In what we saw as an awesome display of moving the bar higher, Evan Goldberg, NetSuite’s CTO, demonstrated in his Keynote Thursday that NetSuite continues to deliver industrial-strength innovations and solutions using tools that are increasingly easy to use, intuitive and particularly well suited to fast-growing Mid-Market companies with global aspirations.
Picking up from a summary paragraph from a 2009 blog post I wrote on NetSuite in a previous life:
“After looking at this demo it will be a little clearer why IMHO this is what the future looks like – all applications will have built in BI and reporting capabilities much stronger than has previously (been available) – without third party BI and lots of integration services – a big differentiator for SaaS vendors that provide this type of visibility as a standard component of their value proposition.”
- Collaborative Innovation Blog post, April 4, 2009
Among others, there are two things that seem like very good strategic moves for NetSuite: Fishing where the Fish Are, and being in a unique position to leverage the new Enterprise Applications Platform for companies that are ready to expand into global markets.
Fishing where the Fish Are
NetSuite positioned itself from the beginning as an Enterprise Software company, starting with ERP and then building other complex, traditionally on-premises software applications into the platform as successive SaaS waves hit the market and customer acceptance increased; Customer Relationship Management, Supply Chain Integration, Customer Service, Professional Services Automation – all tightly coupled with Billing and Fulfillment for a truly integrated workflow that almost covers the gamut of the Traditional Multi-user Systems requirements (Integrated Front and Back Office). Now adding deeper focus to e-Commerce, Global Financial Reconciliation and Industry Vertical implementations, NetSuite can enable Mid-Market firms to be truly competitive in a global market; leveraging speed and agility to outperform larger slower companies.
We have seen a very steady increase in the willingness (and need) for SMBs to embrace Cloud Computing and SaaS Models that move them out of the annual cycles and cost-center mentality that used to define IS Departments. A good indicator of this is how eager the SMB Channel is to offer a wide range of products and services and here we have seen amazing growth; even from last year to now surveys show the laggards are rapidly jumping on board, as seen in this table:
Of the 615 US-based SMB Channel partners interviewed, 86% were now offering or planning to offer Cloud-Based Services, those Not Planning to Offer Cloud dropping from 38% to 14% of the channels. This data represents aggregate results for VARs, SIs, MSPs, SPs and ISVs. In addition to Cloud Services fast growing areas for the SMB Channel include Mobility Solutions, Managed Services and a wide variety of applications in all three of these categories.
SMBs are Hungry for Enterprise-Level Capabilities
Based on early success in SaaS and basic Cloud Services such as Email, Storage, Back Up and Recovery, and CRM/SFA, Small and Medium Businesses have seen the light at the end of the tunnel. Security, availability and usability objections have been overcome and the cost to implement with lower complexity and higher focus on the core business have resulted a very compelling value proposition in widespread adoption worldwide.
To survive in an increasingly globalized and optimized business environment, SMBs need to be growing faster than the market and their competitors, reflected by their Priorities: #1 Increasing Revenue (56%), #3 – Increasing Productivity (34%), #4 – Penetrating New Markets and Customers (32%), and #6 – Speed to Market / Keeping Pace with Competition (28%). On the other hand, rapid growth without an increase in efficiency is unsustainable, so the rest of the priorities revolve around scaling the business efficiently; including #2 – Reducing OPEX (45%), #7 – Collaborating Efficiently (29%), and Reducing Cost of IT (27%).
Because Cloud Computing has been able to deliver these benefits much more effectively than the previous generation of Client/Server architecture did, SMB customers report between 75-80% satisfaction levels of “Satisfied” or “Very Satisfied” with their Cloud-based implementations.
All of this bodes well for NetSuite as the market matures and moves further into the cloud looking for Enterprise-Level capabilities. And timing is also very good as we can see from the additional results of the 2013 SMB Channel Partner Survey:
For Channel Partners Offering or Planning to Offer Cloud Services (85%), the left column shows the top 12 applications cited by Partners based on currently offered Cloud Applications, the middle column represents Cloud Applications that Partners plan to offer this year, while as the title suggests, the “No Plans” column shows the share who say they have no plans to offer the Application. It is pretty clear that the areas of focus and strength for NetSuite are lining up with the opportunity, or put in another way, the Mid-Market needs are maturing to a level that can benefit from NetSuite’s focus. And while there are many companies in the market who can provide these as point solutions, there are very few who can provide them in a unified suite of applications, with an integrated group of cross-department KPIs that can be used to get at a single version of the truth.
