Inspired By Excellence

In my last post I mentioned Kiva and Mint, two organizations that I have recently chanced upon and have been impressed by. Let me add another one called Project Jing - it is a screen capture software product by the makers of Camtasia. Basically it adds a "small sunburst circle" to the top of your screen that you can click on when you want to take a picture or record something on your screen. When you are done recording, it saves the image / recording to an online server - you can then email a link to the recording or embed it in an IM or blog. See how it works by clicking this link: http://screencast.com/t/CaOFQrtS - it is a recording of me writing this blog. Background music is courtesy of Pandora.

There is a commonality to each of these products: EXCELLENCE.

1. they are unique concepts and valuable solutions that are facilitated by technology;
2. their messaging, visuals and branding are concise, consistent and powerful;
3. their User Interfaces are elegant, easy to use and very well done (Project Jing is especially unique); and finally
4. their execution is flawless across the board.

Excellence does not happen by chance. It requires planning, teamwork, creative thinking, determination and lots of hard work. While I have always considered myself to be creative, highly motivated and successful at most things that I put my mind to, I am still inspired by each of these products to truly deliver excellence.

Giving Back: Part 2 Messaging and Branding

In an August 08 post I mentioned the Taproot Foundation, a pro bono marketing organization that I volunteer for as an Account Director. After completing a Messaging & Branding project in January for Youth Build Boston, I recently visited their website. It was extremely gratifying to see the messaging and branding work that we delivered incorporated directly into their whole site.

Cool Rethinking - Rethinking Cool

Giving Back

While living in Atlanta and working for Accenture, I did a ton of volunteer work for Hands On Atlanta (HOA). HOA is an amazing non-profit organization where "Every day, Hands On Atlanta volunteers serve with more than 400 community-based agencies and schools throughout Atlanta.". Since moving to Boston, I haven't taken the time to give back and that has been concerning me. Well that's changing...

I recently became involved in Taproot Foundation, a non-profit organization that provides pro bono marketing services (strategy, branding, positioning, websites, brochures and annual reports). There are a couple of main things that attracted me to Taproot (1) I can bring marketing expertise to the non-profit sector and have a significant impact in an accelerated time frame, and (2) Taproot has done a phenomenal job of creating step-by-step process methodologies for each of their project types. Being a total project and process "geek" I really appreciate the benefits that a well structured methodology delivers to Taproot, the account directors and the non-profit.

So, I am getting ready to kick-off my first Taproot project as an Account Director. Once I get into the swing of the project I will write another update.

A SaaS Go-To-Market Segmentation Framework

While SaaS is a relatively new deployment option (since ~1998), it is still governed by the fundamental rules of B2B marketing: understand your customer (research), make sure that you connect with them (lead gen), and then provide them with a value proposition that they can't refuse (product positioning). Sort of like the Godfather movie but without the terminal consequences. It's a terribly summarized overview of B2B marketing, and one that my old marketing professors Kottler and Sawhney would probably raise their eyebrows at, but fundamentally it's true There are however a number of twists in marketing SaaS that distinguish it from traditional SW sales.

To start with, SaaS is just like installed SW in that there is no one-size-fits-all solution. Different SaaS applications will appeal to different customer demographics. The functional and technical requirements of a 5 person consulting organization are vastly different from those of a $5B bank. For example, the consulting organization probably does not need LDAP integration while the bank will need LDAP (or equivalent) integration into its security infrastructure. The bank will most likely also willing to pay for process refinements and user training as part of a standardized rollout methodology. The Net Net is that any SaaS go-to-market offering needs to be designed for the specific segments that are being targeted.

I have developed the following segmentation framework to analyze and plan a SaaS go-to-market program. Specifically, it is focused on strategic product positioning based on the deployment of the SaaS solution - it does not address any of the tactical marketing / lead generation programs. Also, I am making an assumption that the solution itself is solving a material business problem -- if you are not solving a problem and meeting a need, all the positioning in the world is not going to make a difference.

The following images provide a fairly self explanatory overview of the framework.

(1) Defining the Organizational Impact of the SaaS solution:

(2) Defining the Technical Impactof the SaaS solution:

(3) Using the Technical Impact / Organizational Impact structure, here is how some existing SaaS players stackup:



(4) Breaking the segmentation up a bit further, you get Three Tiers of SaaS Go-To-Market Options:

(5) SaaS Go To Market Actions By Tier:


*When it comes to compensation, SaaS sales introduce complexity. How do you compensate the salesperson? On the total contact value? On a per sale value? What if you are in Tier 1 and offer a 30 day free trial? Or Tier 2, a 90 day paid pilot? Or Tier 3, a 1 year subscription with a service based cancellation clause? Lot’s of interesting topics for another post.

So, this post has been a bit more extensive than most, but it does give a good idea of the structure that I have defined and implemented at IQ as part of our segmentation and go to market strategy. This structure works for us and there is a good chance that it is flexible enough to work for you. At the very least, it is a starting point for how to do your own segmentation and frame your own strategy.

Only Possible With SaaS.........

