SaaS Business Model Competitive Advantage Revisited
What is SaaS? We seem to need to ask this question every couple of years, because the answer is a bit of a moving target. It was simple enough when SaaS was merely software applications pushed through a Web browser, but now we have to contend with the cloud, mobile and even social. Recently, Scott [...]
Big Data | Thinking Outside the Firewall
A few months back, Gartner placed big data at the peak of its hype cycle for cloud computing, meaning most big data products are solutions looking for a problem. I always find this bad entrepreneurial habit to be one of the most frustrating of our industry. Having recently joined Meltwater as head of marketing and [...]
Professional Social Networking with B2B Social Media
I believe many B2B professionals struggle in their adoption of social media for professional use, because they see it as a marketing platform as opposed to a professional networking tool. However, I think if they really understood the purpose and value of B2B social networking, then they would make the time for it and they would use it well. The is the second post in a series designed to help B2B marketers create better B2B social strategies by thinking in terms of B2B social networking over B2B social media.
The New B2B Buyer | 6 Rules of Engagement eBook
B2B buyer behavior has evolved in adaptation to the Internet. A new B2B buyer species has arisen that is more connected, more impatient, more elusive, more impulsive, and more informed than its pre-millennium ancestors. Just as the new B2B buyer has evolved in adaptation to the Internet, B2B sales and marketing professionals must adapt their strategies and tactics to the expectations of the new B2B buyer for online independence and instant gratification.
SaaS Branding | 6 Challenges of Killer Cloud Brands
SaaS branding has some unique challenges that aren’t covered in the average MBA program. As a new communication channel, the Internet has altered the rules of branding for almost every category of product. However, cloud brands that owe their very existence to the Internet often find that the message, the medium and the merchandise are [...]
What is SaaS? | Software-as-a-Service Myopia
It seems a little late in the game for me to be asking a question like “What is SaaS?” But, I’ve always harbored a few embarrassing little secrets on the subject and I think it’s time I came clean. There is a classic Harvard Business School case study called Marketing Myopia by Theodore Levitt that [...]
Cloud Channel Challenges – SaaS Channel Compensation
The SaaS subscription model shifts risk from the customer to the vendor. Shifting risk back onto SaaS channel partners can put them between a rock and hard place.
The Cloud is Dead – Long Live the Cloud!
Recent weeks have brought a bewildering number of competing claims around SaaS and cloud computing. On one hand we are debating whether the SaaS experiment is over, IaaS is just an incremental advance in hosting technology, and the cloud is just hype. While on the other, Gartner estimates SaaS is now 10% of the enterprise [...]
Cloud Channel Disruption – Little APIs, Big Transformations
It’s old news that the Internet has disrupted channel structure across numerous industries. So why go on about the channel now? Because, cloud computing is transforming the Internet as a channel. The evolution from Internet applications that service people (SaaS) to Internet applications that service other applications (cloud computing) transforms the Internet from a direct [...]
Welcoming Joel York @ CloudAve
Today I have the pleasure of welcoming Joel York as CloudAve contributor. Joel has been in the Software business for 15 years in various Executive positions, and had become an early SaaS evangelist long before the SaaS term got coined. His Chaotic Flow blog focuses on SaaS, mostly from a Sales and Marketing prospective, and [...]