In terms of product coverage and timing, we feel the rapid adoption in the Mid-Market towards Cloud Infrastructure, successes in overcoming basic Security, Functionality and Availability concerns and the need for Mid-Market customers to grow rapidly and efficiently, all support NetSuite’s strategy and roadmap as presented at the conference, providing a lot of runway for the next few years.
Leveraging A New Enterprise Applications Platform
The second major point is that by building their platform from the very early days of the Internet as a transaction platform NetSuite has been able to been able to take advantage of both technology and market advances. In 1997, the critical weakness of the Internet was that while it was very good for moving brochureware around the world quickly, more mature applications that required a lot of integrity and accuracy – such as OLTP in Financial Reconciliation and Supply Chain Integration – were not reliable enough; the Databases, Middleware and Network Management needed to improve and there was a serious shortage in programmers who could do this kind of heavy lifting.
Fast forward five years and the dotcom bust had made commercial broadband access ubiquitous and the tools and skills had (almost) caught up to the hype. CRM, the Killer App was being brought online to the SMB community through SalesForce.com and the benefits of a SaaS model were becoming very clear, albeit with some remaining hiccups and most enterprises waiting on the sidelines for critical applications.
NetSuite started with one of the most difficult challenges back in 1998; ERP Applications with all the Enterprise-level OLTP and Database Management challenges that came with them. By doing this, the ability to grow an integrated set of applications using a single foundation, has paid off in terms of functional leadership. Others in the market, most notably SAP for Back Office and Oracle for Front Office, have taken an “Acquire and Integrate” approach, which is complicated and time consuming in comparison. The fact that NetSuite has survived and thrived in this environment is testament to vision, determination and execution.
Without getting too abstract, we see long term patterns in the software market that seem to ring true over time – the first is to win a narrow space, shore up the position, look left and right and take the adjacent space that is most lucrative and easy to assimilate (by hook or crook). Repeat. The second is that network effects rise in proportion to the number of users: Market Share is King. The third is to focus on the Scalable model and ensure to develop an ecosystem of partners who can add value profitably. Finally, at a very abstract level, the history of IT has been a steady, long march to Data Integration for Process Automation and Optimization. Whether you call Big Data, Distributed Database Management, Supply Chain Integration, Enterprise Performance Management or Google Search, it boils down to integrating disparate data and making it useful for decision making, with a relentless concentration on efficiency. As seen in the Business Intelligence segment, those who started with an Internet-based implementation approach rather than one of everything to every mapping, have ended up with an easier road to implementation; consider Siebel vs. SFDC, SAP vs. NetSuite, BoA Merchant Banking vs. PayPal, or Cognos vs. Domo. New, better tools and focus on specific data integration points rather than mapping every possible permutation of interaction between systems has resulted in faster time to value, less complexity for the channel and much less risk for customers. Breakthroughs such as scalability with Multi-Tenant Architecture have also resulted from solving the problem from a clean slate.
In our 2012 SMB 2020 Technology Report, we described our perspective of the IT Environment of the future, Client, Server and Network. This graphic shows a functional view of the Multi-user System, traditionally called the “Server” within a Client/Server Architecture. This view has CRM as the Hub component, surrounded by an increasingly integrated suite of Applications areas that eventually cover the complete information requirements of the Front and Back Office to run the business using a highly customized group of integrated KPIs. This type of integrated Nirvana has been an objective for a long time; however, it seems to be closer, clearer and much less complicated than it used to be when looking at the NetSuite Roadmap, i.e., we are not counting the dozens of modules that need to be installed, configured and integrated (and who is responsible to manage it). NetSuite’s rapid increase in large customers and decision by the traditional big Systems Integrators to jump on board seem to indicate that timing is good and the functionality is there.
