Transformation of business: shift to the subscription economy
Content
Introduction1.
Market evolution
.1.Transformation
of business: shift to the subscription economy
.2
Subscription based economy model overview: characteristics and functions2.
Subscription Models applied in SaaS businesses
.1
SaaS Subscription model: key features, market drivers and deterrents
.2
SaaS in Russia: trends, problems and opportunities
.3
The impact of SaaS subscription services on the economy and the society3. Real scenarios of SaaS
infrastructures and applications
.1
SaaS Subscription businesses: comparison of foreign and Russian cases
.2
SaaS Subscription model in (ADD)
.3
Success strategies to attract and retain subscribers123456
Introduction
situation on the market is constantly
changing. The nowadays consumers are more attentive and look for newer, more
convenient and easier ways of accessing goods and services. There is a common
idea of the “right now” need, which means that a product cannot be delivered
later. It should come at the right moment to satisfy a spontaneous and
transitory wish. But, at the same time, as it is known that the wish is
transitory, there is a need to be able to stop using this product as fast as it
is not useful anymore (Hutzler, August). They do not necessarily want to buy a
product that can became very quickly old-fashioned or dysfunctional. In the
report prepared by The Economist Intelligence Unit in 2014, it is said that “80
percent of customers are demanding new consumption models including
subscribing, sharing, and leasing - anything except actually buying
a product outright” (Tzuo, The subscription economy: a business transformation,
2015), in other words, that are the models that mainly respect an idea of
temporary acquisition.means that businesses need to handle customer loyalty,
pricing, and selling strategies in a very different way to keep their
successful relationship with their consumers alive. Since consumers are
trending towards a hassle-free shopping experience, more and more companies,
looking for new growth opportunities, are changing their business strategies
from a pay-per-product model to a subscription based model. Indeed, this
subscription model is not new - for instance magazines and newspapers have been
selling subscriptions for few centuries (Warrillow J., 2014). But, more
recently, new sorts of industries have adopted the idea of intensifying the
subscription based model selling strategy. The year 2007 was called by experts
a focal milestone in the global shift from the traditional economy to the
subscription economy (Zuora). Since then, over all the industries, this change
happens more evidently in the software industry with the transition from a
per-pay-use license model to the SaaS subscription model (Longanecker, 2015).paper
is focused on the software-as-a-service (SaaS) as its success is becoming
largely noticeable around the globe. Over the past few years, commercial cloud
computing (SaaS is a part of this phenomenon) has been rapidly increasing in
gaining market share (Darrow, 2011), making new possibilities available for
both software vendors and consumers. These changes happen with a sustained
attention of the traditional perpetual software markets: without deep knowledge
about cloud computing, new business and revenue models, strategies of
attracting and retaining consumers, they risk to lose their weight in this new
business reality. In the research Global and Russian SaaS-Solutions Markets in
B2B Segment presented by J’son & Partners Consulting in July, 2015 it is
said that “In accordance with IDC forecasts, 27.8% of global corporate apps
will be based on SaaS model by 2018, it will generate $50.8 bln revenue in
comparison with $22.6 bln and market share of 16.6% in 2013” (Consulting, J’son
& Partners, 2015).subscription model is a global trend which could not
stayed without attention in the Russian business landscape. Experts from
Paralleles estimate that the share of SaaS in the cloud solutions sales in
Russia reached about 70% and in the segment of small and medium businesses
almost 90% over the last few years. Another analysis provided by iKS-Consulting
estimates the pace of growth of SaaS market to be around 25% in 2015-2018. The
SaaS market is growing despite the fact that the Russian IT industry is
generally stagnating (CNews Analytic, 2015).
Problem statement
The leading players of the Russian
software market express different opinions about perspectives of SaaS
subscription model in Russia. While the smallest part of the software companies
managed already to find and take their unique market niche and are successfully
expanding their businesses now, the biggest part of suppliers demonstrates much
modest growth of their SaaS services. But in this new realities, it is becoming
important to understand how SaaS subscription model works and more challenging,
how it is changing relationships between companies and consumers to use profits
of basing a business on SaaS model.
Field of study
Subscription economy in Russia
Object of the research
SaaS subscription model
Objective
Derive particular strategies of attracting and retaining
subscribers of SaaS platforms with the subscription business model.
Tasksachieve this objective, the following tasks are
formulated:
. Analyze theoretical and methodological aspects of the
subscription economy;
2. Define features of the SaaS subscription business
model;
. Prepare and interpret a database of the cases of the
Russian and foreign SaaS solutions for business with subscription business
model;
. Check hypothesis of the study that the subscription
model, applied in a software company suit better clients’ needs but it can
distract clients if implemented carelessly.
Methodology
Structure-functional analyzes
Methods
General methods: Literature review, researching academic
articles related to subscription economy and SaaS industry with focus on the
subscription model and Russian SaaS market.method: Case study
Research questionshifting from the traditional
licensed model to the subscription model in the software business help attract
new customers and turn old clients into subscribers?
The hypothesis of the study: Hence customers have very
specific needs but do not want to pay for a customized solution for their
problems, the subscription model, applied in a software company, will suit
better clients’ needs.
Delimitations of the study
This paper studies a very specific kind of companies that
implement the subscription model which are the software-as-a-service (SaaS)
companies. The SaaS business model, in general, is quite well examined field in
the literature. Nevertheless, it is still possible to find less explored issue
such as the SaaS as a part of the subscription economy. Moreover, we will focus
on studying SaaS subscription model applied by the Russian providers of the
software solutions mainly for business purposes. This study is an attempt to
bring new ideas into chosen issue, mainly concerned with the implication of
this model into the Russian business landscape.
Professional significance
The research organizes and explains the basic theoretical
concepts, practical tools and strategies of attracting and retaining
subscribers in the subscription models applied in SaaS businesses.
Definitions of key termseconomy
This term describes the business
process of offering subscriptions to consumers. It was not popular in consumer
marketing until recently, yet there is an opinion that subscription concept is
nothing new - for example, in publishing it goes back to 17th
century. The term describes a new business landscape in which the traditional
pay-per-product (or service) companies are moving toward the subscription-based
business model. For some companies, their entire business relies on the
subscription business model. Here can be named such companies as Netflix,
Spotify, Zipcar, and all SaaS companies (Tzuo, The subscription economy: a
business transformation, 2015).
SaaS Subscription model
A business model where a customer gets an access to the
product or service after paying a subscription price. The model was pioneered
in publishing few centuries ago - at least at 17th century, but is
now used by many businesses in different industries (Longanecker, 2015). To
clarify grammatical side of using the term “the SaaS subscription model”, we
should notice that in our research, the terms “the SaaS subscription model”
(sg.) and “the SaaS subscription models” (pl.) are equal and substitutable.
But, being more precise, the term “the SaaS subscription model” (sg.) is used
as a name of a general phenomenon in economics while “the SaaS subscription
models” (pl.) phrase encompasses variable types of the SaaS subscriptions which
is based on the classification which suggests two core SaaS subscription
models:
1. Monthly Subscription Model: In the Monthly
subscription model a client is charged and pays each month via credit card of
automatic e-payments. An electronic license agreement does not include any fee or
penalty for cancelation of the subscription at any time.
2. Term Subscription Model: In the Term subscription
model a client pays for a certain period of time (mainly 3, 6 or 12 months).
The subscription agreement frequently includes fees for cancellation during the
term.
Software-as-a-service (SaaS)
A model of licensing and delivering software in which vendors
or service providers, instead of selling it to companies, make it available to
customers over the internet on rental base using cloud-computing technology.
Freemium
Freemium (from 'Free' and 'Premium') is considered to be a
pricing and marketing strategy which can be applied in either the monthly or
term subscription models when a core product is given for free to a large group
of users and premium products are sold to a smaller fraction of this user base (Froberg,
n.d.).current research paper Subscription Model applied in SaaS Subscription
businesses: characteristics, functions, strategies to attract and retain
subscribers consists of an introduction, three chapters, conclusion,
references and applications.
Literature
review
The paper is based on a deep review of the business and IT
books and articles taken from professional sites. We also used information from
professional forums and online versions of business newspapers which covered
the chosen issue.how firms do business is the first step to understand how a
marketing strategy can affect a company’s future. Business models have been
widely explored in literature and it is increasingly suggested that business
model innovation is a key to business success (Lev-Ram, 2014). Indeed, a
business model is a concept that embodies architecture of a business with the
aim of creating value for customers (Teece, 2010). In his work Teece says that
business model articulates how the company will convert resources and
capabilities into economic value. The business model follows the context where
the company is inserted. To accomplish a revision of the business models, we
put attention on the research A literature and practice review to develop
sustainable business model archetypes (Bocken, N.M.P., Short, S.W., Rana,
P.,&Evans, S., 2014) where the authors give in-depth observation of the
theoretical base of this subject. According to this paper, “a business model is
a conceptual tool to help understand how a firm does business and can be used
for analysis, comparison and performance assessment, management, communication,
and innovation”.models have been defined and categorized in many different
ways. It is possible to think in two main business models, the traditional
model and the internet based one (Rappa, 2008). In this paper we focus our
attention on the internet subscription based model applied in SaaS.the SaaS
(Software-as-a-Service) business model is one of the most recent trends in the
contest of business models analyses. A research Saas (software as a
service)-infrastructures and applications in real scenarios (de Miranda, 2010)
gives a profound review of the origins of the SaaS business model. Miranda says
that the SaaS business model became a successor of the ASP (Application Service
Provider) business model, which in its turn appeared to deliver software to a
broader market share. As a new business model, the SaaS emerged to fix ASP’s
“disadvantages and covet its opportunities”.the author emphasized, in contrary
to ASP, SaaS clients “don’t have to buy the software solution and then pay the
provider to host it, but rather just pay for the usage of the service”.
