A 2007 publication CHANNELS FOR THE NEW SAAS INDUSTRY by the SOFTWARE & INFORMATION INDUSTRY ASSOCIATION (SIIA) and led by Axel Schultze (now of the Social Media Academy) outlines how channels in the SaaS industry are fundamentally different from their counterparts in the enterprise software world.
The main focus for partners in the SaaS world is on business process alignment, optimizing the use of the information, solution deployment, application support and integration with existing systems. While traditional IT products are sold in a “fire and forget” mode, SaaS solutions are sold with an opportunity for ongoing services. Successful SaaS companies not only think in terms of recurring revenue but in a “Recurring Services Model”. As SaaS vendors host the application, they effectively become part of the IT organization of their customers. Hence, tech support is a vendor internal activity. That fact results in a very different channel structure. Because of the different structure and services in the SaaS model, channels are no longer “resellers” or “Value Added Resellers” they are – CATALYSTS.
Catalysts are companies or individuals that understand the various business needs in terms oforganizational improvements in areas such as Sales, Marketing, HR, Operations, Logistics etc. and also understand the advantages of SaaS-based applications. They help small, medium and large firms transform their “Information Technology” into “Information Management”.
The paper says what we at NewLeaseG2M believe, that “The most important value a partner can add is to provide business-process-relevant implementation and integration services to the customers. While an application may be generally easy to use, the more important question within an organization is “how are we all going to use it together“. SaaS partners are not “resellers” delivering software, but rather catalysts for this new industry, making it work long term.”