Are You Really a SaaS Vendor?
By Treb Ryan, OpSource
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Take Full Advantage of Web Technology
To achieve success, SaaS companies must do more than offer a traditional application over the Web. SaaS applications must do what traditional applications cannot: extend beyond the enterprise.
Web companies prioritize collaboration and customer interaction and don't rely on internal and insular thought processes. The Web company not only shows its customers how to use the application; it can show customers how to run their businesses more effectively.
Think about the "Wisdom of Crowds," a book written about the aggregation of information in groups, resulting in decisions that are often better than what could have been made by any single member of the group. This concept is much referred to in modern consumer-based Web companies.
A Web 2.0 SaaS application will allow communities to create the best configurations and post them. Other users can rate and adopt these configurations as they see fit. In essence, a true best-practices scenario will be determined by the community, with no development costs to the company itself.
Coghead is an online destination where business people can create custom Web-based applications to automate manual tasks. The site sells like a Web company by making its application available for free over the Web and by leveraging Web 2.0 technologies to create a community. Coghead makes ample use of rich-client interfaces and scalable, multi-tenant server architecture.
Developers can deploy applications quickly, and integrate with existing solutions - all in a code-free, 100% Web-based environment. They can also create applications for free and let others in the community rate the applications and use them. Only when the applications are used by others, do Coghead's customers pay for the service.
Act Like a Web Company
Successful software-as-a-service companies really are business-to-business Web companies. SaaS allows for much greater market traction and revenue success. The cost and time associated with customer acquisition is greatly reduced. And utilizing the advantages of Web 2.0 technology keeps companies ahead of the market.
So even though it's an inbound world, thinking like a Web company allows SaaS vendors to drive their success. The SaaS survivors will attest to this in the years to come.
Treb Ryan is CEO of OpSource . Meet Treb at this week's SaaS Summit in Monterey, Calif.
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