Technology is becoming more important in business as it continues to reshape customer journeys and challenge old ways of operational processes.
Business to Business (B2B) software continues to be more essential to the outcome of a business's return of investment. B2B software is essential across a range of industries and is being reshaped due to the advent of cloud and open source code bases.
Next time you assess any B2B software it may be useful to assess the type of company providing that software. There is a clear pattern emerging in every industry.
StartUp:Upstart:Disruptor
These are the new companies now seen in many industries. They are usually less than 10 years old and are providing highly innovative solutions to existing problems. The product has always used the benefits of cloud computing. They are cloud-native ( the benefit of this will be explained in Blog 3).
The products are usually built by very small teams - of very high skill and there are very few managers in these companies and they have very low overheads.
The user interface face (UI) is normally fresher than competitor products and there is a self serv focus - meaning that the Total cost of ownership is lower.
That same UI should be intuitive meaning the product needs lower training time which is very important for today's highly volatile and rotating labor market.
The focus of these companies moves to automation once the product is built and as they scale you can expect innovative price leadership.
They work very well and easily with other systems as that's one reason as to why they were built "in the cloud" - they can talk to any API and have many of their own AP{IS (data sharing on the internet).
How fast can your current system add a new gateway? Connect you a finance system? Less friction in adopting new services means your company can be more innovative and not locked into long term contracts.
Incumbent: Legacy
The original systems were built not long after modern computing was invented on the back of relational database models. Often built and run by very technical and innovative leaders they can be 20-30 years old and for that reason, they were often ready for retirement or sale around the 2000s. It was a big ask for these leaders to re-invent in the cloud and many have chosen not to.
They are older & often proprietary technologies - sometimes Microsoft-based and are on-premise - ie located on-site and sitting inside a company internet firewall.
They generally have older User interfaces that can look quite complex. Often for the more sophisticated apps, you will see find and need local "expert engineers" who support the system adding to Total ownership costs (TCO).
They don't work very well with Internet/cloud "APIS" - they were never intended to work "in the cloud" and support teams are often resistant to connect to other third-party services given the lack of native connections.
They might have been first to market with modern computing and have a large market share. They can be resistant to change to move with the times -as it's too risky an investment and maybe it's smarter to cash out, than face another huge upheaval to skills and culture.
They face the same dilemmas as petrol cards today. Will (electric cars)/cloud computing make them obsolete?
Incumbent:ReInventing:HyBrid
These companies are often the solution to the problems seen by the original tech leaders,
Original Leaders "cash-out" or retire and their companies and ideas are often bought by "Capital /bankers" as they have solid market share.
They become part cloud by moving the old technology to computers in the cloud - also known as "Lift and shift". They still face all the problems of a system built before the cloud was invented- but you can at least now log in from anywhere :)
They often upgrade the user interface to male it seems like it's a new application.
Of course, they promise to deliver "true cloud" - one day....
Importantly they continue to be very big teams with lots of managers and overheads. They are not small teams utilizing the benefits of open sources and services architectures.
They experience price pressure from the new start-ups and quickly offshore the tech teams to Asia to lower prices but to maintain those overheads.
A question to ask your software supplier might be "How much of your team is an overhead?" How much is dedicated to technology and service?"
Perhaps these companies are like those companies still making petrol cars and promise to become electric "really soon".
Event Hub
Event Hub is less than 10 years old. Fully cloud-based and has a team of 8. We have 1 active manager and no offices - The EH team is fully remote. Overheads are very low.
Event Hub's product roadmap is now moving to automation and "cloud synergies".
EH is fully remote and source developers all around the world paying global average industry rates. We do not believe in cheap labor rates for our technicians and do not think this is even viable in a world of globally remote skills and wage transparency, "You pay for what you get"
A sample of Event Hub APIs. Public and transparent.
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** Author: Scott Hyde is the Operational Director and jount founder of eventhub.com.au. He has a master of economics and MBA. He likes to apply classical economic theory and philosophy to the problems found in industries he builds Software products for.
He is also an avid fan of https://freakonomics.com/ and https://characterlab.org/. teams that use micro incentive behavioral economics to understand why markets work the way they do and posit skill-based solutions for more level playing fields for underprivileged children.
Scott opens his calendar 20 hours a week for product training or advice for our customers and can be booked below. He doesn't believe he knows everything about the new technology wave but where he cant answer a question he also has a "tachnology mentor" that can also help our customers when needed.
Rob McQuade
joint founder eventhub.com.au
Our next blog is planned for February 1. "Why is everything so urgent in the Events Industry?
for March 1 "Is ticketing that complex?"
April 1 "The business- benefits of cloud computing"