According to TradingMarkets.com, Salesforce.com has posted a year on year increae in net income of 93%. Almost double its net income of a year ago.
That's pretty impressive stuff. And with SAP coming out recently and finally acknowledging that on demand is where their future lies, we can see that SaaS (as we posted) is very quickly moving from challenger and curiosity - to the obvious choice for business software.
When I used to work in the ERP game, way back in the dim dark nineties, (We had no iPhones then...!) a Google search for ERP yielded pages of job ads...today it yields pages of companies hawking for work.
For consultants who, like me, grew up in that era, and made a career out of it, it must be hard recognizing that the magic formula for consulting (or any business), Scarcity + Value, is quickly coming to an end.
The dawn of SaaS consulting
The good thing, is that business process consulting, and the implementation of business software hasn't gone away - it is just evolving. And we too need to evolve...
The old days of 14 month sales cycles, for an 18 month project, which fixed the problem long after it ceased to be urgent, are quickly fading into business history.
Today you are just as likely to be implementing niche products in short time frames for smaller budgets. The focus is now on business process rather than implementation. For the long suffering clients this is a great day - software implementation has finally become more about implementing than about the software.
The truly great thing about SaaS consulting is that you don't just have to be a reseller or a passive participant. You can actually create your own using Force.com or other Platform as a Service providers. (Check out some instructional videos here)
Imagine building the niche online system that you will be able to use to generate even greater service revenues, as well as a small passive revenue from year on year license fees.
A wonderful time to be consulting...
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