A recent email from a company in the market for an on-demand business solution got me thinking about the current state of play. This particular company is a NetSuite user. It is thoroughly ticked off with what it sees as early stage, buggy software. It runs an operation which uses an online shopping cart that ‘should’ feed seamlessly to the back end accounting and it wants CRM capability. It’s a 6 person business.
I was hard pressed to provide an alternative vendor operating in the UK capable of providing that level of functionality, though I did point them to Pearl and Twinfield as possible contenders. Xero looks cool but doesn’t really have the capabilities this company wants. The company said it is seriously considering Salesforce.com for CRM and hoped there is an accounting vendor that plugs into the SFdC platform. There is – but not for the UK, or rather not for a company of this size.
I was struck by two things:
- Salesforce.com has clearly done a great job of grabbing mindhsare. I’ve said before that potential customers of all sizes but especially small businesses are now looking closely at SFdC as a supplier. A year ago they would not have bothered.
- Despite its size, the company is asking for sophisticated capabilities. It seems that even the smallest of organizations has a level of expectation with which the vendor community struggles.
The incumbent accounting software community is woefully backward in its approach to this technology shift. That is despite the fact there are huge opportunities at both the VSB and mid-market levels. SAPs entry into the market last week is a strong validation but it is at the bottom end where much has to be done.
I believe it is myopic that Sage, Exchequer, MYOB and Intuit are seemingly doing little or nothing to enter this market. In one sense that’s great because it provides opportunity for offerings from the likes of Liberty, Winweb, Kashflow and even FreeAgent to put stakes in the ground the incumbents will be hard pressed to roll over. The days of brand are over and the fact that all of the vendors I’m mentioning appeared in the email should be testament to that.
It is clear however that the newer entrants will need to flesh out their offerings and provide integrations to a variety of systems if they are to provide the business services customers are demanding. The days of the stand alone accounting package are clearly numbered.
In the meantime, I advised this customer to return to NetSuite and beat it up over service. NetSuite won’t want to be seeing customer attrition, especially as it gears up (allegedly) for an IPO.
Technorati Tags: accounting applications, exchequer, free agent, freeagent central, Intuit, kashflow, liberty accounts, MYOB, netsuite, Pearl, Sage, Winweb
