Transformation From Software Service To SaaS Opportunities – Nasscom Emergeout Conclave

By Guest Author – Manjeet Dahiya, Manjeet is the owner of an open source project, qxmpp.

Transformation from Software Service to Software as a Service, Opportunities – Nasscom Emergeout Conclave

Speakers:
Suresh Sambandam – CEO, Orangescape
Bhanu Chopra – CEO, Rategain.com
Pankaj Bhargav – CEO, HRMantra.com

Moderator: Chandramouli, Director – Advisory Services, Zinnov Consulting

The session started with Moderator questioning -

Why SaaS?
Pankaj started comparing the SaaS model with the Software model by giving the example of having an executable floating on different computers. And he mentioned how many problems are resolved using the SaaS model. There is no need of downloading, installation and updating the software. No version clashes, everyone is on the same version. This make HR independent of IT department. And on top of everything the customer gets the Pay-as-you-go model.
Bhanu highlighted that travel cost is reduced as no customer visit is required for installation and upgrade. Support cost is significantly reduced in the SaaS model. Customer doesn’t have to bear the cost incurred for IT support. In a way SaaS model is beneficial for both the provider and the customer.

What is the paradigm shift going from Software Services to Saas?
Pankaj pointed out that yes there is a change in paradigm while going from Software Services to Software as a Service. In SaaS model the service provider interacts with the end user directly rather than the IT department of the customer. The customer doesn’t have to worry about the hardware upgrade, no storage upgrade or any memory upgrade is needed on upgrading the software.
Suresh mentioned, the customer is free from scaling of hardware and IT support but this problem comes into the plate of the service provider. Now provider has to worry about the resource scaling and the support overhead. Another challenge he cited is that the service provider should have a strong Project Management as in India it is easy to find developers but creating a strong Project Management team is difficult task.

Bootstrapping a new SaaS service

Bhanu started in an office space provided by his father. In the beginning itself there product attracted a big customer and helped them with the valuable suggestions about the product. On the same lines Pankaj mentioned that this is the beauty of SaaS products. The customers are contributors of the product’s development cycle. They request for the features and they see them developing and then even report the bugs. In a way they are part of development and testing of the product.

GTM, Go To Market strategies -
Suresh lead the discussion by mentioning three GTM strategies:
•    Customer eco-system
•    Partner eco-system
•    Independent

Bhanu pointed free demonstration are pretty easy to provide in SaaS model. And this has been helpful GTM strategy for RateGain.
At the end, there was this very interesting comment from the audience, the person was no one but the Sridhar Vembu, CEO of Zoho. He took the point made out by Suresh about having a good Project Management Product Management team. Sridhar said one should have a mindset of building everything in India and having Project Management and Engineering at separate location will have cultural differences. He have example of Japanese car makers that they do everything there, manufacturing to product planning. And that’s what been making them more and more successful. He also pointed that Product Management should not blindly come from MBAs, it should come from the Engineering to create the best Project Management team.