Tag Archive for: SaaS

If you’re a #CEO, #CFO or similar, you can be forgiven for thinking that today’s massive technology upheaval means everything is new.

You’re wrong though.

I’ll explain.

A while ago, I shared a bottle of red or two with a couple of old #ICT friends. We all started our careers some 30 years ago or so, and as we’re prone to do from time to time, we reminisced about how it used to be. We remembered old colleagues, some of them madder than others, (And some of them were properly bonkers), and told funny (to IT guys, anyway) stories such as the apocryphal tale of the PC cup holder, or the lady I knew who used a hole punch on her 5.25″ floppy disks so she could store them safely in a ring binder.

It didn’t go well.

Anyway, at one point, the conversation turned to the enormous level of complexity of modern software applications, distributed systems, cloud solutions, #SaaS, and how they are so different from those of yesteryear.

But the more we talked about the differences, the more we realised how similar they actually are. In fact, we concluded that in our combined nearly 100 years in the industry, we’d only ever made software that does three things –

• It gets data from or writes it to a device of some kind
• It captures data and manipulates it in programs
• It presents data to the user on a screen or an alternative medium, e.g. printed on paper.

With sixty years of the modern IT industry reduced to an almost atomic level, we opened a bottle of scotch. Any further insights we may have had seem to have been permanently erased courtesy of Mr Macallan.

The point of this little tale is to highlight that while technology may keep changing, the purpose it serves remains largely unaffected. It’s still there to enable and empower the people who use it, and that’s why I keep saying that if you’re looking at the technology you’re missing the point.

Human-centricity is key to success and it lies at the heart of #DigitalLeadership.

#MrSaaSSays #DigitalLeadership

Who doesn’t want a better tomorrow and a brighter digital future in our increasingly technological society?

It’s what the #CEO #COO #CFO et al are leading the team towards right?

One would hope so, but what if they’re not?

The problem is that we’re inherently ignorant and like most other animals, self-preservation is high on our todo list.

This makes us risk averse and it drives some fundamental behaviour.

It means we often hide in the crowd, enjoying our anonymity and comparative safety of numbers.

It means we sometimes choose to do nothing, putting our challenges in the too hard basket, kicking the can down the road.

It means we take the easy option, irrespective of its longer term effects, putting our immediate welfare ahead of what might follow.

But these actions do little more than help us hide and survive to fight another day.

So we hide, survive, fight, hide, survive, fight, hide, survive and fight.

A never ending cycle where we just fight, fight, fight and fight some more.

Yet this is how many business leaders approach their technology use.

They follow the crowd, buying @IBM, @Microsoft or whoever, and end up just like everyone else.

They put it in the too hard basket, embracing the status quo, putting as much off as they can until…whenever.

Or they play whack-a-mole, applying a bandaid and little more. Time for another spreadsheet?

I don’t know about you, but all that fighting must be draining.

Wouldn’t you prefer a less fraught existence?

One where innovation delivers real value and give you an edge.

One where incremental change lets you move forward with a series of small wins.

One where your tactical manoeuvres are part of a strategy for an exceptional digital future.

It sounds like a lot less effort me.

Today’s #SaaS and #Software options mean that leaders are spoiled for choice, but as ever, if you’re looking at the technology, you’re missing the point.

Without learning how to stop the cycle, you’re stuck in a constant battle.

#MrSaaSSays #DigitalLeadership

Whether you’re a  CEO, CFO COO or whatever, business today demands digital leadership.

Those who haven’t yet worked this out will very soon be little more than anachronisms. Dinosaurs and analogue remnants of a quaint time gone by when pen, paper and the manual calculator were the tools of the trade.

The world of tomorrow will be full of many challenges as yet unidentified. There will be job roles we haven’t yet thought of, and technologies the likes of which we might only dare to imagine.

SaaS platforms today are in their infancy. Cybersecurity is an ever increasing threat. And the technology skills shortage is only going to get bigger as we charge head long in to our digital future.

The winners in this race will be the teams that are prepared. The ones positioning themselves ready for whatever may eventuate. Those whose leaders are working towards an exceptional digital future.

Are you?

Take my quiz and let’s see.

I’ll send you a personalised review and a copy of my bestseller Doing IT for Money if you do.

#MrSaaSSays #DigitalLeadership

Business leaders, how do you know what the best Software solution is?

Obviously the people who sell things for a living are keen to give you their perspective, but they’re often far from objective, and with literally thousands of new SaaS platforms coming online every year, you’re somewhat spoilt for choice.

Capterra, G2 and more will offer their opinion, but they have a minimum of 10 of everything and each with loads of starts and many rave reviews.

What most do is assign someone to take a look.

They might run a feasibility study.

Come up with a short list.

Maybe they’ll select three or four for a demo or even a trial.

This means prospects are well over half way through the buying process, before they engage with the vendor.

When they do what they’ll see is some offerings that all seem pretty much the same, and of course that’s going to be the case.

They are, after all, in the same market, solving very similar problems, so they’ll all have much the same set of features and functionality. And if that’s the case, and it generally is, how do you choose?

Well, it’s not that hard, and no, this is not a situation where you should be thinking about the price.

When it comes to software, IMPLEMENTATION IS EVERYTHING.

The best solution then is the one that helps you implement it effectively.

If the vendor can help you with training, evangelists, support and mentoring, you can lead from the front and encourage the team to get on board.

Do that, and you’ll get have the best software and the best value from your investment.

B2B SaaS vendors take note.

If you’re looking at the technology, you’re very much missing the point.

#MrSaaSSays #DigitalLeadership

Ummm…NO YOU SHOULDN’T!

Well, there are times when you should, but for most SaaS founders, it’s a bad idea.

And a very time consuming idea and costly one at that.

Founders often opt for an app because it’s what they know, but the software world continues to evolve and common practice is no longer best practice.

If you build an app, you have to make 2 versions, one for Android and another for iOS.

Modern tools simplify this, but there’s still both Google and Apple markets to deal with.

More importantly, you don’t have a browser version, and for B2B platforms that’s far from ideal, and a working day is far more likely to be spent on a laptop than a phone.

So if you want coverage on there, you’re going to need to build a third variant.

That might not be too much grief in the beginning, but long term, it’s a ball and chain.

A wholly unnecessary expense that will stay with you forever.

Best practice for most today is to build a PWA or progressive web app.

This will run happily just about everywhere and it doesn’t need approval from anyone.

It can even be downloaded to a desktop.

It’ll run offline too, assuming your developers code for the scenario.

Apps may have been the thing just a few years ago, but today, they’re yesterday’s news.

#MrSaaSSays #DigitalLeadership