How markets evolve is a topic for endless debate. Anyone who’s been in an industry for any length of time will have seen trends come and go; the IT cycle of in-house to out-source to in-house being one that immediately springs to mind. There’s no right or wrong, just what fits at the time. The key is to be aware of timing and have periodic checks and balances in place to assess when it’s right to reconsider a long-term plan which may well have had its day. Business circumstances vary after all – the only constant is change, as they say.
This brings me to Sunrise’s own market – IT Service Management software – and by analogy, to our own situation, as a medium sized technology provider. We use a CRM tool in day to day support of the smooth running of our sales team. As with thousands of other organisations, we assessed the market some years ago and were drawn to the emerging market leader, a fully specified SaaS tool, offering a GUI we could all understand, unbeatable levels of functionality, a roadmap to cover every eventuality and – at the time – pricing per user that was deemed acceptable to support our then current and future needs. Some years later, we found ourselves facing our annual contract review, with an increase in cost dictated from overseas HQ but no place for negotiation. Reality dawned, as my team and I looked at how much of the all-singing, all dancing toolkit we were actually using; things had changed and we were now being asked to pay well over the odds just to run with the ‘safe’ name. So we took the plunge, researched the market, found a tool which did near enough 100% of what we wanted for well below half the price. And we switched, we’re missing nothing and we’re happy – the team is just as productive (if not more so, now we’ve cleared out the clutter) and the budget is happier too.
ITSM software is no different and a reality is dawning there too. One of our recent new customers followed a similar story to our own. They balked at the non-negotiable price increase of their incumbent global ITSM SaaS provider, reassessed what they really needed and found software to cover the basics and more, and do it well. They swapped 400 named licences for around 40 concurrent, got a tool that could do over 90% of what they wanted at 40% of the cost. A minimal trade-off for an outcome that just makes sense.
At Sunrise, we like to think that we can offer functional, easy to use and adaptable ITSM software at an agreed price point that fits the customer’s needs now, and for several years to come. Even as things change – and we know they do – rest assured that we’ll never be the ‘talk to the hand’ vendor in the market – we’re independent and aim to be good partners to all our customers. We’re always happy to talk when your reality dawns.