Moreover, the clients get better assess the costs since the payment model is
based on a monthly/annually fee. Another advanced feature described by Miranda
is that SaaS provides makes stronger protection of intellectual property, which
results can be seen in the cases of revenue stream or the proprietors of the
software solutions.of the most significant articles for us focusing on SaaS
phenomenon became an article Software as a Service (SaaS): An Enterprise
Perspective written by the Microsoft Corporation’s authors (Carraro G., Chong
F., 2006) in the period when it was not yet trendy to study it. They addressed
SaaS from the perspective of the enterprise consumer. The authors write that
“SaaS application access is frequently sold using a subscription model, with
customers paying an ongoing fee to use the application. Fee structures vary
from application to application; some providers charge a flat rate for
unlimited access to some or all of the application's features, while others
charge varying rates that are based on usage”. That makes clearly reasonable for
them that the subscription model in comparison to the one-time licensing model
“is expected to take advantage of the benefits of centralization through a
single-instance, multi-tenant architecture, and to provide a feature-rich
experience competitive with comparable On-Premise applications”.the PwC report
(PricewaterhouseCooper, 2007) where the key findings about the current software
industry environment were provided it became well-defined that consumer behavior
had changed a lot recently and that vendors now are reevaluating their software
pricing and delivery models to accommodate this change. In this research
prepared nine years ago there was also already noted a process of shifting from
up-front paying to periodic payments. Nevertheless, it took a long time for
this trend to become widely discussed and studied which resulted in high
relevance of this issue in last two years among software vendors.most
interesting part of the PwC report is the forecast given up to 2016. They
predicted the spread of the SOA (service-oriented architecture) among both
vendors and consumers: as for enterprise consumers, “it gives them full control
over the value they leverage from their software”, meanwhile the vendors get an
opportunity “to integrate their applications in real life for customers and
other vendors”. All this forms “a stable service-delivery environment where
customers have traded vendor subscriptions and infrastructure lock-in for true
agility and customization”.to the book The Automatic Customer: Creating a
Subscription Business in Any Industry (Warrillow J., 2015), the lifeblood of
the business is repeat customers, or, how he is calling them in the book,
automatic customers. According to John Warrillow, companies that know how to
find and keep subscribers, get the huge opportunities offered by the emerging
subscription economy. He claims and proves in his work that “automatic
customers are the key to increasing cash flow, igniting growth, and boosting
the value of your company”. The author shows that subscriptions are not limited
to technology or media businesses. Companies in almost all the industries, from
start-ups to the global corporations can implement subscriptions models into
their business to gain more. Warrillow provides a breakdown of nine different
types of subscription models for winning automatic customers and illustrates
them all with instructive examples. His blueprint included the following:
. Membership website model;
2. All you can eat library model;
. Private club model;
. Front of the line model;
. The consumables model;
. Surprise box model;
. Simplifier model;
. Network model;
. Peace of mind model.
The ideas given in the book are universe and can be applied
in any kind of industry. We used this list to specify subscription models which
could be useful and profitable for SaaS businesses.big step in exploring the
core difference of the subscription economy from the traditional one was made
by the Anne Janzer in her book Subscription Marketing (Janzer, 2015). In this
book she shared all her knowledge accelerated with more than 20 years of
experience working with the high tech businesses. The main point described and
explained by the author in this book is of a high significance for subscription
marketing. She suggests a new label - value nurturing - to identify the process
“of helping the customer realize value from your solution”. She shows that
value nurturing is the fourth important level of relationships between a
company and a customer. The traditional customer journey looks the following
way: firstly, finding prospects (lead generation), secondly, convincing them of
the potential value of the company’s solution (lead nurturing) and then making
the prospect a customer (conversion). Janzer adds that “the marketing
responsibility extends beyond conversion to customer value nurturing”. This
renewed attention on sustaining long-term relations with customers by bringing
value nurturing to their experience instead of focusing on lead generation and
conversion is the prime responsibility of the subscription-based companies who
want to help customers make a smart economic decision.
Chapter
1. Market evolution
1.1 Transformation of business:
shift to the subscription economy
say that 2007 became a year when a new trend started
spreading all over the world: that was so called “once-in-a-century
transformation in the way business is transacted”. From that time on different
companies have started offering an option of subscribing to services instead of
just buying products. That first happened with the big companies like Amazing
and Netflix, but soon other industries added such an option to their services.
In PwC report (PricewaterhouseCooper, 2007) where the key findings about the
current software industry environment are provided it becomes well-defined that
consumer behavior has changed a lot recently and that vendors now are
reevaluating their software pricing and delivery models to accommodate this
change. In this research prepared nine years ago there was already noted such a
trend as shifting from up-front paying to periodic payments. This trend now is
considered to be the hallmark of the 21st century (Tzuo, The
subscription economy: a business transformation, 2015).
It took a long time for businesses to
make this shift from the product-centric pay-per-product transaction model to a
model with the long-term relationships with recurring revenue happen. Experts
say that this process started as a consequence of the wide spread of web 2.0
and the development of online platforms (Kaplan Andreas M. and Michael
Haenlein, 2010)., in the Internet age a phenomenon of “people-to-people
exchanges through technologies” appeared enabling a new kind of economy. That
was a born of the sharing economy. It was a new and alternative socio-economic
system where buying things was not already the only way to consume things.the
research The Sharing Economy: Why People Participate in Collaborative
Consumption (Hamari, J., Sjöklint,
M.&Ukkonen, A, 2015) it is said that the sharing economy should be considered
through the lens of information technologies since this phenomenon “emerges
from a number of technological developments that have simplified sharing of
both physical and nonphysical goods and services through the availability of
various information systems on the Internet”.sharing economy offered
entrepreneurs a wide range of business models based on the idea of availability
of online platforms among which can be named such forms as collaborative consumption,
wikinomics, peer-to-peer file sharing, open data, content sharing in social
media, user generated content, subscriptions, crowd funding, crowdsourcing and
etc. (Matofska, 2014). Later, the sharing economy term has become more
specialized and the subscription based models have been allocated as a separate
direction in the business landscape., subscriptions have been used for many
years by some industries - for example, magazines and newspapers, mobile and
internet operators, cable TV, fitness clubs, public service ad etc. But more
recently, many other new kinds of unexpected industries have started
participating in the subscription economy, offering diverse range of goods and
services from cars to online software for a flat monthly or year fee (Lev-Ram,
2014).“subscription economy” is the term coined by Zuora, “a leading commerce,
billing, and finance solution for subscription-based businesses” (Bastian,
2014). In 2007, CEO of Zuora Tien Tzuo and his partners Cheng Zou and K.V. Rao
started to build and spread around fundamentals of a new business model which
could be used by companies of any size. The idea was to make possible for
companies to offer customers different services via subscriptions instead of
making single transactions and selling separate products.noticed that markets
across different industries are looking for new models of shipping products as
an answer to the increased demand of clients to consume goods in a new way. A
significant point of this new business model was focusing on consumers and
value to them, making them a key player in this process instead of focusing on
the product, or transaction, or value to the brands themselves, as it was in
traditional business model. The sudden idea was to monetize long-term
relationships by offering consumers flexible and personalized goods and
services. Flexibility here is about allowing customers the adaptability to
“either pay as they go, or pay per subscription monthly, or via a long-term
contract” (Whitler, 2016). Personalization in its turn is giving individual
package of service depending on the needs of a particular client., they called
this new business model “the subscription economy”. Inventing this phrase
helped Zuora made a buzz in the most popular business magazines such as Forbes,
Wall Street Journal, Tech Crunch, Fortune, BBC, Huffpost Business. Since the
year 2013, there have appeared many publications explaining what the
subscription economy is and why it is important to put attention on it (to name
just few of them: Zuora Lands $50M From Next World, Paul Allen, Marc Benioff
& More To Help Fuel The Rise Of The Subscription Economy by Rip Empson,
Tech Crunch Sep 5, 2013; The rise of The Subscription Economy by Kyle Hutzler,
Huffpost Business, Jan 08, 2014; It's a subscription economy, and you're just
living in it by Michal Lev-Ram, Fortune, June
6, 2014; How The Subscription Economy Is Disrupting The Traditional
Business Model by Kimberly A. Whitler, Forbes, Jan 17, 2016). Subsequently, the
term took a root in business environment being acknowledged by many experts as
a new trend in economy.experts’ opinions which were provided in the articles
and in the forums were mainly positive and supported the core idea of the
subscription economy phenomenon. Robbie Kellman Baxter, author of The
Membership Economy, claims: “Customers are saying, ‘I’m willing to sign up, set
it and forget it in exchange for a value accrued to me on a regular basis”. He
also emphasized that “It’s a massive transformation that is changing the way
organizations engage with their constituents,” (Guth, 2015) which can be
translated as being a revolutionary shift in economy and not just a passing
trend. Another opinion leader John Warrillow, author of The Automatic Customer
agrees with Baxter stating that “It’s a fundamental change in the way we
think”, which he explains as being more attracted by the brands who advertise
experiences, relationships and belonging rather than by usual sellers. He gives
such a comparison: “It’s a little bit more like a marriage, where the consumer
commits and the supplier says, ‘I’m going to look out for you, watch your back,
and treat you right’” (Guth, 2015).
Talking about the perspectives and reach of this trend, the
market leaders said that “The subscription economy is ever-growing. It's hard
to quantify how big the subscription economy actually is, however, it's clear
that this is the direction that most every service provider is headed” and that
“The subscription or membership economy is huge (Judson, 2015). And good news
is its growing, look at services such as Dollar Shave Club, or Dollar Beard
Club, or even digital subscriptions such as Netflix, or Spotify, these are all
subscription services, it’s the new way of doing business” (Taei, 2015).understand
better, why a shift to the subscription economy is happening we should accept
these two facts proposed in 2014 by Dave Frechette, Vice President of Worldwide
Sales Strategy and Execution at Zuora (Bastian, 2014):
. It comes to stay. Companies that once have changed their
business model to the subscription model rarely convert back. There is no way
back from this transformation which goes through all the economy;
2. Big corporations prefer this model for being
predictable. It gives them more focused and certain forecasts of their revenue
and profitability.
