

Enterprise Software Lessons:If you are Going to Pick Up a Fight, Hit the Big Guy - jesusmrv
http://jrodthoughts.com/2012/07/02/enterprise-software-lessons-if-you-are-going-to-pick-up-a-fight-hit-the-big-guy/

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mbesto
These are the good things about Enterprise software, but what about the bad?
Just want to make sure we paint a realistic picture of the enterprise here.
Just a couple of note to consider:

\- Good products that have superior technology and end-user benefit, must take
a long-tail approach (i.e. many small customers first and then big boys next)

\- In general it requires large amount of sales teams and long sales cycles.

\- Remember who is buying the software. It's most likely not the end-user.
(this is wildly different from selling a photo-sharing app) They normally have
long standing relationships with IBM, Oracle, SAP, etc. and value their
relationships sometimes largely more than pleasing their end-users.

\- It hurdles are usually a pain. It requires getting sign off by not only a
large number of stakeholders but through a vigorous set of checks. This also
means you might need to shed out extra money for certifications, etc.

There's lot more and I'll be writing a blog post about this in case anyone is
interested.

~~~
ams6110
_Remember who is buying the software. It's most likely not the end-user. (this
is wildly different from selling a photo-sharing app) They normally have long
standing relationships with IBM, Oracle, SAP, etc. and value their
relationships sometimes largely more than pleasing their end-users._

This is absolutely true. Many "enterprise" buyers are showered with free
meals, conference tickets, drinks, and simple brown-nosing by their sales
reps. They don't want to give that up for your software that your earnest
salesperson tries to sell on actual value propositions.

Furthermore, once a decision is made, the decision-maker becomes defensive.
Changing software is admitting they made the wrong decision with the first
product. Nobody in an enterprise organization likes to admit they were wrong
about anything.

------
alberich
There is this requisite: if you have a solid product or service Then you can
go directly after enterprise customers. Now one just needs to come up with a
way of building solid enterprise products without customers in the first
place.

~~~
jesusmrv
Absolutely, but that might not be enough to get over the initial inflection
point. Tapping into a customer community that has been nurtured by your bigger
competitors is always an interesting strategy.

    
    
      Cheers,
     
       JR