Channel Implications
As the functionality and capabilities of the platform have changed with Cloud Computing, so have the dynamics of the Channel, especially in the Small and Medium Business space. Access to capabilities that were previously far out of the reach of SMBs has fueled the adoption of increasingly complex applications. Ironically, the benefits of the SaaS architecture have compressed and digitized the sales process, allowing companies to sell directly through an online channel, with demand generation, research, pre-sales, sales demonstrations, etc., conducted through inbound sales organizations rather than relying on channel partners to push products and services to the market. The proliferation of horizontal SaaS applications, such as email, webinars, Storage and Back Up has spawned a generation of self-configured apps that have made the customers question the need for third party involvement. It has also shorted the decision cycle substantially; many times cutting the channel out completely and giving rise to a “trusted advisor” role, especially in the lower Mid-Market.
Our research has shown that generally the more complex a solution, the more likely it is to have a partner involved in the implementation. Because NetSuite offers relatively complex solutions, it will have to play on both sides of the fence here – avoiding conflict with large partners for direct sales and providing profitable opportunities to the SMB channel partners, this was one area we felt might be a yellow flag in the distance.
Mobility is coming on Strong
With the installed base of Tablets and Smartphones exceeding that of PCs this year and annual sales of the former expected to number in the hundreds of millions higher by 2018, we see a fundamental shift in the way customers access and manipulate data. “Fundamental” meaning the difference between double-entry ledger accounting in physical books to a software application or the move from IBM Selectric Typewriter to PC-based Word Processing applications; nothing will ever be the same, and it is inevitable. There has already been a steady stream of casualties in the wake of Smartphone sales – single function GPS devices, midrange Digital Cameras and landline phone sets have all peaked in global consumption in the wake of accelerating handset sales. Just as the Internet itself essentially changed all business where value could be digitized (Financial Services, Travel, Shopping, and Advertising), so will ALL industries change as the primary mode of information consumption to the Internet is by mobile device.
This is the area that saw the greatest change in our 2013 SMB Channel Survey, from 56% of partners who said they were not planning to offer Mobility solutions in 2012, the number dropped to 8% this year, representing a doubling of Mobility Solution partners in the market as they implement the plans.
We did not hear that much about mobility from NetSuite during the conference, but given their strength in operational visibility through dashboards across departments, we think focus on this area could help both channels and end users.
Techaisle Analyst Insights
IT markets tend to be complex and fast-moving – but even by IT industry standards, the endpoint device market in 2014 is extremely complex, and subject to significant and abrupt changes. Consider the following trends – some of which have played out over several years, and some of which are scant months old – and how they might affect buyers and suppliers of client technology this year:
#1: Migration to multiple screens: It is clear that today’s SMB endpoint device user is looking to perform specific tasks with the best possible device
- Impact/implications: The ‘Swiss Army Knife’ appeal of the notebook – which doubled as both a mobility device and as a content creation platform – is waning. Tablets, not notebooks, are seen as the key productivity tool; and there is evidence to suggest that the desktop may have resurgence as a content creation option.
#2: Migration away from the traditional Wintel platform: For decades, “endpoint device” has been synonymous with “PC,” and “PC” has implied a device based on Microsoft Windows and Intel microprocessors. Through the course of this decade, that definition has been eroding. With the iPhone and iPad, Apple established iOS as a key smartphone and tablet technology. Google’s Android, with the support of powerful OEMs, has built a leadership position in the smartphone market, and has a great deal of market strength in the tablet market; Techaisle SMB End-Point survey results indicate that it is gaining momentum in the PC market as well. Meanwhile, low-power ARM chips have spread beyond portable devices into the PC, and even the data center.
- Impact/implications: The proliferation of operating systems and underlying architectures creates opportunity for a wide range of suppliers – and confusion for a large number of SMB and mid-market IT managers who need to integrate, support and secure these devices. Suppliers should both exploit niche opportunities and look for strategies and tools that help IT managers to wrap niche products into existing, evolving client device portfolios.
#3: Incursion of new form factors:The acceptance of multiple screens, coupled with the availability of new platform technologies, has created a market where “endpoint devices” span a wide range of device categories: desktop PCs, notebook PCs, tablets and smartphones, as well as thin clients, All-in-Ones, and other device types.
- Impact/implications: These form factors are differentiated by more than size and input technology; they move through different SMB channels at different price points; they appeal to different kinds of SMB buyers, who use different means to learn about and source them. The complexity associated with the proliferation of form factors will challenge marketing organizations that are accustomed to using a limited number of marketing vehicles and channel options to reach a relatively-predictable buying audience.