As it was said before, the main attention in the subscription
economy is focused on the consumers and their needs. In other words, there
would not happen such a shift in economy if consumers would not show a tendency
to desire more control and influence over their relationships with brands,
vendors and service providers. The overall internet access and tremendously
fast spread of mobile devices and social networks made consumers being more
involved into all kind of communication processes giving them immediate answers
to all their requests and demands. They got accustomed to the idea receiving
everything they want “here and now” and be also able to select characteristics
and conditions of usage according to their personal preferences. Saying
differently, there has appeared a new type of a customer who wants
brands to serve him how, where and when he wants (Sloat, 2015).
Another big change in consumer
behavior which inspired this shift in economy refers to the demand for new
consumption models: in the report prepared by The Economist Intelligence Unit
in 2014, “80 percent of customers are demanding new consumption models
including subscribing, sharing, and leasing - anything except
actually buying a product outright” (Tzuo, The subscription economy: a business
transformation, 2015). As Saar Gillai, Senior VP and GM at HP noticed in this
report, “Consumers are getting accustomed to pay-as-you-go models, and they
like that flexibility. They can instantly get all the capabilities without
paying up-front for the cap-ex, and they have better control over their
spend”., it is possible and obvious to conclude that the consumer behavior has
changed. To sum up, here can be given the following explanations of this change
provided by various experts:
) Customers today, especially
youngsters, have no strong division between their business and personal
interests and so they expect their business relations being more personalized.
They frequently consider brands as their “friends” with whom they can always negotiate
about any deal and compromise their interests;
2) Customers want to have a
permanent access to an extensive library of information, ideas, solutions and
specific products. The new era of information dictates a rule to be always
aware of the latest updates on the market and be able to use them when, where
and how you want it. Access itself becomes more significant than asset (Guth,
2015);
) Customers do not want to buy
a product that can become quickly old-fashioned or dysfunctional. Instead of
that, they prefer to be able to stop using a product as fast as it is not
useful anymore. Such a behavior is based on a common idea of the “right now”
need, which means that a product cannot be delivered later and it should come
at the right moment to be “real-time experience with immediate fulfillment”
(Sloat, 2015) to satisfy a spontaneous and transitory wish;
4) Choosing a solution whether for personal or business use,
customers now expect to get some value in return for their choice. They believe
it will save them money or make their lives easier, or, at least, will bring
them fun (Janzer, 2015).
Reasons given above make brands and
vendors take more care of earning customer loyalty by presenting on-going value
and memorable services which were supposed to show clear understanding of
customers’ demands and readiness to maintain long-term relationships with every
client.sum up, many experts from the business landscape commit an idea:
companies that eager to be leaders in their industries, maintaining long-term relationships
with their clients and getting financial, technology, market, and customer
loyalty benefits from their relations, need to plan their participation in this
transformation already now.
.2 Subscription based economy model overview:
characteristics and functions
we discovered the relevance of the
subscription model and found out why the transformation from traditional
transaction economy to subscription started to happen, it is necessary also to
go deeper into exploring particular features of its elements to understand
better how it works.
Subscription business model is a model where a customer gets
an access to a product or service after paying a subscription price. That means
that rather than selling individual products, companies are turning towards to
delivering services repeatedly. This changes financial relationships completely
and requiring a new management system.basis of the traditional product world is
the distribution-centric revenue management with the one-time transaction
business model where sales are straightforward (shipping a product and sending
an invoice to a customer to pay it). Additionally, traditional product-centric
approach is tightly connected with implementation of such tools as customer
relationship management (CRM) and enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems
“which support sales automation, customer service, inventory management, supply
chains, and accounting” (Tzuo, The subscription economy: a business
transformation, 2015). The problem is that these systems were not designed for
subscription based businesses, and companies who want to turn their customers
into subscribers should adopt new technologies and management approach to
facilitate their transformation.new management approach in the subscription
model is based on the recurring revenue management (RRM) system: invoices are
generated daily, monthly, quarterly or annually (Warrillow J., 2014). Thanks to
this system, companies get an opportunity to manage the entire subscriber
lifecycle and measure recurring revenue and subscription metrics.is focused on
the individual experience which makes customer fulfillment variable: customers
can request anytime changes in the service adding new users, more services,
changing pricing plans, or simply canceling service. Flexibility of price and
packaging is the main feature of subscription employed to satisfy any kind of
users. Flexibility allows customers to receive a standard subscription
agreement but use the product differently depending on their needs. Thereby,
customer demand in the subscription business model is measured not only by
purchase data but by usage data and purchase data together. Moreover, in the
subscription economy, there are no limits in product availability: a customer
can receive a product or service in that extent which is preferable for him.
Thus, “differentiated value and revenue opportunities have to be created by providing
differentiated product packaging (e.g., different combinations of minutes,
text, and data in a cellular plan)” (Shanahan, n.d.). As a result, inventory
management is replaced with the rate plan management to optimize
revenue.scenario goes beyond the systems designed for one-time transaction
models. That is why revenue management system should be replaced with the
recurring revenue management system which can better handle the complexities
and growing needs of the subscription based businesses.
Chapter
2. Subscription Models applied in SaaS businesses
.1
SaaS Subscription model: key features, market drivers and deterrents
this paper we will not cover technical details which
differentiate SaaS concept from other cloud computing services such as IaaS and
PaaS (the basic structure of the clod computing is given the Application 1).
The focus of this paper is to explore common features which attract customers
to understand how SaaS changes users’ life. This clear idea will help us
consequently find advantages of SaaS subscription model and, as a result, frame
particular strategies of attracting customers and turning them into
subscribers. But before that, the first step should be researching SaaS as a
subscription model.as-a-service (SaaS) phenomenon appeared in late 1990’s when
companies started offering traditional enterprise solutions such as customer
relationship management (CRM), sales force automation (SFA), and Web content
management through a SaaS model. But the idea of shared resource environment and
cloud computing was already formulated in 1960’s by a renowned computer
scientist John McCarthy who won the Turing award for his work in Artificial
Intelligence. In 1961, in his speech to MIT students he claimed that
“computation may some day be organized as a public utility.” Yet this model was
first implemented more than fifteen years ago, it has become a part of the
business vernacular just over the past few years when “SaaS companies have
proven they are able to grow their revenue and customer base through a
subscription licensing model” (Singleton, 2011).common definition of Software
as a Service (SaaS) is “a way of distributing software in which vendors or
service providers, instead of selling it to companies, make it available to
customers over the internet, using cloud-computing technology” (Singleton,
2011). It represents a software distribution model which, in contrast to an
On-Premise deployment model, democratizes the access to software. The crucial
characteristic of SaaS is hosting applications on provider’s service instead of
storing data on users’ machines which gives an access to software from any
computer connected to the internet.to allowing remote access to the software
applications and data via the web, SaaS also varies from On-Premise software in
its pricing model. Typically, On-Premise software is available by purchasing a
perpetual license and also requires additional fees (15%- 20% per year) to
maintain and support it. Any update versions also cost high additional fees. In
SaaS subscription model, users do not need to buy license to use the
application, install its whole complex infrastructure and then pay ongoing
operating and maintenance to support it and keep it updated. As an alternative,
SaaS vendors offer to “rent” a software for a period of time and get a complex
support and automatic updates included in their rental price (Patterson, 2010),
in other words, buyers pay an annual or monthly subscription fee which is
comfortably spread over time. For more detailed comparison of the economics of
SaaS versus Licensed Software revenue models it can be interesting to look
through the article SaaS Revenue Models Win in the Long Run (Key, 2013).are two
types of SaaS which are business software and consumer software. The most
popular SaaS examples are solutions for improving workflow with greater
efficiency: these are various project management systems, task organizers,
collaboration tools, document management platforms. They help organize
individuals’ and teams’ shared and personal projects and tasks, give them a
space for collective distant activity. Besides, such platforms are supposed to
help planning time and resources for multiple projects and users. The target
audience of these solutions is very diverse; they attract all kind of people with
big work routine. This can be freelancers, representatives of all size
businesses including startups, public administrations, student project
groups.pull of SaaS platforms consists of more specified solutions for
particular industries and related activities. Here can be named applications
for such spheres as finance and accounting, CRM, business information and
analytics, human resources, marketing, operations, sales, communication and
others.features which make impact on both business and personal customer
performance are based on the general advantages of cloud services. They are the
following positive attributes:
. Simplicity of adoptionsolutions offer powerful fast
integration of all necessary services within one modern platform that leverages
secure, reliable and high performance database and middleware technologies
which reduce technology difficulty of installation full in-house solution. The
main mission of SaaS solutions is to make it easier to accomplish tasks and
help optimize business processes. SaaS products mainly have drag-and-drop
functions, intuitive interface and simple visuals. They do not require as
necessity coding knowledge (it can be an additional option for advanced users)
and IT-background (Patterson, 2010).
. Pricepopularity of SaaS solutions is also boosted by its
implementation cost. Buying a fully functional in-house system is not always
affordable for companies, especially, for small and medium businesses and
private users. SaaS subscription model with differentiated packages makes it
more cost-effective to acquire the application. Besides, “reduced total cost of
ownership is the primary and most attractive benefit driving SaaS adoption.
SaaS vendors have long touted the benefits of multitenancy, a software
architecture that allows many users to share a single application instance
while retaining their own separate information. Multitenancy cuts costs by
allowing vendors to patch and update the software for many users simultaneously
and allowing many users to share the underlying infrastructure” (Kari, 2014).
