Corporate Vision
The vision to achieve our mission is to anticipate and deliver more empowering business software SaaS solutions [that will provide progressively increased (business performance) value] in concert with how we believe the enterprise systems SaaS evolution will occur over five independent although overlapping phases.
- Provide first version solutions at a reduced TCO
- Defined by 3 benefits - Subscription-pricing, hosted delivery, outsourced expertise
- Deliver next generation solutions that succeed not by lowering TCO but by promoting increased business performance (and offering previously unavailable value)
- Enterprise-wide systems integration, business process automation, BI
- Verticalize and internationalize SaaS solutions
- Increase SaaS product and industry ecosystems by integrating partners and extend business processes
- Upgrade the manufacturing and distribution of online solutions via the OnDemand Value Chain – a combination of factory and distribution model as a subscription based medium offering business applications like a library of web services
Vision put into the context of market evolution and anticipation.
SaaS 1.0
- What. Subscription-pricing model and hosted delivery introduced as a cost-effective alternative to licensed business applications software. The focus was on business model – being hosted and rented – not on the application and certainly not on the user.
- Why/UVP. Lower upfront investment and ongoing TCO. No longer a need to spend money on quickly depreciating hardware, technical staffing to maintain systems or buy more software licenses that you’ll use.
- Who/Competition. Licensed software did little more than watch from a distance and publicly comment that the model wouldn’t work; specifically that it couldn’t achieve the integration and customization of on-premise applications.
- Successes. The model proves successful.
- Failures. Applications are trivial compared to the maturity of the prior generation of licensed apps.
SaaS 2.0
- What. The model’s now proven, multiple providers emerge so the emphasis changes to who has the best application in the model.
- Why/UVP.
- Who/Competition. Almost all market entrants come from the low end and chase the market leader. They provide apps which look like the market leader and compete on price. A losing long term strategy. A few vendors (Aplicor, Oracle and SFDC) attempt to go upstream to mid-market and enterprise. The market begins to consolidate (Siebel acquires Upshot, Oracle acquires Seibel On Demand; RightNow acquires SalesNet).
- Successes. Tools suites begin to show value. A few vendors – SFDC & Aplicor – demonstrate that SaaS software can be customized by non-tech resources and can scale to support thousands of concurrent users.
- Failures. Although a few vendors make marketing claims for vertical solutions, the products are still horizontal. Benefits still fall behind the decades old (high-risk and high-cost) on-premise products.
SaaS 3.0
- What. With multiple vendor horizontal solutions, thought leading vendors will pursue differentiation with industry verticalization focus and/or a refocus on business objectives achievements. The real thought leaders will combine the two. For Aplicor, this means 3 things:
1) Becoming vertically focused – Fin Serv, Pro Serv, Public Sector
2) Becoming uniquely horizontally focused. Finding unique horizontal differentiation –
a) Front to back office solution
b) Global solution – like a vertical if provide M/C, languages, localization, support.
c) Specific enterprise solutions with difficult and demanding requirements (customization)
3) Becoming user and business objectives focused. Providing strategic user benefits and differentiation
a) Staff – one-click-to-anywhere navigation, BPA, metrics based goals and measurement, everyday BPs (transactions, labor allocation (working, not admin), etc.
b) Knowledge workers – information analysis with predictive visioning and actionable follow
c) Sales professionals - providing strategic sales value with documented interactive processes (CMS), scorecards, strategy sheets, scripts, CI, lessons learned repository, OE
- Why/UVP.
Who/Competition. Barriers to entry rise significantly. Partners focused on process delivery (not software) become more important. New market entrants are not competitors, but OEM and private label partners for larger solutions. Point applications are irrelevant. Aggregators without significant value add go by the wayside. New software publishing and distribution partnerships (which Aplicor refers to as the OnDemand Value Chain) are built on common industry standard (not proprietary) platform technologies. New technologies such as SOA, AJAX and tools suites are minimum requirements to compete. This era will weed out piecemeal component players in favor of broader suites and enterprise-wide business solutions.
- Successes. Reallocation of IT dollars from hardware and software (which has no inherent business value whatsoever) to BPI and automation which advances business goals and accomplishment. Immediate gratification gives way to long term sustainable value objectives. SaaS systems not provide the customization, integration and benefits of the prior on premise legacy systems in a trouble-free environment – which permits the customer to focus on their core business activities while achieving dramatically reduced total cost of ownership (TCO).
- Failures
The vision to achieve our mission is to anticipate and deliver more empowering business software SaaS solutions [that will provide progressively increased (business performance) value] in concert with how we believe the enterprise systems SaaS evolution will occur over five independent although overlapping phases.
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