Sightings in SaaS

Listened to Bruce Richardson from AMR Research speak today about cloud computing and he made a comment about the number of companies he talks to where the IT budget is more than the Marketing budget. “That’s just crazy,” he said, and I agree. Several years ago I ran into a Business Owner who had a wholesale/distribution business that was a perfect candidate for NetSuite.

During our conversation he let it be known that he had solved the issues of managing an on-premise system – he hired the guy from the software company who had installed it and trained his staff. I had to admit that he had a solved a pesky problem; he had a full time person devoted to running and maintaining his business system. I thought, at least he understand the importance of this system to his business. But how would it impact your business if you were able to use the cost of the IT guy in other areas, like marketing or additional sales staff? How about someone to develop a partner channel for the business? 

Every once in a while someone points out the obvious and makes it all too clear what the actual cost of on-premise systems is, like Richardson did today. In the case of the IT guy, the real cost is in the lost sales opportunities that the business owner passes up every day, week, month that he pays someone to support his system.