. Backupplatforms reduce the possibility of losing data in
case of sudden emergencies such as ordinary computer system crash or less
common nature disaster and civil disorder. Computer itself does not mean much
as all data are backed up by the provider whose server plays a role of buffer
in any unpredictable situation. That is an important issue proved by different
researches: “According to research by KPMG, 70 percent of organizations have
suffered at least one project failure in the prior 12 months, and 50 percent of
respondents indicated that their project failed to consistently achieve what
they set out to achieve” (Oracle, 2013).
. Access to latest featurescloud services open the door for
latest functionality and improved security, usability, patches and bug fixes.
Continues updates are sent as soon as they are ready to consumers and it’s all
done in the background, transparent to the users in your organization. These
upgrades add value to consumer experience as they develop application ecosystem
and give users new ways to collaborate and share information.
. Flexible customization, an integral part of being
competitive in business is to be able to deal with changes easily. This
flexibility requires new features and functionality for applications, for
instance, adding new users to an application dashboard, upgrading original
deployment with additional modules or components, or adopting entirely a new
application. In SaaS platforms it is easy to manage such particular changes without
concerns about changing whole infrastructure.
. Multi-tenancymodel allows the cloud services providers
(CSPs) to locate a single application instance to one tenant (to one client,
despite of its size) with retaining own separate information of each user
rather than putting out single instances to every individual user.
“Multitenancy cuts costs by allowing vendors to patch and update the software
for many users simultaneously and allowing many users to share the underlying
infrastructure” (Kari, 2014), which is attractive to companies with limited
financial resources.
. SaaS Help Desk Solutions, most of the SaaS subscriptions
include customer support which means getting immediate help of the professional
team in any problem situation. Customer Support service tracks and responds to
all the customer inquiries from multiple-channels like online community forums,
phone, email online consultancy, webinars, tutorials, and social media. The
advanced features of SaaS Help Desk Solutions are opportunity to find answers
without anybody’s help at Self-service or knowledge base portal and integration
with other applications (like Google Analytic or social media) (Jadhav, 2016).
. Mobile accesspopularity of mobile devices made vendors
expanded beyond desktop-only access and began providing mobile SaaS apps that
could be accessed from smartphones, tablets or any other device with a browser.
All data in both desktop and mobile systems is typically auto-synced, which
helps run business from any place and any device with the internet access (Viswanathan,
2015).conclude, SaaS solutions priced on a subscription basis demonstrates a
number of strong advantages over traditional, On-Premise software deployments.
For both business and personal purposes, SaaS applications deliver modern
functionality and up-to-date capabilities that can satisfy any budget.
Attractive affordability and the familiarity of the web browser-like user
interface (UI) offered by SaaS solutions makes it more convenient for costumers
to run their businesses., there also exist strong deterrents for distribution
of cloud services and SaaS particularly. The major challenge which SaaS
developers face today is identity management and access control for enterprise
applications. Another point under contradictory debates among users is the
information security. Many companies who have never worked with clouds are
afraid to store their projects and client bases on the outsource servers
because of fear of violating private data. In their view, their own IT
departments which protect bases are more reliable than any other sided
provider.indeed, the security and privacy of data is a more developed point
that ordinary consumers think. This moment is not technical but psychological.
There exist various technologies to expand the role-based access to the cloud,
for example through a single access (single sign-on, SSO) technology. Nowadays,
the leading SaaS solutions provide multi-tiered security clearance which makes
keeping sensitive data completely safe (Singleton, 2011)., each of the big
players in the SaaS market tends to create its own technology of relationship
with the client to assure them in safety of data storage. For instance, Google
has a Secure Data Connector which creates an encrypted connection between
customer data and Google business applications and allows a client to control
which employees can access to Google Apps resources and which cannot. CRM
Salesforce provides similar functionality based on its own technology.exists a
comprehensive standard ISO 27001 which describes many aspects of information
security which can be confusing for customers. There is also another standard
ISO 27002 which can be interesting for service providers and customers which
describes the practical information security management. This standard can be
used in constructing the SaaS cloud, but in any case it is necessary to develop
specific standards for cloud computing.drawback of storing data in the SaaS
platform is its just online availability. It makes users depended on the
Internet and, in case of loss of access to the Internet, they lose access to
their data in SaaS applications.more problem that SaaS vendors face is that
there are users who are not ready to pay for software if they know how to get
this software illegally for free. But experts say that if the price corresponds
to the "painless" level, then users will probably not use illegal
tools like registration code generator or wares (note: wares are software
programs distributed illegally with copyright violation). But SaaS subscription
model in contrast to On-Premise reduce possibility to get a software illegally
as an access to personal online account can be received just after paying
subscription fee., taking into account all the concerns related to SaaS
solutions, that consumers have, SaaS developers should strive for a high level
of transparency of their services. They should give users a feeling of totally
safe and reliable storage of their data. The ideal model would be giving
options of aptitude install or export of all infrastructure and repository of
data created with this software. Moreover, the price should be set at the
reasonable level as the main concern for most of users when they choose SaaS
platform is to get more for a less price.
.2
SaaS in Russia: trends, problems and opportunities
the overview Cloud services in 2015 (CNews Analytics, 2015) a
detailed investigation of the recent trends on Russian IT market is conducted.
In the current part of our research we will use this overview as a reference to
study trends and problems which SaaS phenomenon face in Russia nowadays. This
will help us evaluate the potential significance and opportunities of SaaS
solutions for the Russian customers.first big Russian cloud computing projects
were launched in 2009. During 2011-2012, the development of the SaaS solutions
by Russian companies was targeted mainly on small and medium business. In 2013,
there were about 25 SaaS solutions prepared by Russian providers, and the main
part of them were projects adapted to the SaaS subscription model from the
traditional software model (PMR, 2015).recently, the situation on the SaaS
market in Russian has started improving a lot. Experts from Paralleles estimate
that during the last few years the share of SaaS in the cloud solutions sales
in Russia reached about 70% and in the segment of small and medium businesses
almost 90%. According to the experts from Russian Cloud Computing Professional
Association, the Russian SaaS market consists of nearly 200 high-quality
complex services for business users, whereas less than 30 young and ambitious
IT companies set trends in this sphere. Most of them are not even placed among
top-100 of the largest domestic IT companies but they successfully compete with
the world's leading producers of IT solutions (CNews Analytic, 2015).
Another analysis provided by
iKS-Consulting estimates the pace of growth of SaaS market to be around 25% in
2015-2018. The SaaS market is growing despite the fact that the Russian IT
industry is generally stagnating. According to CNews100 rating (2014), the
total revenue of 100 largest Russian IT companies increased slightly (+ 1%) in
RUB, but decreased by 15% in dollar terms. The figures published by
iKS-Consulting demonstrate also the proceeds from the cloud technologies in
Russia increased by 35% in 2014 comparing to the previous year. The biggest
part of this cloud revenue belongs to SaaS and makes up to 89% (the IaaS share
is 9%, PaaS - 2%) (Lebedev, 2015).
Speaking about economic situation in Russia, Olivier Caisson,
commercial director of Orange Business Services in Russia and CIS explains in
his interview to CNews why crisis provokes the increase of cloud solutions such
as SaaS (as well as PaaS, IaaS and others). In the crises time characterized by
uncertainty, businesses need maximum flexibility which can be achieved by using
cloud infrastructures. Another cloud trend on the Russian market announced by
Caisson is improving law regulation for personal data storage which stimulates
the development of local cloud market. Moreover, the Russian market has
enormous growth opportunities since for many customers cloud applications are
not yet an obvious solution. Comparing to Western Europe, the level of
outsourced managed services is still lower in Russia. But, referring to his
words, the situation is changing, and the number of companies that are
interested in transferring their resources to the cloud and shifting to the
outsourcing model is growing. Nevertheless, this process is still not
wide-spread and this approach to market strategy planning is not common (CNews,
2015).
Ilya Bublik, Head of Corporate
Business Automatization Department at SKB Kontur, thinks that combinations of
software and services will be widely discussed and popular: “Cloud services are
expanding and will go further. Exponential or close to it growth was shown by
MoeDelo, MoiSklad, bitrix24, amoCRM, Kontur.Bughalteria, Kontur.Elba,
Kontur.Diadok etc. I want to specify that this growth is not directly due to
the current environment: rub’s depreciation and import phase-out. Cloud
solutions are more convenient for small business in comparison with desktop solutions,
as they provide an access to the app from any spot in the world and from any
platforms - smartphone, tablet or stationary PC. Besides, cloud solutions
provide a lot of other, “unseen” for client, necessary things: data safety,
output capacity etc. In fact, the only thing that prevents the distribution of
the cloud - some kind of inertia of thinking” (Consulting, J’son &
Partners, 2015).
Another expert, a representative of Mango Telecom Alexey
Bessarabsky also admits the fact of migration companies to SaaS as it allows
them optimize costs, which is of high significance in crisis. "In crisis
due the weakness of the national currency, sanctions and other difficulties it
is less available to buy complex IT solutions which also stimulates the transition
to the cloud-based solutions. Thus, the crisis encourages companies to move to
SaaS-model” (Lebedev, 2015).is a strong opinion that SaaS applications are more
suitable for small and medium businesses and private users. But some experts
assure that large companies are willing even more to update their business
processes with “fashionable” solutions as they understand what benefits are
obtained when working with automation systems. That is why SaaS systems which
give the opportunity to add extra functionality to the existing infrastructure
look attractive for them. The problem is that big business is used to work with
large suppliers, but both of categories - big clients and big suppliers -
frequently are hostages of old corporate infrastructures and run bulky technologies
which are heavily invested and, thus, difficult to replace. While big companies
still utilize “heavy”, expensive traditional infrastructures, the global trend
of module infrastructure becomes more obvious for the “young” part of Russian
IT community. In opinion of Sergey Sobin, a head of the Workaud project,
"the paradigm of IT-technologies is changing". Rodion Repin, Managing
Partner of Million Agents agrees that “time of 'ponderous' decision-making has
passed; the world is moving towards more specific and easier solutions".
