Trends

1
Trends Concepts in the Software Industry II

• 360 Fact Finding

2
360 View Exploring the Solution Space

• Contact Subject Matter experts
• What is the business process?
• Are there colleagues/people in your network that
  have worked in the solution space previously?
• Gather Competitive Info
• What are software and service competitors
  providing in this solution space?
• Consider Analysts Thought Leaders
• What have industry and subject matter analysts
  written about the solution?
• What is the press writing about the solution
  space?
• Research User and Customer Needs
• What are the needs of the true end users of the
  solution?
• What are the needs of others such as IT,
  implementation teams, partners in the solution
  space?

3
Share your Research

• Present and discuss key points such as
• Market revenue trends
• Changing customer needs
• Competitive offering
• Emerging technologies
• Market readiness
• Use this information to
• Understand the business process
• Constraints and opportunities
• Plan further research

4
Resources for Competitive Research

• Salesforce.com Vendor of SaaS CRM applications,
  scales to various company sizes
  www.salesforce.com
• Quickbooks Very common accounting software for
  small and midsize companies http//quickbooks.intu
  it.com/
• Example of invoice creation and tracking of
  accounts receivables in Quickbooks Online
  Edition http//oe.quickbooks.com/money_in.cfm
• Peachtree (owned by Sage) http//www.peachtree.co
  m/peachtreeaccountingline/
• Netsuite Integrated system to manage
  accounting/enterprise resource planning, CRM, and
  e-commerce.
• Payment and dunning part of the financials module
  http//www.netsuite.com/portal/products/netsuite/m
  ain.shtml

5
Resources for Competitive Research

• Workday On demand enterprise business services,
  founded a spin-off of PeopleSoft.
  http//www.workday.com/who_we_are/
• Includes Human Capital Management, Financials,
  Revenue Management and Resources Management.
• SAP Business One Includes amongst others
  Accounting and Financials for handling of
  financial transactions including general
  ledger, journal entries, budgeting, and account
  setup and maintenance in one system.http//www.
  sap.com/smallbusiness/solutions/overview/index.epx
  
• http//www.business-one-beratung.de/
• Microsoft Dynamics AX One of Microsofts
  enterprise resource planning software products.
  It is part of the Microsoft Dynamics family.
• http//www.microsoft.com/dynamics/ax/product/overv
  iew.mspx

6
Resources for Competitive Research

• Collmex Pro as the most powerful solution in the
  market
• Product Collmex Pro ERP on demand for
  freelancer and small businesses up to 20
  employees, including Payments and Dunning
  http//www.collmex.de/
• Online-Demo http//www.collmex.de/tour_p.htmlzah
  lung
• Sesam Accounting software for German speaking
  counties. Das Buchhaltungspaket enthält
  mehrstufiges Mahnwesen mit Enterprise Service
  Repository und Mahngebühren http//www.sesam.ch/f
  ormulare/form_CDversion2008sesam.asp
• Overview of accounting software for the German
  market http//www.buchhaltungssoftware.in-resear
  ch.info/index.php
• http//www.heise.de/software/download/o0g0s3l4k301
  ?stq30
• Free business software demos sorted by topic, or
  according to size or needs companies
  https//www.2020software.com/

7
What to do now?

• Do your competitive research during the following
  working session.
• Capture the most important findings
• Be ready to present to the group on Tuesday
  morning
• Insights/surprises from your research
• Potential unmet needs (not covered by ByDesign)
• Local uniqueness