Couple of weeks ago our fellow Enterprise Irregular and guest blogger Phil Wainewright wrote a really provacative article on Entellium's success with a new smart, downloadable client for their SaaS CRM products. Most SaaS vendors, think NetSuite and Salesforce.com, have elected to use the browser as the means of presenting the software on the users machine. Entellium, however, has decided to try something new: A downloadable client, as in client-server, that the user installs on their machine. Wainewright goes through several of the benefits of the smart client vs browser and they are all significant, from the richness of the presentation to the ability for users to re-arrange and customize the presentation for their own use. Entellium has been able to increase sales and retention rates with their new browser, and has also driven down the cost of sales by a whopping 82%, according to Phil. Sounds like that have hit the proverbial nail on the head, and driven it directly into a greatly increasing bottom line. Many of the commenters on Phil's post had a hard time putting together a smart client with the results that Phil cites, and at first so did I. I understand all of the reasons that Phil cites for the new client's success; however, after re-reading the article again, I have to say that there must be a psychological aspect at work here. Human behavior is rarely determined by features and benefits. So what is happening here inside the minds of the buyers and users that causes them to not only buy more often, but also more quickly and then retain their subscription more often? I have no data to guide me, only my own experience, but I think that the downloadable file that installs the smart client on your computer gives the user the sense of ownership. A sense that they do not receive from a typical brownser, installed on thjeir computer when they purchased it. The fact that the client then lends itself to personalization, as Phil explains in his article, deepens that sense of ownership. Years ago I read a book, Vico's "New Science," which is generally an attempt to understand early human society by understanding how we put together, as one example, language. Vico points out that the verb for "to teach" in Latin is from the same root as "insignia" or sign. Why would these two things evolve from the same root? Vico postulated that the earliest insignia were signs that people posted at the edge of their agricultural property "to teach" others where they were welcome and where not. Ownership, the ability to and the act of, staking a claim, has a long human history. A smart client like Entellium's adds that sense of ownership back to the software as a service model. Without surrendering the mulit-tenant server or the access to the software through the Internet cloud, Entellium has found a way to take very impersonal software and make it personal again. I have taken an unscientific survey over the last 4 years and I can tell you that all CRM software has an almost impossible task of getting the sales people to buy in to the program. Entellium's success with their new smart client throws a ray of light into this dark failure. Sales people may have less of a sense of ownership in the company and its future success than any other function. They have brought yesterday's business to the table, but now operations manages those customers. The sales person is always under the cloud of "What have you done for me lately?". CRM software adds to the sense that their skills and intangibles are replaceable. The new smart client may help to overcome this loss of control by giving the user a sense of ownership. | 