Turnkey SaaS solutions attract consumers with its in-depth knowledge of
business processes. Acquaintance with variety of services that developers offer
can become a source of business optimization ideas for a potential customer
(CNews Analytic, 2015)., young and creative SaaS developers who offer easy
turnkey solutions based on deep understanding of modern business processes get
more competitive advantages in winning big companies attention. Besides, young
companies who chose SaaS technology as a prime service from the very beginning
do not carry “burden of the past” and so do not need to rebuild their business
models. They spend more time to learn and develop their best solutions.the same
time, big IT companies who are turning now to SaaS subscription model have
another advantage: they use their well-established reputation and client base
to shift their software solutions from the On-Premise model to the subscription
one. Commercial Director of "IT Grad" Stanislav Mril, whose company
is rated among TOP 25 largest SaaS providers in Russia in 2015 points out that
the most profitable strategy is to sell SaaS-products from well-known brands,
which have already proven their efficiency as On-Premise software solutions:
"A truly explosive growth in SaaS deals comes from selling services which
are highly demanded as the "box" versions of the software products of
leading players in the business market (Microsoft, 1C, CommVault, ServiceNow,
etc.)" (Lebedev, 2015).to the ranking of the largest SaaS providers in
Russia in 2015 conducted by CNews Analytics (Application 2), due to the
peculiarities of Russian legislation one of the most demanded segments in SaaS
is Tax Accounting Services (SKB Kontur took the first place with the reported
revenue of 5.5 billion RUB). Among the leaders of SaaS solutions there are also
services of electronic trading, which do not have their foreign counterparts
(B2B company Center, which is engaged in the development of the electronic
trading service, won the third place in ranking with 1,16 billion RUB revenue).
The rest of the structure of SaaS the Russian market follows the trends of the
global market, where the greatest demand is demonstrated for the customer
relationships management systems (CRM). Among CRM products in the ranking there
are presented Western leading systems by such brands as Oracle, SAP, Microsoft,
as well as the solutions of the domestic companies (1C, Megaplan, amoCRM).
Another popular segment in the domestic SaaS market are communication and
collaboration platforms, particularly, the Cloud Private Branch Exchange (PBX).
There are two vendors in CNews SaaS ranking working in this field: they are
Mango Telecom with revenue of 1.35 billion RUB (2nd place) and
Telphin (318 million RUB, 7th place). "Now, a significant share
of SaaS solutions belongs to the Tax Accounting Services. But experts also
predict fast development of cloud-based solutions for remote collaboration and
communication. The main factors contributing to this growth are the dynamic
implementation of mobile devices, new formats of business with increasing
amount of distant working employees, the need to take quick decisions and, as a
result, real-time access to information from anywhere in the world”, says CEO
of Telphin Marina Turina (Lebedev, 2015). The ranked members showed different
dynamics of revenue. The turnover of the five participants has increased more
than twice: amoCRM (+ 193%), Cloud4Y (+ 124%), "IT Grad" (+ 114%),
"Business Projects" (+ 109%), "CIT Region" (+ 105%).leader
of Qsoft (amoCRM) Mikhail Tokovkin connects revenue growth with successful
positioning in the rapidly growing niche: "Although CRM systems have
already been around for a long time, many companies realize the value of
working with leads and customer base just now. amoCRM is very precisely focused
on this need and offers a simple and convenient solution".specialist of
Cloud4y company Eugene Bessonov links the success of his company with a crisis
and with the ability to adjust to the demands of the market at the right
moment: "The reasons of the interest can be, firstly, the reduction of IT
budgets, which cloud services are able to manage with, and, secondly, the
desire to reduce the risks of "idle" equipment. In addition, the
expansion of our business proposal up to 20 cloud services helped attract new
customers and increase an average invoice of old clients".about small and
medium business that often does not have capacity to deploy their own
infrastructure, it seems logical that SaaS is the best solution for them. But
SaaS developers note that small and medium business is a difficult audience. On
the one hand, the current economic situation is challenging for small and
medium companies. "In a crisis, entrepreneurs are not confident in the
future, the ability to manage without great investments in IT infrastructure is
especially attractive", says Sergey Maksimenko, CEO of GC "System
Technology". The limited budgets and the need for fast and powerful
solutions make SaaS technology a natural remedy for those who look for speed
and flexibility. SaaS applications are available at a price, they can be
quickly installed and connected, and they address specific business problems
and give immediate tangible results. Consumers may not have their own IT
professionals, and, actually, they do not need it. All expenses are included
into subscription price. But on the other hand, there is still not enough
knowledge, a basic understanding how to use the solution, how simple and
accessible it is., over the past few years, small and medium business has made
a big step forward. In the research Global and Russian SaaS-Solutions Markets
in B2B Segment (Consulting, J’son & Partners, 2015) there was made a
forecast that “Russian SaaS market in the small business segment will reach 28
bln RUB by 2016. Currently, the growth rates of SaaS market overstep the global
rates, according to the estimations of different analytical agencies”
(Application 3).are changing their attitudes and suppliers, in their turn, are
trying to optimize their proposals for small companies’ needs. Thus, for
instance, amoCRM company offers CRM package for small businesses for about 5000
RUB per month; for single users, it is possible “to get a place in the cloud”
in the accounting application for 500 RUB per month. The increased activity of
small businesses helps develop the technology. "Small and medium business
is more demanding: the service as well as the interface is very carefully
evaluated, and the feedback comes back quickly", Sergey Maksimenko says.
Developers have to prepare high-quality, understandable solutions so that all
kind of unexperienced users could implement them in their business processes.,
Russian SaaS providers sometimes still offer two different options of payment
for their software products. One of them is a traditional single payment for
On-Premise deployment with perpetual rights over software and another one is a
subscription model requiring recurring payments. This tendency demonstrates the
fact that not all the consumers yet are ready to use subscription as the only
way of acquiring software (excluding solutions which were designed as
subscriptions from the very beginning). In contrast, foreign SaaS providers
commonly employ just only the subscription model, even if their product was delivered
On-Premise in the past (like it was with Adobe, Microsoft Office, SAP,
Autodesk). Adobe can be the brightest example of a company who made this shift
not without difficulties connected with changing consumers thinking about
subscriptions. In 2011 the company announced its intention to shift from being
a company that sells software to one that rents it out. For the next three
years, the reaction of their clients was more than furious: from $833 million
in revenue in 2011 the company dropped down to $268 million in 2014. Even while
they were continuing to fall in their earnings, in 2013 Adobe announced that
there would be no newer releases of its perpetual Creative Suite. But over the
few next years their income finally has started growing again, and to end 2015
they expected to come with $3 billion in annual recurring revenue and with
approximately 5.9 million subscribers. But the point of success of this story
was value nurturing - giving consumers not the same product but under different
payment model but bringing value to their new experience: “The key was not just
transforming the price and how people paid us. We needed a product that was
materially different, a whole new product”, admitted Mark Garrett, Adobe’s CFO
(McCann, 2015).example shows that subscription is not always the customer’s
preferred model. For many customers the traditional license model is still
relevant, and in spite of the increasing popularity of the subscription
approaches it will continue to be so especially when speaking about such
developing markets as the Russian one.up, it is possible to claim that SaaS
market is the largest segment on the cloud services market in general, and the
interest to use such type of cloud solutions is constantly increasing in Russia
due to the opportunity to reduce the capital costs by replacing them on
operational. One of the central factor that can deter the choice of SaaS is
mistrust to information security of stored data connected with inertia of
thinking rather than with real situation.
.3 Predicted impact of SaaS subscription model on the
Russian business landscape
digital solutions expansion over the globe is a fast
developing trend and SaaS is believed to be a driving force behind this
digitalization. We use SaaS far more often than we think. SaaS solutions are
all around persistently convincing us in their convenience, simplicity and
efficiency. As SaaS Addict writer Omri Erel says, “SaaS will be everything and
everywhere, in a way that allows us to share information, intelligence, insights
and opinions at all times.” (Harvey, 2016)intimacy between SaaS companies and
their customers has increased after the fast rise of the subscription economy.
The subscription economy turns relationships of companies with customers into
more direct, responsive, complex and multi-channel. Customers become certainly
a key part of this relationships and companies rather than spotlighting product
itself or transaction as a central point of their business, should live with
the idea how bring value to customers. The main focus in the formula for growth
should be on monetizing long-term relationships instead of shipping
products.all above as a fundamental base of the SaaS subscription model, we can
consider the impact of SaaS on Russian business landscape from two perspectives:
this can be impact on companies who are clients of SaaS providers, and on SaaS
providers as they are representatives of business landscape as well., the
predictable consequences of wide use of SaaS solutions can lead to a scenario
where companies become more focused on their own business specialization and so
the efficiency of their work increases as more time is dedicated to specific
business tasks. This common productivity grow will healthfully influence
Russian economy in general bringing more professional services in all kind of
industries., SMB companies which do not have enough industrial resources and
finances to complete different tasks not predominant for their business,
putting a part of their responsibility on SaaS providers, finally, get equal
opportunities on the market to become competitively attractive in their niche
as they use help of professionals with huge experience when working on their
projects.from a SaaS companies’ perspective, the possible impact of
implementing the SaaS subscription model into their business is vastly big.
