IP Applications - Newsletters - Will SaaS Vendors Sell Direct or Through Partners?


Will SaaS Vendors Sell Direct or Through Partners?		Oct. 22, 2008

Although some well-meaning pundits have advised SaaS vendors to sell direct and avoid traditional VAR channels and partners, we believe that most successful SaaS businesses will need them and want them. Partnerships have been successful in business since time began. Why in the world would we abandon them now?

We agree direct sales is a reasonable strategy to get started. There is lots of low hanging fruit and SaaS applications by nature require less installation and configuration effort than their on-premise competitors.

What about after the low hanging fruit has been picked and the heavy lifting to enter new markets or new verticals is just beginning. Who can help with that? You need partners that know the landscape and have industry expertise.

What work is there for a VAR to do? Well, while the SaaS paradigm emphasizes ease of use, risk-averse enterprise customers will want on-site training, integration with other systems and other services that VAR's provide. Your VAR's professional services and domain knowledge extend your reach and credibility with enterprise buyers.

What about partnering with other SaaS vendors with complimentary capabilities that make your offering even more compelling? Combining offerings to provide a complete solution for your customers is a powerful competitive weapon.

Conclusion

You're going to need partners. It's only a matter of time, so plan for them from the start.

Even if you don't agree, you can lower your risk if the systems you use to manage your SaaS business give you the flexibility to include channels and partners in your sales eco-system if you make that decision down the road.

There are a myriad of things to plan for to ensure that the systems you select to manage your SaaS business elevate your ability to sell instead of weighing you down with restrictions.

If you want help thinking this through download our complimentary capabilities matrix for a thought inspiring list of important features you are likely to need as you grow your SaaS business.

If you would like more information on tools to support Channels and Partners click here to visit the Channels and Partners page.

Kevin Lennox
Director of Sales
IP Applications

http://www.ipapplications.com

Channel Marketing for SaaS - even experienced vendors have problems

Back in January, we concluded that we raise our game with some sophisticated management software for our business. The application we wanted is a common one these days but to protect the innocent, I'm not going to talk about it specifically. The application isn't the point of the story - the story is about how two well regarded SaaS companies found themselves in a mess when they tried to work as partners.

To digress for a moment, it was fascinating to watch ourselves go through the buying process. For our staff, who've delivered hosted applications for years, setting up and running any web application is pretty much a brain-stem exercise. Perhaps because we know what's involved we chose a SaaS product hosted by someone else for our internal operations.