SaaS Selling Models: Building Compelling Value Models that Maximize Sales Success

SaaS may be hot, but your customers' budgets are tight and no one is interested in buying technology for technology's sake in a recession. This session focuses on how to position and explain the unique values of SaaS applications and apply them to your business value propositions and sales model.

Chuck DeVita,
Growth Process Group

TRANSITION TO SaaS  TECHNICAL TRACK:

The Successful SaaS Sprint

You've taken a deep breath and made the decision to jump into SaaS. But you already have a client server product and a whole lot of tested, working code. What do you do? There are many technical issues you'll now face. What is the best development platform for our product? Should we commit to a PaaS platform? How are we going to address multi-tenancy? And these are just some of the challenges.

Each question has many possible answers and making right choices is a process that requires time and careful consideration of the impact across many variables. In this session, attendees will receive guidelines and criteria for approaching these technology decisions in a structured manner.

Luis Aburto, SCIO

SaaS and the Right Pricing Model

There's been a lot of hype recently about "new pay as you go" SaaS pricing models. The only problem with all of this is pay as you go is not new; Softletter's been tracking this model for years; "pay as you go" (or per usage or per transaction) pricing models are used by 29% of SaaS companies. 

In this session, software pricing guru Jim Geisman will discuss the various pricing models available to SaaS companies and provide you with a roadmap to picking the model that best fits your business and revenue goals.

Jim Geisman, Software Pricing 

TRANSITION TO SaaS TECHNICAL TRACK:

Solution Accelerator: A Rapid Development Approach to SaaS

Softletter's SaaS Report reveals that only 15% of SaaS companies have made the commitment to a Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) provider platform provider. While these services offer a distinct set of benefits, issues such as vendor lock-in, lack of control and inflexibility in the development platform constrain software vendors from readily embracing PaaS. 

This session explores the question: Is there a way to realize the benefits of PaaS without the associated challenges? This session will explore alternatives to PaaS and will outline an accelerated, technology approach to building SaaS applications hosted on a virtualized (Cloud) infrastructure from firm such as Amazon, Azure and OpSource.

Gowri Subramanian, Aspire Systems

SaaS and the Rise of Community Management (and the Death of Traditional Product Management)

The growth of SaaS spells the end of product management as it's been as it's been defined in the software industry for the last thirty years. After SaaS ERP vendor Plex transitioned from client/server to SaaS, it jettisoned its entire product management/product marketing management framework. Current product management functions such as tick list herding, MRDs, PRDs,  "Agile" product management and the concept of no responsibility, no accountability, and no authority are as relevant to SaaS companies as DOS 3.0 and floppy disks.

Replacing "product manager's" will be "community managers," a new breed of people who will be tasked with optimizing your SaaS community, monetizing it, and working in an environment of bottom line metrics and measurable performance. If you're thinking about pulling out your checkbook and wasting money on outmoded product management training courses, obsolete product management research, reports, and publications, and the latest theories on "Agile" product management, put that check writing hand back in your pocket and attend this session to discover what your CMs should be doing to put money IN your pocket more quickly. 

Patrick Fetterman, Plex, TBA

Panel Session:

Their Cloud, Your Cloud, or Our Cloud?

A lively discussion on the different Cloud approaches being introduced into the market, Cloud hype, and how to best leverage Cloud technologies to ensure your success. Panel members are chosen the day of the conference and often include audience attendees.

Moderated by Randy Hujar, Softletter

8:00 - 9:00AM

Monetizing Multi-Tenancy - Generating Revenue through Network Effect Data and the SaaS Ecosystem

Multi-tenancy is a key element of Software-as-a-Service (SaaS); but not for the reasons you think! Achieving economies of scale, streamlining software development, maintaining one line of source code, etc. are the widest-known benefits of multi-tenancy. The real magic happens when multi-tenancy is leveraged to unlock and enhance the Network Effect created by all customers using the same system. And when the Network Effect is itself leveraged by the Ecosystem, myriad opportunities present themselves to drive growth and revenue. These are what makes being a SaaS vendor so much better than being a Legacy Software vendor!