First of all, as it was reported in the various researches used in our paper,
the pace of growth of Russian SaaS market is increasing and estimated to be
around 25% in 2015-2018 despite the fact that Russian IT industry is suffering
from crises. That means that SaaS solutions will only grow in their
attractiveness gaining the biggest share among cloud services and becoming
highly popular than ever before. One of the reason of this rapid grow can be
“fast” channels of communication which are indispensable part of the
subscription model. Being so close to clients feedback motivates providers to
develop and update their software quicker, better and further in order to keep
their customers satisfied and renewing their subscriptions. This positive
influence of new communication standards which force providers improve their
services encourages high-speed progress of Russian SaaS market in general.,
SaaS companies worldwide, and particularly in Russia, are gaining reputation of
an expert community: their experience is based on countless cases of improving
business efficiency, they conduct diverse researches and collect extensive
library of analytic data which help them provide better solutions for
businesses of any industry. Moreover, they use these analytics not just to
develop their own solutions, but also to share their wide experience with their
audience in their blogs, forums, webinars. Some SaaS companies offer
educational courses prepared by their experts, arrange presentations and
workshops for partner universities and business organizations. Partly, it is a
result of the value nurturing approach which suggests that clients do not want
just to get a product, they want to get some value when they acquire this product,
and new knowledge is a kind of universal value which SaaS companies bring to
society (Janzer, 2015). Thus, SaaS companies can be considered as a source of
highly useful information with their reliable data and practical tips.possible
negative consequence of the universal penetration of SaaS subscription
applications to solve business tasks is about reaching the saturation point
when there will be too many online subscriptions which will be hard to manage.
But in Russia the trend of applying SaaS solutions into business workflow is
just rising and it is too early to anticipate this downturn.
Chapter
3. Real scenarios of SaaS infrastructures and applications
.1
SaaS Subscription businesses: comparison of foreign and Russian cases
, since the basic principles and key features of the SaaS
subscription models are explored, and strong and weak sides of this phenomenon
in the contest of the Russian business landscape are found out, the empirical
study of the real SaaS infrastructures and applications scenarios should be
conducted to approbate the theoretical theses of this research.the empirical
part of the paper we use the case study method to provide a three-stage
research. This method is applied to reconstruct the cases of implementation the
SaaS subscription model in Russian and foreign software companies by collecting
detailed descriptive data qualitative in nature.
The flow of the case studystage. Preparation
In the first part of the research, we made a choice of 16
SaaS applications based on the following restrictions:
) The selection includes 8 Russian SaaS applications with
the subscription business model;
2) The selection includes 8 foreign SaaS applications
with the subscription business model;
) The selection is random and includes applications by
companies of different size, degree of popularity, and market share;
) The selection is restricted with the applications
with corporate clients which employ these solutions for business purposes (B2B
segmentation);
) The chosen applications have 3 and more reviews each
published in the leading business software review platforms.
For this purpose, we used the next leading business software
review platforms:
) G2Growd - “the world’s leading business software review
platform, leveraging its 70,000+ user reviews read by nearly 600,000 software
buyers” (G2Growd);
2) GetApp - “the leading premium business app discovery
platform on the web. The site focuses on profiling established business apps -
mostly software as a service (SaaS) - targeting an audience of small and
medium-sized businesses and business buyers from enterprise departments” (Nubera);
) StartPack - “Comparison system for cloud services
performance and reviews, which helps find cloud integrators with specified criteria”
(StartPack).
As a result, we pointed out the next companies for our case
study:
Russian applications
|
|
Foreign applications
|
|
Solution
|
Category
|
Solution
|
Category
|
Kontur Elba
|
Accounting
|
Xero
|
Accounting
|
CRM Simple business
|
Business management system
|
Zoho CRM
|
Business management system
|
Megaplan
|
Business management system
|
Basecamp
|
Business management system
|
Bitrix24
|
Collaboration&Productivity
|
Wrike
|
Collaboration&Productivity
|
Worksection
|
Collaboration&Productivity
|
Evernote
|
Content&Document managemnt
|
Mango Office
|
Business communications
|
Aircall
|
Business communications
|
PlanFix
|
Temwork management
|
Microsoft Office 365
|
Office suits
|
amoCRM
|
CRM and transactions system
|
Adobe Creative Cloud
|
Digital media
|
next step of the research was to define characteristics
relying on which we could collect qualitative data and describe the chosen
solutions within unified systematic approach. With this aim, we have compiled a
set of features that illustrated the applications from the communication
perspective: these features represented how applications involve clients into
communication processes, how they support relations, which channels of
communication they take advantage of and others. These set of features was based
on the deep analysis of the reviews left by clients on the G2Growd, GetApp and
StartPack review platforms. We observed a vast range of both positive and
negative feedback (Application 5) and selected the points of view related to
the issue and of the highest concern for clients. Consequently, there was
designed the following original worksheet:
1) SaaS Solution;
2) Category;
) Business model;
) Key idea;
) Landing Page (Official Site):
· Simplicity;
· Usability;
· Utility;
6) Call to action button;
7) Service Features;
) Promotions;
) Compliance with law;
) Security and privacy;
) Data backup;
) Team support: communication channels;
) Social accounts;
) Help Desk;
) Partnership programs;
) Online payment;
) Mobile app;
) Integration with popular cloud services and
applications;
) User interface;
) Installation and customization;
) Crossplatform solution;
) Trial access;
) Free access with limited options;
) Gamification;
) Additional extensions (applications);
) English language;
) Company ideology.
All companies’ profiles are available at Application 4
Second Stage. Trends analysis
The main aim of the second stage of our research was to
analyze gathered data and pick out the most significant trends. To assist this
process, we introduced measurement scales for each feature and counted
quantitative data where it was possible. All the information was examined from
three dimensions: they are “Russian cases”, “Foreign cases” and “Total”.
First, we examined the clients’ feedback from the leading
business software review platforms (G2Growd, GetApp, StartPack). As a result,
the following trends were differentiated:
1) Clients put high expectation on the Customer Support
service of the SaaS applications: the most appreciated characteristics are
quick expert help, efficiency of responds and client oriented individual
approach;
2) Clients value the service security;
) Clients want applications being easy to understand,
to install and customize;
) Correct ideology earns big attention;
) Convenience of an application should go along with
simplicity and wide set of features;
) Design of application matters as well as intuitive
operation interface;
) Mobile version is a strongly desirable option;
) Regular updates should happen regularly but without
disturbing clients from business workflow;
) An application is expected to be flexible to fit any
needs;
) Clients read corporate blogs and Knowledge Base of
SaaS providers looking for educational tips how to operate the system;
) The product is expected to be cost-effective;
) Clients value most of all that applications make
their life easier and more professional, and help bring a team together.
) Clients want their applications being integrated
with many other useful cloud solutions;
) The idea of paying a monthly cost and always having
the most up-to-date software as opposed to paying a large up seems attractive
to most of users.
As we can see, the trends above prove the theoretical aspects
of SaaS subscription model covered in our research in the Chapter 2., we
studied the data from companies’ worksheets designed at the first stage of our
research and pulled out the next tendencies which companies demonstrate:
) Foreign companies typically stop employing On-Premise
model for selling their solutions, using the subscription model as the only way
to deliver their SaaS solutions; in contrast, one third of the Russian software
companies are still using On-Premise strategy together with the subscription
model (Application 6, table 1);
2) Among Russian companies it is typical to use monthly
subscription model whereas foreign companies offer their clients both monthly
and annual subscription plans (Application 6, table 2);
) Foreign SaaS providers put more attention on making
their sites both simple and useful for their clients: all the indicators -
usability, simplicity, utility - gained more scores comparing to the same
parameters of the sites of the Russian providers, yet not much more
(Application 6, table 3);
) Among top-5 most useable means of communication of
the Customer Support service with clients can me listed such options (from the
most popular to the less one) as email support, blog, online consultancy, phone
support, and user community help (Application 6, table 4);
) All the companies - both Russian and foreign - have
Help Desk service in their platforms to educate their clients and share
knowledge. They most common educational formats (from the most popular to the
less one) are videos / demo tours, FAQ-tutorial, webinars, knowledge base and
user’s guideline. Foreign companies include into their Help Desk more often
knowledge base and video, comparing to Russian companies whereas Russian SaaS
providers more frequently offer training courses, workshops and webinars
(Application 6, table 5);
) Analyzing social activity of the companies, it can
be noticed that all the companies are active enough in social media; Russian
companies usually use 3-4 social accounts, foreign companies - 5-6 accounts.
Absolutely popular social net among companies is Facebook. Foreign providers
also use much LinkedIn, Twitter and Youtube, the Russian - Vkontakte, Twitter
and Youtube (Application 6, tables 6, 7);
) Most of the SaaS companies have partnership programs
(Application 6, table 8);
) Several features tend to absolute expression: all
the companies are integrated with online payment systems, are compliant with
law, have privacy policy and use HTTPS protocol, multifactor authentication and
automatic backup at several servers to secure and protect data (Application 6,
tables 9,10);
) All the foreign providers offer mobile version of
their solutions while more than half of Russian companies still do not have
such option (Application 6, table 11);
) The majority of the SaaS providers have
user-friendly interface (Application 6, table 12);
) It is more typical for Russian SaaS companies to
offer promotions to stimulate clients to subscribe than for foreign providers
(Application 6, table 13);
) The majority of the SaaS providers have simple
installation and customization (Application 6, table 14);
) SaaS providers more commonly offer 30-day trial
access with (Application 6, table 15);
) Free access with limited options is more typical for
Russian companies rather than for foreign providers (Application 6, table 16);
) The majority of the SaaS providers do not use
gamification inside their applications (Application 6, table 17);
) The majority of the SaaS providers have additional
extensions and applications compatible to integrate with their solutions
(Application 6, table 18);
) Only half of Russian SaaS solutions have English
version of their platform (Application 6, table 19);
) All the examined foreign companies have strong
corporate ideology comparing with less than a half of Russian companies which
have it (Application 6, table 20).
