Monday, May 11, 2015
In the last few years, 1ClickFactory has been a key provider of content and delivery of Microsoft’s Road to Repeatability and RAMP programs that are focused on the transformation of services, products and ultimately businesses from on-premise to cloud. In those programs, we used economic models to simulate the effects of a transformation process to cloud business to show which economic levers were most important.
It is clear in these models that owning packaged IP, which can be sold over and over again, is the most important factor to succeed when delivering Microsoft Business Solutions in the cloud. Additionally, owning IP creates higher valuations for the business as well.
The barriers for creating a business that owns IP in the form of industry specific or other software are as high as ever. However, the increasing changes in the market are amplifying the efforts needed to stay focused on the core business of an ISV, while managing new technologies, new markets and new IP that help your customers.
Key Challenges Facing ISVs in a Cloud Era
What we have learned over the last three years, on our own business, but also in the partnerships we have with ISVs, is that ISVs are facing a new set of challenges in this evolving marketplace, including:
- Struggling to Keep Add-On Solutions Upgraded. With Dynamics NAV releases becoming more frequent, it has become more and more challenging for ISVs to keep their IP on the latest version of Dynamics. To keep up with more frequent upgrade rhythm, it requires very strict planning and allocating dedicated resources that often forces you to relocate your development teams from their core focus of building functionality that creates value for customers.
- Offering Globally Localized Add-Ons Solutions. As the world is becoming more regional and more global, it has become clear that just releasing an ISV product in one country is not fulfilling the needs of the market. In addition, in the cloud era, customers expect releases to multiple versions of NAV to happen simultaneously. Meeting this demand reliably with internal resources is difficult at best for most ISVs.
- Meeting Certification Requirements for Add-On Solutions. Since you have less face-to-face time with the customer, or in some cases no direct contact, the quality stamp of approval from Microsoft has become ever more important to the customer. However certifying your add-on solutions for CfMD can be daunting and costly. Therefore many partners are looking ways to minimize the cost, time and effort needed to get software solutions through the certification (CfMD) process.
- Developing Add-On Solutions That Are Cloud Compatible. In the Cloud Era, obviously partners must offer more cloud solutions, ensuring their add-on solutions are cloud compatible is part of the package. However, developing add-on solution to run on Microsoft Azure is new for many ISVs and their development teams. Becoming acquainted and efficient with cloud-based development or cloud compatibility can take IT teams away from their core responsibility of delivering features to create value for your customers.
- Offering Subscription-Based Cloud Solutions Profitably. In order to succeed in the Cloud economy, partners need to make a transformation in demand generation, sales, and service delivery methods. Your customers are interested in subscription-based cloud services, but delivering these offerings will also have a significant impact on your P&L and cash flow. You will have to evaluate your current and future revenue streams and how you are going to make money in this new world of the Cloud.
In order to overcome these challenges, Microsoft ISVs need to make a transition to a more efficient model in how they sell, develop and maintain their solutions in the Cloud economy.
One-Stop Solution Center for ISV
Microsoft IDC’s* data reveals that businesses prefer to buy end-to-end IT solutions from a single vendor and want to work with a company they have an established relationship.
At 1ClickFactory, we provide ISVs with an integrated end to-end services to help them successfully transition to the Cloud economy successfully address these key challenges, including:
- Upgrade & Upgrade Subscription Services: to keep your solutions up-to-date for fixed monthly costs, which will help you easily budget your investments into your IP.
- Add-On Localization Services: to help you localize Cloud solutions on a global scale to shorten the time to market with every new release.
- Certification Services: to decrease your efforts and costs to get your solutions CfMD certified.
- Cloud Compatible Software Development: to help you develop with easy maintenance and Cloud in mind by extending your solution capabilities through our web services.
- Hosting on Microsoft Azure: to move your solutions to Microsoft Azure quickly, easily and at a substantially lower cost through our self-provisioning platform.
- Cloud Business Model Consulting: to enable you to build and effective Cloud ISV business strategy.
In addition, 1ClickFactory can help you build your own cloud infrastructure where processes are automated between you different internal systems that you are using to run your business. We use the standard solutions delivered by Microsoft; Microsoft Dynamics NAV, Microsoft Dynamics CRM, Microsoft Office 365 and then websites either based on Umbraco or SiteCore CMS.
Stay ISV Core Business Focused In The Cloud
Discover how 1ClickFactory’s ISV Services can help your solutions and your business transition to the Cloud economy – schedule a call with a 1ClickFactory local representative in your territory to learn more.
Watch this webinar dedicated to Top Microsoft Dynamics NAV ISVs Executives that we co-hosted together with Microsoft in April, 2015. You will learn about key Microsoft strategies that ISVs must know and new practices for solution life cycle management.
*Successful Cloud Partners 2.0. What IT Solution Providers Need To Know To Build Profitable Cloud Practices. IDC study, Sponsored by Microsoft