#4: Opportunities to redefine product categories: Buyer openness to new screen types has emboldened suppliers to redefine categories, or to create entirely new device classes. Some of these attempts (like the Ultrabook) have had limited success, but others, such as the 2-in-1 tablet/PC, show promise.
- Impact/implications: There is arguably more opportunity to define net-new endpoint offerings today than there has been for decades. There is an additional requirement on suppliers to segment accurately, to be in tune with the needs and preferences of target segments, and to move quickly to address new demand drives – but there is also new opportunity to translate this acumen and agility into substantial marketing-driven success.
#5: Solution opportunities: As endpoints become more capable, buyers – especially the emerging class of SMB business decision makers (BDMs) who wield increasing power in IT decisions – will move past the device itself, to a need for solutions (such as mobility) that capitalize on the capabilities of the new units.
- Impact/implications: To date, endpoint device suppliers have focused on building and selling screens, not the solutions that connect the screens. Marketers who understand how to connect their products to business-relevant solutions have an opportunity to differentiate those products, attracting new SMB customers and partners.
#6: Changes in buying points: The impact of SMB BDMs was mentioned above, but this point really should be considered as a trend unto itself. The IT industry has been told for years that BDMs (and especially, CMOs) would displace CIOs as the key IT decision makers. This certainly has not come to pass, and it is not clear that this shift will ever result in CIOs being displaced from their technology strategy roles. However, it is very clear that BDMs possess a great deal of power in many environments, and that their preferences and requirements are an important factor in shaping overall IT priorities.
- Impact/implications: If BDMs gain power by joining rather than supplanting the IT decision maker (ITDM) “at the table”, the net effect is that the decision making unit within SMB customer accounts is getting bigger and more diverse. This may offer new opportunities for one-off point technology sales, but is likely to increase decision time and complexity in many organizations – particularly, within larger businesses.
#7: Product and information distribution logic: In a market dominated by the ITDM, vendors could rely on IT-focused information sources to reach prospective buyers, and IT channels to manage relationships with these buyers. Like the ITDMs themselves, these requirements persist in the current market – but are joined by a new set of inputs. SMB Business buyers do not look for the same types of information that ITDMs require, and they are looking for different kinds of information to help shape requirements and preferences. Meanwhile, the traditional channel plays an essential role in distributing traditional endpoint device types (desktop and notebook PCs), but other channels (carrier, retail) are key conduits for other product types. Effectively managing the mix of information and buyers, and products and channels, is becoming a key factor in vendor success.
- Impact/implications: Increased complexity in information sources poses a challenge for marketers, who must find multiple ways of reaching customers. The imperative for success in this activity is increased by the common belief that buyers are using online resources to get much deeper into the purchase cycle before they contact a vendor; this increases the importance of effective content marketing, as direct sales alone will have difficulty in shaping needs and associated preferences. At the same time, the channel’s support needs are changing, and the vendor’s need to expand its channel by engaging with new kinds of partner businesses is becoming clear. Vendors need to both help traditional partners to succeed in their business transformations, and to establish relationships that reach new buyers within customer organizations.
Any one of these trends would be noteworthy against the backdrop of the SMB endpoint device opportunity, which accounts for a clear majority of all IT hardware spending, and affects literally every user of technology. Taken as a whole, these seven factors indicate potential for substantial market upheaval, creating risk and opportunity for current market leaders and new market entrants alike.
Any one of these trends would be noteworthy against the backdrop of the SMB endpoint device opportunity, which accounts for a clear majority of all IT hardware spending, and affects literally every user of technology. Taken as a whole, these seven factors indicate potential for substantial market upheaval, creating risk and opportunity for current market leaders and new market entrants alike.
To help illustrate potential opportunities and pitfalls in the 2014 endpoint device market, Techaisle has produced the The SMB Endpoint Device Adoption Trends report. This report is based on survey of SMBs, and includes both BDMs and ITDMs across each SMB size category.
About the Report
Coverage:
- Current and Planned purchase Intentions of client devices
- Tablet OS & Application software adoption – Behind the Screen
- BYOD: Employers vs. Employees, or Micros vs. Larger SMBs?