Summing up all the discovered trends, we can make the
resulting conclusions:
3.2
Success strategies to attract and retain subscribers
is customer success? Many sellers stop after completing
customer acquisition, but this is just the beginning of the whole process. Our
strong belief based on the results of the conducted research is that attracting
customers and turning them into subscribers is a complex strategy involving
many fundamental insights. Finding and applying these insights into business
can improve business efficiency and bring more value to customer experience.to
our new combined database and defined trends, as well as using theoretical
background of this paper, we can suggest our own strategies for SaaS
subscription based companies which are intended to help attract and retain
customers, turning them into subscribers., the following 5 strategies will be
the beginning of creating long-term relations with customers in the SaaS
subscription based business. These strategies reflect the main philosophy of
the SaaS subscription industry that we can also formulate now after conducting
the research:
“Subscription is about giving, not about taking. To make
people subscribe, SaaS solution should give clients a feeling that they will
pay less and earn.To make people stay for a long time, SaaS solution should
become a source of endless value which could not be measured by money.”, here
are the strategies:
1. Found your business on correct ideology
All foreign cases studied in this paper demonstrated a high
level of corporate ideology which also gained a big appreciation among their
clients. Customers are more interested in communicating with a company which
does not insist on purchase but offer to give its service a try to see how it
can change your life. With this aim a trial option and free access with limited
options should be offered to clients so that they could decide before
subscribing weather you are really a solution of their problems. Correct
ideology also includes educational aspect which was coverd above.
2. Support your customers
One of the most urge problems faced while examening Russian
SaaS providers was a lack of customer support. The most negative feedback
gathered from Russian users concerns inefficient and slow responds. We suggest
that each SaaS company needs to have its own Customer Support service with at
least 5 channels of communication so that users could easily approach a support
team. This can be email support, blog, online consultancy, phone support, and
user community help. Besides, staying in touch with customers in social media
is highly demanded: this is the shortest way to share your professional help
and experience. A huge attention should be put on educating consultants to make
their service professional and reliable. Support should go beyond data and
empathizing with the situation your customers are in. This also includes
keeping an eye on feedback and responding to complaints to show customers that
you listen to them and are eager to help.
3. Become an expert and educate your customers
New practical knowledge is a kind of universal value that
people appreciate a lot, especially, if it helps improve their life. SaaS
providers who offer vast libraries of useful information attract attention of
their potential clients which can become subscribers if they value this
particular SaaS company as a source of reliable information. For this aim, the
most popular educational formats - such as video, knowledge base, webinars,
workshops - can be employed.
4. Constantly widen your business proposal
Customers are looking for simple solutions of their
complicated problems. SaaS applications which can combine both being simple and
have wide set of useful features are on their way to success. It means not only
upgrading an application with various features, but be able to offer new
extensions and solutions within interest of your target audience. Once clients
used and liked your application, they will be more loyal to try new solution.
5. Do not be afraid to work with big clients though
you are a small SaaS provider
In our case study companies of different size participated
and as we found out, their efficiency and attractiveness for clients was not
defined by their status, reputation and size. People put attention on more
specific features when evaluating their experience which help them improve
their life. Moreover, big companies appreciate flexibility of small providers,
their more individual approach to solve particular problems and smaller price.
If your company can bring value to their business and, with that, cut their
costs, then big clients will be more than willing to stay your subscriber.are
plenty of other insights on managing customer success, but these five
strategies are fundamental to build long-term relations with clients.
software subscription service business market
Conclusion
subscription model is a perspective field for Russian
business landscape. It offers a lot of opportunities for both customers and
SaaS providers as we saw in our research. We proved that subscription model is
a phenomenon of increasing demand in Russia connected with a specific economic
situation in our country. We picked out multitude advantages of this model, and
in a conclusion, we can say that our hypothesis was proved. The subscription
model, applied in a software company, really suits better clients’ needs,
especially, in conditions of limited resources.preparing our research, we
achieved all the tasks which were formulated in the beginning. The main result
of our paper became derived 5 particular strategies of attracting and retaining
subscribers of SaaS platforms with the subscription business model. These 5
strategies are based on the deep analysis of 16 Russian and foreign cases of
implementing SaaS subscription model into business., coming back to our
research question “Will shifting from the traditional licensed model to the
subscription model in the software business help attract new customers and turn
old clients into subscribers?” we can definitely give a positive answer.
References
1.
Bastian, K. (2014, September 15). The Subscription Economy: What It Is and How
It’s Changing The Way People Buy. Retrieved April 15, 2016, from Force
Management
.
Bocken, N.M.P., Short, S.W., Rana, P.,&Evans, S.. (2014). A literature and
practice review to develop sustainable business model archetypes. Journal of
Cleaner Production(65), 43-45. Retrieved from Journal of Cleaner Production.
.
Bulygo, Z. (2013). How to Excel at the Subscription Economy. Retrieved March
16, 2016, from Kissmetrics Blog
.
Carraro G., Chong F. (2006, October). Software as a Service (SaaS): An
Enterprise Perspective. Retrieved March 17, 2016, from Microsoft
.
CNews. (2015). Interview with Olivier Caisson. Retrieved May 7, 2016
.
CNews Analytic. (2015). The Russian SaaS market belongs to young IT companies.
Retrieved March 17, 2016
.
CNews Analytics. (2015). Cloud services in 2015. Retrieved May 5, 2016
.
CNews Analytics. (2015). The largest SaaS providers in Russia in 2015.
Retrieved April 17, 2016
.
Consulting, J’son&Partners. (2015, June 5). Global and Russian
SaaS-Solutions Markets in B2B Segment. Retrieved April 10, 2016, from Json.TV
.
de Miranda, P. G. (2010, October). Saas (software as a service)-infrastructures
and applications in real scenarios. Retrieved March 17, 2016
.
Froberg, P. (n.d.). What is freemium? Retrieved March 13, 2016
.
G2Growd. (n.d.). Our company. Retrieved May 2016
.
Guth, D. (2015, August 28). Our Addiction to Subscriptions. Retrieved May 5,
2016
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Hamari, J., Sjoklint, M., & Ukkonen, A. (2015). The sharing economy: Why
people participate in collaborative consumption. Journal of the Association for
Information Science and Technology. Retrieved April 20, 2016
.
Harvey, K. (2016, January 6). Subscription Business Trend Predictions for 2016.
Retrieved May 4, 2016
.
Hutzler, K. (August, January 10). The Rise of the Subscription Economy.
Retrieved April 12, 2016, from Huffington Post
.
Jadhav, M. (2016, March 25). Top 5 Features To Look While Selecting SaaS Help
Desk Software. Retrieved May 9, 2016
.
Janzer, A. (2015, January). Subscription Marketing. Retrieved April 2, 2016
.
Judson, S. (2015). How big is the subscription economy. Retrieved May 5, 2016,
from Quora
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Kaplan Andreas M. and Michael Haenlein. (2010). Users of the world, unite! The
challenges and opportunities of Social Media. Business horizons, 1(53), 59-69.
Retrieved April 10, 2016, from
#"904843.files/image001.jpg">
: Bible of Cloud Computing
Application
2
CNews Analytics: The largest SaaS
providers in Russia in 2015
№
|
Company
|
City
|
Revenue from the providing SaaS
services in 2014, thousand rubles
|
Revenue from the providing SaaS
services in 2013, thousand rubles
|
Revenue growth 2014/2013 in %
|
The number of registered users of
SaaS
|
Amount of commercial users
|
The share of commercial users
|
1
|
СКБ Контур
|
Ekaterinburg
|
5500000
|
4 477000
|
23%
|
1 125 000
|
н/д
|
н/д
|
2
|
Манго Телеком
|
Moscow
|
1350000
|
930 000
|
45%
|
более 250000
|
более 250000
|
100%
|
3
|
B2B-Center
|
Moscow
|
1155842
|
1056 611
|
9%
|
237 902
|
237 902
|
100%
|
4
|
Softline
|
Moscow
|
993 993
|
764 610
|
30%
|
н/д
|
н/д
|
н/д
|
5
|
Барс Груп
|
Kazan
|
910 000
|
880 000
|
3%
|
н/д
|
н/д
|
н/д
|
6
|
Корус Консалтинг СНГ
|
St. Petersburg
|
602 825
|
456 435
|
32%
|
268 200
|
264 800
|
99%
|
7
|
Телфин
|
St. Petersburg
|
317 900
|
270 400
|
18%
|
109 500
|
109 500
|
100%
|
8
|
Cloud4Y
|
Moscow
|
282 240
|
126 000
|
124%
|
2 480
|
2 232
|
90%
|
9
|
МойСклад*
|
Moscow
|
265 000
|
150 000
|
77%
|
н/д
|
н/д
|
н/д
|
10
|
Ай-Теко
|
Moscow
|
231 839
|
224 200
|
3%
|
н/д
|
н/д
|
н/д
|
11
|
Мегаплан
|
Moscow
|
150 364
|
104 334
|
44%
|
40 851
|
21 243
|
12
|
ИТ-Град
|
St. Petersburg
|
113 420
|
53 000
|
114%
|
7 250
|
7 250
|
100%
|
13
|
amoCRM (Qsoft)
|
Moscow
|
85 000
|
29 000
|
193%
|
250 000
|
7 500
|
3%
|
14
|
Инфосистемы Джет
|
Moscow
|
66 665
|
40 119
|
66%
|
н/д
|
н/д
|
н/д
|
15
|
InSales
|
Moscow
|
62 000
|
45 000
|
38%
|
150 000
|
н/д
|
н/д
|
16
|
Стек Софт
|
Moscow
|
38 000
|
34 000
|
12%
|
55
|
55
|
100%
|
17
|
Крок
|
Moscow
|
22 425
|
81 316
|
-72%
|
100
|
100
|
100%
|
18
|
Teachbase
|
Moscow
|
22 000
|
16 000
|
38%
|
