My new found friend Henri Aebisher was kind enought to send me some homework - bless - little did Henri realise I was a girlie swott at school and revel in the thought of homework - sad I know!
What Henri sent me was an article from Business Week, a commentary: Business software needs a revolution. Ahh yes I thought - it does indeed - as I read on with interest ... It was an article about Salesforce.com and how Marc Beniff, the brains and heart of Salesforce.com had developed the most powerful USP yet for the software industry - 'no software'. Isn't this a paradox - yes and how brilliant - His business is perceived as a business darling something unique and new - Hell its ASP - which was around when the dot com bust happenend - so when everyone else was quietly (and no so quietly) going down the gurguller Marc was busy calling 'software busters'. Clever - or is it that we have simply forgotton the power of diffrentiation - isn't it the opportunity that Stellios took up at Easy Jet - while the fat Airline execs were happy in their massive profits - wasn't it a new USP that introduced no frills and cheap price that stole the market - I think so!
Anyway the crux of interest in the article for me was the fact that 'Analysts estimate business-software customers spend $5 installing and fixing thier software for every $1 they spend on software.' WOW! Is the lesson here not to ask - what not the software will do for your business but what the software will cost your business and where and when will be the payback.
My wonderful partner Jeremy has a great saying - if it was your money - would you buy it!? Simple, basic, yes of course this is what you should ask - but businesses never get their staff to ask this question .... if it was my money ... I'd paint it red and make sure it was in reception so everyone in the business knew how much it cost and how much we needed this software to deliver for us - and our bottom line. Period.
Posted by Tracey Shirtcliff at March 19, 2004 01:23 PM