In a couple of my past posts, I pointed out that SaaS is not a one-size-fits-all deployment option. However, I do believe that there are some types of solutions that can only be effectively delivered as a SaaS solution - call it the "SaaS only" option.

Typically, "SaaS only" is applicable when the software/service meets one of four functional criteria:

(1) "SaaS only" solutions require significant deployment and operational resources to be effective. The Celarix logistics visibility service is a good example of this. To achieve supply-chain visibility, you need at least 20 interfaces to logistics providers. Setting-up those interfaces is extremely costly and time-consuming. Managing them going forward is also complicated with hundreds and thousands of inbound transactions every day. With over 300 predefine interface as part of their service, Celarix can provide customers with the visibility they need significantly faster and more cost effectively than any other alternative.

(2) "SaaS only" solutions include data that requires constant updates. There is a brilliant new service being launched that can only be successful in a SaaS model - let's call it LeadDB. It's not the services' real name, but it is still in Beta and under-wraps. IQ is participating in the Beta. LeadDM provides a list purchasing service unlike any others that I have encountered. Once you have logged-in to their service, you can enter your segmentation criteria and they will return target names that meet those criteria. You can then buy specific names one-by-one or in bulk. Fast forward to their new offering - by adding a couple of lines of code to your website, you can receive contact names (that meet your segmentation criteria) for the companies that are visiting your site. Set a monthly budget and distribution rules and each day you will get a list of potential prospects for your lead gen activities. It's a great way to bridge the gap between people that complete our online forms and those that just visit. Given the timeliness of LeadDBs data and the complexity of updating their contact database, there is no way this type of solution would be possible in any model other than SaaS.


(3) "SaaS only" solutions provide information that is only available by aggregating data across their customer base. Google has just rolled-out a new capability in their Analytics tool called Benchmarking. Basically you can use it to benchmark yourself against your peers and see how your site performs in 6 different categories (IQ currently outperforms in 5 of 6 and our next website release should address #6). It would be impossible to do this type of analysis in non-SaaS analytics packages.


(4) "SaaS only" solutions include a value-added component in their service. Constant Contact (CC) is a great example of this. The CC service has a few main components: (1) email creation, (2) list management, and (3) email distribution (with SPAM management, SPAM compliance validation and white listing). Of these components, #3 is most useful to me. I can easily replicate components #1 & #2 using an installed product, but having a level of assurance that my domain won't be black-listed as a spammer is a major benefit. A benefit that CC provides as part of their SaaS model and one that I could not easily replicate.

So, anybody thinking of deploying a new software solution (or re-deploying an existing one) in a SaaS model should really evaluate if their solution meets one of the four "SaaS only" criteria, or if the change is simply a "buzz" driven decision.

Next up is a model for identifying SaaS go-to-market strategies (i.e. marketing, sales, services) based on target customer profiles. Stay tuned.

SaaS, Governance & The IT Bypass

My last SaaS posts were mostly about SaaS from a SW company's strategic perspective. This one is as a SaaS consumer - from the viewpoint of business and IT users.

As a business user, SaaS represents a wonderful opportunity to find and start using new applications that make my job easier. All I need is a credit card, a computer and an internet connect. Great - after 10 minutes I can hit the ground running with my free trial. One monthly price and I have no IT budget hassels (hence the bypass), no servers to install, no backups to worry about and no datacenter costs. Personally, at IQ, I use a variety of SaaS solutions and wouldn't want it any other way. Neither would our technical team - they are too busy building innovative technology. So, for a small to mid-sized business or department of a large organization, the model is cost effective and works well.

The picture is not so rosy for larger IT organizations. Imagine this very real scenario: Mary in accounting needs a better way to organize and store invoices, so she get a SaaS subscription to InvoicesAreUs (a SaaS startup) for herself and 5 other team members. Bob in marketing wants to store his collateral online and make it available to the sales team, so he gets a Google Sites account and creates a quick intranet. Meanwhile, the CIO has just paid $10 million dollars for an enterprise Documentum license. Fast forward 3 months, InvoicesAreUs goes out of business and Bob gets fired? There is suddenly a crisis. Nobody has a record of the invoices, since Mary scanned the hardcopies into InvoicesAreUs and then destroyed them (naturally the InvoicesAreUs database is no longer available); Bob still has access to the online Google Sites since nobody has revoked his authorization (there is no tie-in to a central LDAP or similar security directory); and the CIO suddenly has to figured out why employees are paying monthly fees for something that he has already bought.


Could this fiasco have been avoided? Well, yes with 3 main governance components:


(1) All SaaS purchases must be approved to ensure that there is no overlap with existing or planned systems that the purchaser is unaware of;

(2) All SaaS user accounts must be authenticated against a central LDAP (or similar) directory so that users can have their access to the systems withdrawn;

(3) All SaaS data must be provided on a backup schedule with a mechanism to view and manipulate the data outside of the SaaS application.


So, what's the bottom-line? SaaS can be incredibly useful, valuable and cost effective, but to be successful, SaaS vendors need to support coporate IT's governance and security requirements.