60 000
|
45 000
|
75%
|
19
|
РосБизнесСофт
|
Moscow
|
17 905
|
11 121
|
61%
|
1 600
|
1 600
|
100%
|
20
|
Ланкей
|
Moscow
|
17 634
|
9 158
|
93%
|
3 831
|
3 831
|
100%
|
21
|
Бизнес Проекты
|
Moscow
|
16 969
|
8 130
|
109%
|
58 327
|
58 327
|
100%
|
22
|
BSTelecom (Бизнес Система Телехаус)
|
Moscow
|
15 600
|
12 000
|
30%
|
190
|
190
|
100%
|
23
|
Офис24
|
St. Petersburg
|
15 000
|
20 000
|
-25%
|
1 650
|
1 650
|
100%
|
24
|
ЦИТ Регион
|
Moscow
|
14 410
|
7 028
|
105%
|
150
|
150
|
100%
|
25
|
Наумен
|
Moscow
|
12 500
|
6 000
|
108%
|
10 000
|
1 200
|
12%
|
News Analytics, 2015
Application
3
: Global and Russian SaaS-Solutions Markets in B2B Segment
research by J’son&Partners Consulting, 2015
Application
4
SaaS Solution
|
Kontur Elba
|
CRM Simple business
|
Category
|
Accounting
|
Unified cloud service for CRM
|
Business model
|
1.Subscription billing: • Basic •
Business • Premium Annual payment 2.On-Premise Customer Type: • Small
Business • Medium Business
|
1. Subscription billing: •
Professional • VIP Monthly payment. 2.On-Premise Customer Types: • Small
Business • Large Enterprises • Medium Business
|
Key idea
|
Online accounting for small
business directors without accounting knowledge
|
Bring value to clients' businesses
by making CRM an easy and understandable process
|
Landing Page (Official Site):
|
https://kontur.ru/elba
|
prostoy.ru
|
Simplicity
|
5/5
|
5/5
|
Usability
|
5/5
|
5/5
|
Utility
|
5/5
|
5/5
|
Call to action button
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Service Features
|
|
|
Promotions
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Compliance with law
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Security and privacy
|
Use of HTTPS protocol, privacy
policy Multifactor authentication
|
Use of HTTPS protocol, privacy
policy Multifactor authentication
|
Data backup
|
No
|
Backup in multiple locations
|
Team support: communication
channels
|
Phone support Email support Online
consultancy, feedback form Diagnostic service Blog
|
Phone support Email support Online
consultancy, feedback form Blog
|
Social accounts
|
Facebook, Youtube, Vkontakte
|
Facebook, Youtube, Vkontakte,
Twitter, Odnoklassniky
|
Help Desk
|
videos, podcasts, webinars,
FAQ-tutorial
|
FAQ-tutorial
|
Partnership programs
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Online payment
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Mobile app
|
No
|
Yes
|
Integration with popular cloud
services and applications
|
No
|
No
|
User interface
|
Friendly
|
Friendly
|
installation and cuztomization
|
Simple
|
Simple
|
Crossplatform solution
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Trial access
|
30 days free
|
30 days free
|
Free access with limited options
|
No
|
Yes
|
gamification
|
No
|
No
|
Additional extensions
(applications)
|
Yes
|
No
|
English language
|
No
|
No
|
Company ideology
|
Yes
|
No
|
SaaS SolutionMango OfficeBitrix24
|
|
|
Category
|
Business communications
|
Business collaborative tool
|
Business model
|
Subscription billing: • Basic •
Classic • Advanced Montly payment Customer Type: • Small Business • Medium
Business • Large Enterprises
|
Subscription billing: • Plus •
Standart • Professional Montly payment 2. On-Premise Customer Type: • Small
Business • Medium Business • Large Enterprises
|
Key idea
|
Help businesses establish a
telephone connection
|
"Bitrix24 is a complete suite
of social collaboration, communication and management tools for a team"
|
Landing Page (Official Site):
|
mango-office.ru
|
bitrix24.com
|
Simplicity
|
3/5
|
5/5
|
Usability
|
4/5
|
5/5
|
Utility
|
4/5
|
5/5
|
Call to action button
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Service Features
|
|
|
Promotions
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Compliance with law
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Security and privacy
|
Use of HTTPS protocol, privacy
policy Multifactor authentication
|
Use of HTTPS protocol, privacy
policy Multifactor authentication
|
Data backup
|
No
|
Backup in multiple locations
|
Team support: communication
channels
|
Phone support Email support Online
consultancy, feedback form
|
Phone support Email support Online
consultancy Diagnostic service Blog Forum
|
Social accounts
|
Facebook, Youtube, Vkontakte
|
Facebook, Youtube, Twitter, Google+,
LinkedIn
|
Help Desk
|
videos, podcasts, webinars,
FAQ-tutorial, user's guidline
|
videos, training course, FAQ,
webinars
|
Partnership programs
|
No
|
Yes
|
Online payment
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Mobile app
|
No
|
Yes
|
Integration with popular cloud
services and applications
|
Integration with CRM
|
Integration with Google Disk and
Google apps
|
User interface
|
Friendly
|
Not-Friendly
|
installation and cuztomization
|
Simple
|
Hard
|
Crossplatform solution
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Trial access
|
No
|
No
|
Free access with limited options
|
No
|
Yes
|
gamification
|
No
|
Yes
|
Additional extensions
(applications)
|
No
|
Yes
|
English language
|
No
|
Yes
|
Company ideology
|
No
|
No
|
SaaS Solution
|
amoCRM
|
Megaplan
|
Category
|
CRM and transactions system
|
Business Management System
|
Business model
|
1.Subscription billing: • Basic •
Advanced • Professional Montly payment 2. On-Premise Customer Type: • Small
Business • Medium Business
|
1.Subscription billing: • Tasks •
Sales • Business Montly payment 2. On-Premise Customer Type: • Small Business
• Medium Business
|
Key idea
|
Simplify CRM processes
|
Control workflow. Take care of
customers and finance.
|
Landing Page (Official Site):
|
amocrm.ru
|
megaplan.ru
|
Simplicity
|
4/5
|
3/5
|
Usability
|
3/5
|
2/5
|
Utility
|
3/5
|
4/5
|
Call to action button
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Service Features
|
|
|
Promotions
|
No
|
No
|
Compliance with law
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Security and privacy
|
Use of HTTPS protocol Multifactor
authentication
|
Use of HTTPS protocol Multifactor
authentication
|
Data backup
|
Backup in multiple locations
|
Backup in multiple locations
|
Team support: communication
channels
|
Phone support Email support
|
Phone support Email support Blog
Open Day Online presentations days
|
Social accounts
|
Facebook, Youtube, Vkontakte,
Twitter
|
Facebook, Vkontakte
|
Help Desk
|
User's guidline
|
Partnership programs
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Online payment
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Mobile app
|
No
|
No
|
Integration with popular cloud
services and applications
|
Integration with side widgets
|
Integration with 7 SaaS apps
|
User interface
|
Friendly
|
Not-Friendly
|
installation and cuztomization
|
Simple
|
Simple
|
Crossplatform solution
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Trial access
|
14 days
|
14 days
|
Free access with limited options
|
No
|
No
|
gamification
|
No
|
No
|
Additional extensions
(applications)
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
English language
|
No
|
Yes
|
Company ideology
|
No
|
No
|
SaaS SolutionPlanFixWorksection
|
|
|
Category
|
Teamwork management
|
Collaboration&Productivity
|
Business model
|
Subscription billing: • Team •
Community • Studio • Company Corporation Monthly payment Customer Types: •
Small Business • Medium • Business • Project group • Community • Large
enterprises
|
Subscription billing: • Individual
• Optimal • Corporate • Premium Monthly payment Customer Types: • Small
Business • Medium
|
Key idea
|
Give customers a chance to
experience a new system without insisting on using it
|
It simplifies control, unloads the
head, saves your time and protects nerve cells.
|
Landing Page (Official Site):
|
planfix.ru
|
worksection.com
|
Simplicity
|
5/5
|
5/5
|
Usability
|
5/5
|
5/5
|
Utility
|
5/5
|
5/5
|
Call to action button
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Service Features
|
|
|
Promotions
|
No
|
Yes
|
Compliance with law
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Security and privacy
|
Use of HTTPS protocol, privacy
policy Multifactor authentication
|
Use of HTTPS protocol, privacy
policy Multifactor authentication
|
Data backup
|
Backup in multiple locations
|
Backup in multiple locations
|
Team support: communication
channels
|
Email support Online consultancy
Diagnostic service Blog Forum
|
Phone support Email support
Feedback form Blog
|
Social accounts
|
Facebook, Vkontakte, Twitter
|
Facebook, Twitter, Google+
|
Help Desk
|
No
|
User's guidline
|
Partnership programs
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Online payment
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Mobile app
|
No
|
Yes
|
Integration with popular cloud
services and applications
|
Integration with 8 SaaS apps
|
Integration with Google Disk and
Google apps
|
User interface
|
Friendly
|
Friendly
|
installation and cuztomization
|
Simple
|
Simple
|
Crossplatform solution
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Trial access
|
30 days
|
30 days
|
Free access with limited options
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
gamification
|
No
|
No
|
Additional extensions
(applications)
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
English language
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Company ideology
|
Yes
|
No
|
SaaS SolutionAdobe Creative CloudMicrosoft Office 365
|
|
|
Category
|
Digital media
|
Office suits
|
Business model
|
Subscription billing (shifted from
On-Premise model) For Business: • Purchase from local retailers For
Individuals: • Photography • Single App • All Apps For Students and Teachers:
• Photography • All Apps - Special Offer Monthly/annual payment Customer Types:
• Small Business • Medium Business • Freelancers • Students&Teachers •
Individual users
|
Subscription billing (shifted from
On-Premise model) For Business: • Business Essentials • Business • Business
Premium For home: • Home • Personal • Home&Student2016 Monthly/annual
payment Customer Types: • Small Business • Medium Business • Large
Enterprises • Freelancers • Academic institutions • Non Profits • Public
Administrations
|
Key idea
|
"A whole new experience for
digital media creation, enabling you to work lightning fast"
|
Office when and where you need it.
Work anywhere, anytime, on any device. Office 365 is ready when you are.
|
Landing Page (Official Site):
|
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