Lincoln Murphy, Sixteen Ventures

TRANSITION TO SaaS TRACK:

SaaS and the Open Source Intersection

SaaS and Open Source can be friends! While the pure Open Source business model has been in the main a bust (yes, we know about Red Hat, no, there aren't that many other pure Open Source , some SaaS firms are using Open Source to speed up their time to market and build profits more quickly. OpenPro was established in 1998. 

Introduced in 1999, OpenPro was the first complete Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) manufacturing software solution, integrating back office manufacturing with Customer Relationship Management (CRM), Supply Chain Management (SCM), E-Commerce, Finance and Accounting, Human Resources and e-business capabilities to support today's extended enterprise. OpenPro is written using Open Source technology to cut down on cost and development times so your firm can  receive a much faster ROI. This session will examine the pros (and cons) of using Open Source techology in SaaS.

Jim Clark, OpenPro, Inc.

Networking Break

Lessons from the Field: Best Practices in SaaS Customer Retention, Cash Management, and Executive Leadership

In three years AvidXchange has grown from 7 to 120 customers without raising any real outside capital, maintained 100% client retention, and obtains annual pre-paid support from 70% of our customers. We think you should learn how they do it.

David Miller, AvidXchange

TRANSITION TO SaaS TRACK:

To Build or to Lease Your IT Infrastructure – That is the Question!

So you’re planning to transition your software solution to a Software as a Service (SaaS) delivery model (or you’re thinking about it).  So now you need to decide if you’re going to build your IT infrastructure in-house or lease it.   This is one of the biggest decisions you will make in the transition to a SaaS delivery model.  This session will focus on the pro’s and con’s of either building your IT infrastructure in-house or leasing it.

Specifically you will learn:

- What the market demand is for SaaS applications
- Key considerations for building your own IT infrastructure
- Key considerations for leasing your IT infrastructure
- The pro’s and con’s of both options
- The typical costs associated with both options

At the end of this session, you will have a clear understanding of the benefits and the drawbacks of both - building your own infrastructure or leasing, so you can decide which option is best for your business model and strategy.

Ivan Hurtt, Verio

12:00 - 1:00PM

Working Lunch: How to Negotiate and Close Enterprise Agreements?

Maximizing SaaS Revenue through Sales and Pricing Discipline

SaaS companies often act as if they have no incremental costs, leading to lax discounting practices.  As a result, margins fall and companies struggle to reach or maintain profitability.  Through careful analysis and disciplined execution, companies can close deals faster and leave less money on the table.  For small software companies, the results can be the difference between life and death (a company with 10% margins that can leave 2% less money on the table raises its profit by 20%). 

In this session you will learn to analyze and evaluate the effectiveness of your revenue and pricing strategies, how to discount more effectively (and less), and examine how other companies have implemented these techniques.

Reuben Swartz, Mimiran

SaaS SALES AND MARKETING TRACK:

Marketing SaaS Without the Release Cycle

Softletter's recent SaaS survey revealed that one third of SaaS firms have abandoned the traditional 12 to 18 month release cycle, raising the question of how you generate buzz and excitement for your product. Budgets have tightened but the need to create brand awareness and reach your target audience has never been more critical. The need for speed is required across all areas of the SaaS firm from engineering to marketing to sales and service.

During this presentation we will present the fundamental building blocks that every company needs in place to reach 100% if its' target audience and scale demand generation program and sales. We will then review 5 proven demand generation programs for SaaS companies, including inbound, outbound and organic, i.e., social media programs. These programs are tied to a metric dashboard to determine effective ROI.

Robert Jurkowski, OnDemand Advisory Services

SaaS Revenue Recognition Accounting Update

Proposed changes to accounting rules could significantly impact how SaaS companies price and sell service offerings by this summer. Learn about this proposed change and other SaaS specific revenue issues to help optimize your selling practices, stay ahead of the competition and stay out of trouble.

Jay Howell, BDO Seidman, LLP

SaaS SALES AND MARKETING TRACK:

Break