SaaS vs. On-Premise: What Did You Do This Weekend?

Here's a tweet from salesforce.com customer Jeff Grosse:

I'm glad that Salesforce.com is performing an upgrade to my CRM system tonight so I don't have to.

Compare that with Dan Blake's description of upgrading Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0:

We’ll be installing the update to the update in the CourseMax data center this weekend. It’s a pretty involved process. Here is the process we’ll go through:

• Apply the update in the sandbox
  • Since our CRM server roles are split up, we’ll have to install it four times
• Run through the test plan on all four servers
• Apply the update on the production servers
  • Six different servers this time
• Run through the test plan again on Production

... This is also why I’m not really comfortable yet with the 2 month update cycle. I like to keep current with updates but it is a lot of work. Keep in mind that this is in addition to the testing and updating we do for our own software. If we would have installed the first version of Update Rollup 2 we would have had to go through this whole process twice within a month [emphasis added].

This might be the most compelling argument for SaaS I've heard - you get to keep your weekends!

Speaking of Platforms...

My last post made me realize that I haven't already pointed out Marc Andreessen's excellent essay: The three kinds of platforms you meet on the internet.

And if the essay itself wasn't reward enough, check this out:

Network Effects

I think that Charles Zedlewski gets it exactly right in his post A new wrinkle on SaaS when he says this about "Salesforce to Salesforce":

This is something that would be difficult for on-premise vendors to replicate: an application network effect that's could be genuinely beneficial to the user.

This will be a powerful feature as companies with an indirect business model begin to leverage it with their partners.

Just think how hard it would be to implement this functionality with an on-premise solution - the logistics of coordinating IT organizations would be monumental.

Business Intelligence + Data Model Importance

We're building a system for my current customer that will give them some impressive business intelligence functionality. The market that our customer sells in to is fairly small and rather static, so as a result, our tools will allow them to have an almost complete view of their market. They'll be able to look at that data from a number of perspectives and ask the question of how to increase their market share any number of ways. Questions like, "In which sector of the market are we weakest?" will be answerable with a few clicks of a manager's mouse.

We had to think long and hard about the underlying data model, but once that was worked out, everything just fell in to place. There have been a couple of tradeoffs throughout the process, but what we have now is truly powerful.

Sales Process Diversity

I've been helping a small division of a very large company implement our CRM solution. It's been a unique experience as I've been playing two roles on the project - Technical Consultant and Functional Consultant. The best part about the Functional Consulting role is that you get to learn about the customer's business processes at an even greater depth and breadth than you typically do as a Technical Consultant.

This particular customer has a very unique sales process. They're selling products whose costs are heavily influenced by commodity metals prices and their sales cycle is quite long - typically 18+ months. It's been fascinating to see how those two factors have influenced the way that they sell their products.

CRM - enlarging the circle

Most definitions of customer relationship management are either indecipherable or self-referential:

The infrastructure that enables the delineation of and increase in customer value, and the correct means by which to motivate valuable customers to remain loyal - indeed, to buy again.
- The CRM Handbook

Customer relationship management (CRM) is a broad term that covers concepts used by organizations to manage their relationships with customers, including collecting, storing and analyzing customer information.
- Wikipedia

I personally like this simple one:

A 360° view of your customer.

Traditionally CRM hasn't been particularly collaborative. Many company websites provide self-service functionality and perhaps some message boards, but much of the time this functionality appears to be providedin order to keep customers from calling the help line.

I think that Dell may have just changed the rules of the game with the introduction of` their IdeaStorm website. I think that Dell may have added a few degrees to that 360° view...