apple so different from nearly all other mega-companies (until now at least) is that it's strategy and structure has more resembled the nimble, world-class tech startup. Single-minded and totally focussed on a handful of connected offerings and doing those brilliantly. 

The benefits of an autocratic leadership style is that the whole organisation knows what the company mission is. Not only the employees, but every stakeholder knows and gets their strategy. Customers even buy into it. Try asking Sony employees what their mission is? Let alone (potential) customers!

The best a corporation (like Sony) can do under the circumstances, is a knee-jerk reaction. A tactic that never works because the results won't be good enough. This is ridiculous, given the enormous resources at their disposal, including talent, IP, patents...and cash. They could just buy their way out of trouble with the right strategy.

Instagram Acquisition as an Example

This model has been born out by the news, this week, of the Instagram acquisition by Facebook. Facebook's issue of course, is to not let their platform become so broad that everything they do is not good enough. Many analysts believe that buying Instagram is part of dealing with that issue, asides from other strategic motives.

Besides likely spawning a multitude of me-too photo apps (cos there aren't enough of those right?), what Instagram prove is that a small organisation totally dedicated to producing the very best solution possible, with a very narrow remit, is the way to do it!

Another Kodak  Moment?

In a Tweetchat, Jason Currill remarked, 'another Kodak moment looming me thinks'. This depends. If it means that Sony has a similar, fundamental strategic decisions to make then yes, it is. If it means, 'that's the end of Sony', it really doesn't have to be. 

This is the warning shot. Like all big threatened organisations, they've got enough in reserve to do something about it. They just need to be decisive and play to their strengths. If they do end up like Kodak, that will not only be sad, it would be a crime!

Final Thought

Last night I caught up with Alex King over a couple of beers for the first time in too long. Alex is the knowledgeable MD of The Financial Management Centre, probably the largest network of its kind in the UK. Alot has happened since I worked with him on the conception of The Online Bookkeeper, their online accounting property.

While shooting the breeze, on a broad range of branding, strategy, marketing and analysis subjects, he touched on the tendency of corporate Japan to defer important decisions by engaging in endless meetings. Once again the subject of fear raises its ugly head. All concerned are too worried about making the wrong decision. The consequences of failure are too monumental to be entertained. No-one is prepared to take the lead. The potential result, paralysis and even, god-forbid, a Kodak moment!

To SaaS Or Not To SaaS...

I have mentioned before, how some of the world's biggest companies have fallen over themselves in a vain attempt to be known as SaaS. A classic example of a dysfunctional organisation getting the wrong end of the stick, while arrogantly swimming in their own hype. Blatantly ignoring who and what they are as an organisation, let alone whether it's a viable option for them.  

A well documented phenomenon is the difficulty that traditional software companies experience in migrating their products to the cloud, let alone morphing their entire organisation to SaaS. Social psychologists will tell you that cultural change in even the smallest of organisation is nigh on impossible; let alone when you have thousands of employees and a management team that just don't get it.


The fact of the matter is, you can try to emulate the SaaS model, but if you approach it with the same old, trad software company attitude, you're just gonna fail. Period. Or err full stop!


So maybe some credit is due to those who don't try then. Maybe they truly do get this fundamental issue; understanding that it would be simpler and much less painful to simply set fire to their platform than attempt the excruciatingly painful, cultural shift required to have a chance of success! Maybe!?

Technology Company or Service Organisation? You Decide!


Therefore, it's best to make the conscious decision early on as to whether you want to go down the SaaS road or not. I mean early on. Like, even before a line of code has been written is not too early! Certainly, long before delivery is strongly advised. 

If, 'to SaaS or not to Saas' is the question, then there are many perfectly adequate answers. Changing strategy or trying different tactics, even to pivot entirely are relatively easy undertakings and likely necessary as things evolve, but to change organisational culture is an altogether different animal entirely. SaaS done well, looks easy (that's kind of the point). But, the majority of tech companies aren't SaaS for a good reason!


But decide now before it's too late

During my tenure at SaaS accounting vendor, KashFlow, we were aware of new potential competitors appearing at least once a month and often on a weekly basis. Often the actual cloud software element looked great, however, 99% of the time they would disappear just as quickly! Why? Because they hadn't made that decision. Consequently, their hard work was destined for the black hole of history before they even started. 


Just Add Website


Likely, the talented bedroom developers were totally unaware that they had to make any non-programming decisions. They probably believed that infamous misconception, 'great products sell themselves'. But as KashFlow Chairman, Lord Young liked to put it, "you can have the best bus in the world, but it's useless if nobody gets on it"! 

Your potential customers have got to know that your bus is coming! Having a domain to match your product name is simply not enough on its own. How many more times? You are not Facebook! They got a Hollywood revision because they are the exception, not the rule. Great products do not sell themselves. Your duty is to load the dice as heavily as possible in your favour!

Before breaking things down into the key elements of SaaS, so that you can load the dice, let's cover off some fundamentals to consider before you proceed with changing the world. Next!