Sightings in SaaS

Posts Tagged ‘PSA’

I have, in our previous iteration of Sightlog, railed against FUD, fear uncertainty doubt, a way too common tactic in technology sales, especially software sales. What’s the point, finally? And what does it say about our industry that FUD is so prominent in our sales and marketing? Just state the facts, without a lot of fudging. If there is any sector of the economy that offers a better opportunity for competitive differentiation than software, I don’t know what it is.

But FUD continues. Last month I read a blog post that tried to throw ice cold FUD on NetSuite’s acquisition of QuickArrow, a software service in the ‘professional services automation’, or PSA, market. I thought it was strange, especially given the source of the article. Essentially, they tried to link NetSuite to Oracle, and suggest that QuickArrow would be rolled up into NetSuite, its client list assailed and treated recklessly, like this is possible in a SaaS business when clients can walk at any time. I was going to write about it then but felt that I would be just promoting the problem, not solving it, so I let it go.

But I did scratch my head about it a bit. After all, NetSuite has already purchased OpenAir and continues to support customers who do not use NetSuite financials, who use only OpenAir. But the real chutzpuh was the suggestion that NetSuite would take the ‘low road’, whatever that is, while the writer churns out a post with nuclear amounts of FUD. Really? There was a line about something his company was up to in the same PSA market, but without more details I whistled by it.

As it turns out, this company has much to worry about in NetSuite’s acquisition of QuickArrow and OpenAir. They have a PSA offering of their own now. So this was the reason for the FUD. They are a direct competitor with NetSuite. That’s fine. There should be several companies in this market as PSA is an important and underserved market. But why all the FUD? After I read the post again and then read a new post about the new PSA service I still do not understand what they offer, but I have a really good idea of what they are not – NetSuite. They give no indication of how their PSA offering enables any type of billing transaction, or profitability analysis, or anything else that might be important to a company running a large professional services staff. But we do know that they are built on salesforce’s force.com platform. That’s it; that’s their entire claim to fame, what some other company built.

For the life of me I cannot figure out why people get so focused on the competition that they forget to make even an attempt at explaining their own offering and its advantages. Does running on force.com really offer such an outstanding advantage that you needn’t tell us anything else? What is the force.com advantage, by the way? Well, building a hardware and software infrastructure is difficult, so rolling out new code on an existing platform is easier. So this is great for the vendor, but what does it do for the client? Nothing, that I can tell, and I read the posts twice. Having poured all of his energy into his illuminating article about NetSuite’s reincarnation as the grim reaper, the author had none left for prospective clients of his new service. Desperation makes intelligent people do stupid things, honestly.

You only have so many opportunities to connect with people. When you do have a new service announcement take advantage of it, explain, be gracious and intelligent and people will respond. Honestly, let’s stop with the junior high antics of poking out competitors in the eye and running away. It not only makes you look stupid, but it reflects poorly on all of us. 

If you would like to read the posts that got me started today, you can see them here. You have been warned about gangly junior high boys with more energy than good sense.