Business Ownership

The scenario is fairly typical. You launch your SaaS application for $14.99 per month. A few months later, a competitor launches a competing service for $10 per month. How do you respond with a competitive offer without cannibalizing your existing customers? We asked three software executives for their thoughts on the topic and have summarized their responses below: Paddy Srinivasan, CEO, Opstera (www.opstera.com) In the above scenario, you are introducing a new tier in the Free->Premium continuum. The inherent risk is that existing customers might want to downgrade to the new level to save albeit with a constrained set of features. While you cannot stop this, one way to have your customers think about this decision is to make the distinction between the SKUs extremely clear in the new tier vs. the premium SKUs. For example, at the low-end customers might be able to... (more)

Is Netflix Having a "New Coke" Moment? Not So Much

Netflix is being compared everywhere to Coca-Cola Corporation and their famous "New Coke" fiasco back in the 1980s. What Coca-Cola Did Wrong Sam Craig, professor of marketing and international business at the Stern School of Business at New York University, pointed to what he and other marketing experts have long considered the critical blunder that Coca-Cola made -  “They didn't ask the critical question of Coke users: Do you want a new Coke?". So Coca-Cola backpedaled very quickly and re-introduced "old Coke" (calling it "Coke Classic") and, over time, phased out "New Coke."  T... (more)

How Companies Can Reap the Benefits of Cloud Computing?

Organizations are going through unprecedented level of changes to meet their changing customer behaviours and advancements in the IT such as Service Orientation and Cloud-based services.  In this status quo, Organisations are facing with challenges ranging from changing their workforce to adapt to the needs of the new IT initiatives to building a sustainable platform for future growth.  While this is not imperative at first, every enterprise architect will be facing some form or shape of these challenges in the organisation. Although there is an argument that outsource service pr... (more)

Business Change: When Is the Right Time?

Recently I have been exploring about the context of Change within the Enterprise.   As everyone knows driving change is an interesting art and companies are aiming to achieve their sustainability in various methods.   However, I had a question in my mind - how would you know when is the right time to make the change? Vicious Cycle If a company is driving change internally because of the driving factors from external forces then the level of resistance is generally higher.  Equally the proactive ‘change triggers' from within the companies take lots of time to embed due to the nat... (more)

Transformational Leader - Delivering Business Change

I am thinking about the qualities of a transformational leader. Awhile ago I remember seeing the charter for the Future State CIO defining various qualities. I would like to put this in context based on my experience and draw conclusions on how to become a transformation leader responsible for driving business change. "To change or not to change" Few years back, I was asked to go to a consulting engagement focusing on ‘release management.' The message was simple: we need a ‘gatekeeper.' It was an interesting role and I have thoroughly enjoyed it. The client is a large-scale org... (more)