- Across the OS generations: XP, Windows 8 refresh intentions
- The Android Opportunity: Google in the PC Market
- Converged Mobility PCs: 2-in-1 PCs
- PC Purchase Channel and Sources of Information
More details about the report can be found here.
Related Research Articles
Techaisle survey data shows BYOD is a major force in the US SMB Market
SMB Purchase Intentions for Android PCs
Key Attributes of Successful SMB Mobility Solutions
In our recent SMB survey in North America, Europe and Asia/Pacific we explored 14 potential sources of information on technology solutions. Some of these, such as TV or newspaper/magazine advertising, are clearly ‘top of the funnel’ options, intended to build awareness. Some options, including brochures and fact sheets, help to build consideration for specific solutions amongst prospective customers who are considering a specific type of solution. A third set of information sources, including product reviews on websites, case studies and whitepapers are primarily intended to build preference. And a fourth set, including seminars and face-to-face sales calls are used to convert prospects into closed business. Complicating these categorizations is the presence of options, such as the manufacturer’s website, that address multiple points in this process spectrum.
Which of these sources is most important to reaching a potential SMB buyer? Unsurprisingly (given the increasing complexity of the DMU [Decision Making Unit]), the answer is “it depends”. Our research, as shown in the figure below, demonstrates that manufacturer website is an important source of information for small and medium businesses, and for ITDMs and BDMs [ITDM and BDM data not shown in the figure]. We also see that recommendations, IT news and analysis sites and personal sales calls help drive behavior.
What is really interesting, though, is the extent to which the data indicates use of multiple sources. Except in the mid-market, each of the top five information sources is used by more than one-third of the target audience; except in small business, each of the top 10 sources is used by at least 19% of the target. As the statistics regarding pre-contact information gathering above suggests, buyers are doing extensive research before connecting with potential suppliers – and potential suppliers need to be present in the media that the buyers are using, to make it past awareness to the consideration and preference stages that often occur beyond the purview of the IT vendor.
If we look again at the information sources listed in the figure above, we can appreciate the ways in which the channel can support the overall sales process. For example, small businesses like to get personal calls from suppliers – but calls like these to small businesses are far more likely to originate from a local channel representative than from a manufacturer. Similarly, BDMs are looking for personalized service and recommendations – but many IT suppliers, OEMs and channel partners alike, lack the understanding needed to communicate meaningfully with this audience. Who needs to be involved to help direct these discussions?
Vendors need to engage with SMB customers while the solution is being defined – not when the only decisions remaining are “whose components, and at what cost”? SMB buyers are using high-value content to define their IT buying approaches. Vendors need to build messages around/within high-value content to ensure that they can influence solution design and preferences.
Asia/Pacific version of above Infographic is here.
Wall Street Journal Article
This is an interesting article from the WSJ concerning how we are slowly allowing decision-making processes to move away from people and be handled by algorithms instead. It caught our attention at a time when we are completing survey work for Business Intelligence report. As discussed in an earlier post, one of the key trends in BI is how deeply it is being embedded into all kinds of applications , and this article is a good example. Please let us know what you think: comment, like, tweet or forward.
Laying the Foundation
Analytic software has evolved through several generations over the last 70 years from around WWII, when a series of unprecedented number-crunching challenges gave rise to Decision Support Systems (DSS) designed to solve problems such as best equipment production mix given material constraints, how to logistically support the Allied invasion of Europe, split the atom, or break the Japanese code. These kinds of problems tended to be monolithic, using stochastic models to find the best answer – and were a major catalyst to development of the mainframe computer.
Business Intelligence (BI) followed this linear and iterative approach with one that supported solving business problems, mostly operational, within divisions and departments of large commercial organizations, using more distributed equipment within a wider audience, i.e., Finance, Operations and Distribution. In the late 1990s there was an explosion of data resulting from widespread adoption of CRM, the killer app of the Client/Server era, adding mountains of Sales and Marketing Data to the volumes of operational information. There was a growing need to get a top down view of how performance in one area of the organization was impacting the others, to begin taking a more structured approach at understanding cause and effect, setting objectives and consistently measuring performance to improve results. BI was evolving into Enterprise Performance Management (EPM) - which is where market leaders are today.
