So the enterprise - everyone licks there lipss because it's so lucrative and it is - but it's a long sales cycle and you need relationships to get in. The good news is through, there are *so* many opportunities in the enterprise because they deal with legacy systems and their innovation comes from the big vendors like IBM giving them new products on a plate. The thing I've realised is that better products aren't why enterprises buy them.
Mike from Atlassian is well aware that the secret to their success is their pricing model, not just because they have great technology. To give you some real figures, one of my clients is a $600 million advertising company...and the CFO needs to approve ALL transactions about 10k. I wouldn't say it's that common, but I know companies are reviewing their matrix's now due to working capital issues from the global crisis. So you're thinking of selling a social media package? You've got to get an accountant to understand the value proposition, who will view it as a discretionary luxury not a core business need. You want to make sure you price it under the approval levels of middle management, so that the product can get in the backdoor. Would be good to hear from Tim Bull who is an enterprise architect at PwC and has a lot of experience from the other end. Elias Bizannes Mobile: +61 412 338 508 E-mail: [email protected] DataPortability.Org - SiliconBeachAustralia.Org Chat: Skype: elias.bizannes [image: Linkedin] <http://www.linkedin.com/in/eliasbizannes>[image: Facebook] <http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=501903123>[image: Flickr]<http://www.flickr.com/photos/liako/>[image: Twitter] <http://twitter.com/liako>[image: del.icio.us]<http://delicious.com/liako>[image: Blogger] <http://liako.biz> On Tue, Dec 23, 2008 at 2:41 AM, Tagmotion <[email protected]> wrote: > > Have a look at Mike Cannon-Brookes' great slideshow on how Atlassian > went about scaling up. > Slide 5 is the key re: pricing. > http://www.slideshare.net/mcannonbrookes/scaling-atlassian-march-2008 > > From what I understand, their software is............ > a) way cheaper (if not also better) than the big enterprise software > vendors at one end of the spectrum, who have to feed their traditional > (human) salesforces, and: > b) way better (more complete, easier for the customer) than the open > source alternatives, and > c) they do a great job of servicing their customers (they say: > "service is sales for us"). > > So Atlassian are being hugely successful in the middleground between > enterprise vendors and open source. > Which kinda makes a mockery of Bill Gates' adage: > be cheap or be different: all the grief's in the middle. > > They understood their customer because the first 3 or so products they > built: they built because they needed them for themselves. > So they were in a position to understand intimately how much value > their products brought to people with similar problems. > You may not have the benefit in your market space of over-priced, over- > featured competitors who you can pick off like Atlassian could. > > But maybe this forces you to think: > where IS the real pain for our customers? > Hopefully your current products deal with this pain, whatever form it > takes. > If not, maybe there are juicy problems adjacent to what your products > do today, that you could "take on" and fold into your product set, IF > you know about them..... > and to state the bleeding obvious........you need to be close to your > market to know about them. > > Mike said 2 other important things in a Fb post: > > 1. Learn, don't copy. > 2. Look for the simplicity on the other side of complexity (as Mark > Rafter called it). > For you, I'm thinking: explore all the pricing options, and discuss > them and keep discussing them until some elegance and simplicity > emerges on the other side. > I hope you find this in less time than it took me! > Mike also quoted Steve Jobs on this.......and it's a great quote: > "...when you start looking at a problem and it seems really simple > with all these simple solutions, you don't really understand the > complexity of the problem. And your solutions are way too > oversimplified, and they don't work. Then you get into the problem, > and you see it's really complicated. And then you come up with all > these convoluted solutions. That's sort of the middle, and that's > where most people stop, and the solutions tend to work for awhile. But > the really great person will keep on going and find, sort of, the key, > underlying principle of the problem. And come up with a beautiful > elegant solution that works." > > Hope this helps. > > Andrew Simms. > > > On Dec 19, 12:57 am, "Nick Holmes a Court" <[email protected]> wrote: > > Hey Silicon Beach > > > > I found this great post which provokes a few thoughts/opinions on the > > discussion of how to price Enterprise/Business web software and SaaS. > > > > How to price software/saas - > http://network.businessofsoftware.org/forum/topics/how-to-price-softw...< > http://network.businessofsoftware.org/forum/topics/how-to-price-softw...> > > > > > > > --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Silicon Beach Australia" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/silicon-beach-australia?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