EPM is characterized by using Business Intelligence software to understand the best performance scenarios, measure actual performance indicators (KPIs) and determine how to close the gaps, using exception reporting for most front office functions (CRM/SFA) and rules-based processing for the back office (Process Manufacturing/Real Time Bidding, SCM/Advanced Web Analytics).
Optimization Nation
Equally important as the individual BI technology advances are some of the underlying rules that have accompanied the evolution: Moore’s Law, Metcalfe’s Law, the Law of Accelerating Returns all drove exponential growth in production, adoption and utility. Over a 20 year period, these have resulted in a slow-motion Black Swan event based on the cumulative effect of technology investments, and having huge impacts on our society, including but not limited to the following optimization activities:
Economy – development of consumer mortgage products designed to optimize sales volume regardless of risk, bundling them into bonds to optimize profit on the debt, creation of derivatives to optimize transactions and create demand for increasingly suspect debt, development of new financial instruments that have no underlying value such as synthetic derivatives that truly have nothing but conceptual paper profits behind them, etc. By 2008 these financial instruments had optimized leverage to create risk greater than the combined GDP of industrialized world.
Employment – The WSJ article goes into depth about how algorithms have already replaced a hiring manager's decisions based on probabilities of how the employee might behave under certain circumstances. Employer choices have also been optimized by a flattening of the market caused by oceans of virtually unlimited supply from sites like Monster.com, 100K Jobs, Dice, etc. Middle management has been optimized out of the organizational chart and replaced with productivity tools, more efficient communications and a lower ratio of managers to workers. And the actual number of staff required to hit the bottom line has been optimized while CEO salaries have been optimized. If we look a little further down the line, Andrew McAfee's POV is deep on this subject, and more technical than mine.
Industry – We all know that manufacturing was moved offshore en masse over the past three decades to optimize production costs, but several other industry segments have been optimized as well, including Retail which has optimized through consolidation and healthcare which has optimized revenue per patient. Retail has been optimized at a structural level, to provide one-stop shopping for almost everything you need in a single location while volume has been optimized to produce the absolute lowest price and any cost, including optimizing the number of worker hours to keep an optimal ratio of full time to part time employees and save the resulting benefit costs. And it has also optimized the number and variety of retail outlets and small businesses required to service an optimized population in square miles. Healthcare prices have been optimized to take advantage of tax structure, potential law suits, healthcare insurance gaps, maximizing federal matching funds, Board and C-Suite compensation, pharma industry profits, and many more.
Government – Automation has also enabled a profitable business model that optimizes the use of Federal Government funds and ensures that every available dollar is spent, whether it is to make sure everybody gets a state-of-the-art mobile wheelchair, their 120 monthly catheters, a speaking glucose meter, maximum disability benefits, etc. “Don’t worry - we’ll handle all the paperwork.”
Set it and Forget it
The imminent next generation of analytics involves truly “optimized” complex systems with human intervention largely removed from the process. Not to single out Wall Street, but they offer one of the best examples of unbridled application of technology in the singular pursuit of optimization, in their case, profit for themselves and their shareholders. The Financial Services industry has invested billions into technology and employed thousands of physicists and Ph.D.-level mathematicians to achieve a couple-millisecond transaction advantage, and programmed algorithms to use the advantage and change the rules (i.e., share price represents perfect information is no longer true). This has not proved to always produce predictable results, and the ghost in the machine has put us back on the precipice more than once, as seen in this TED video by Kevin Slavin. As we move into a brave new world that combines optimization software with networks that operate too fast for human intervention, more of our lives will be controlled by how rules are programmed into the system than what we do as individuals to impact the results. One of the best examples of where this is heading is the IBM’s Smarter Cities Initiative, which combines intelligent networks that manage Traffic, Water and Electric Utilities, Transportation, Healthcare, Public Safety, Education and others into an overall “Intelligent City”. Everyone hates traffic, so the video example from the IBM innovation site does more to explain this than I can by writing more on the subject.
Whether you agree with it or not, we are on a direct course to this future that is almost impossible to divert. This is a philosophical question and everyone will have their own opinion about the cost/benefit of chasing optimization. Comments and Opinions are welcome, please let us know what you think.
