Neochange | Driving Effective User Adoption

Hope you're enjoying the summer if you live in the northern hemisphere, getting in as many BBQs as possible. Even though some of us at Neochange were not in the US, we did celebrate the 4th of July and are now back to moving the effective user adoption cause forward.

To that point, in November last year we published an opinion piece focused on the maintenance revenue protection benefits of effective user adoption. That article has been very popular. Give or take a few hits we have experienced approximately 2,200 downloads across the globe. Maybe not YouTube worthy numbers but there is definitely some interest in the software community.

To follow-up on this interest we have developed another short piece that proposes the three critical investment decisions facing software companies that wish to compete using effective usage. This piece attempts to discuss the investment prioritization challenges faced by software companies attempting to evolve as the software market matures. Let us know what you think.

As much as we want our ideas to be shared, we are much more satisfied working with market leaders to put them into practice. Currently we are privileged to be working with a software veteran that is taking their passion for customer satisfaction to the next level. The company is called Meridium. We have a very short interview with their CEO, Bonz Hart, to share with you his thoughts around the benefits of effective usage and collaborating within large software eco-systems with giants like SAP to increase customer's value realization.

Point of View - Interview with Bonz Hart, CEO of Meridium

We had a brief chance to catch a few pearls of wisdom from Meridium's globe-trotting CEO, Bonz Hart. Here's what he had to say on the on the topic of Effective User Adoption.

What market opportunity do you see for software vendors that enable their customer's effective usage?

Software over the years has gone from a novelty to meeting core business functions to changing the way business processes are executed. Because of this evolution software is now being evaluated based on continuous value delivered not just initial value.

Software companies that can grow the value delivered and provide capabilities to overcome whatever hurdles impede their customer's success will survive industry changes. Ongoing success is no longer just about having good software it's about value delivered, we see effective usage as a way to accelerate growth and keep close to our customers.

How is SAP's recent endorsement of your RCMO solution connected to increasing effective usage for SAP's customers?

SAP has figured out that an ecosystem of unique software companies working together off a common platform is stronger than any one company. Providing software to meet a wider variety of needs increases the usage of all the products in the ecosystem because the shared and enhanced data becomes more valuable to multiple users.

Also, bringing Meridium's RCMO solution into the asset performance management eco-system enhances customer decision-making which by definition increases effective usage.

What advice can you give software executives that are considering an initiative to increase effective usage of their product suite?

It isn't just technology or features and functions that will increase effective usage, the battlefield has widened so you must communicate your software as a value delivery mechanism. Not just to increase sales, although effective usage can deliver raving fans that provide success stories and references, but also to help customers stay focused and committed to extending your product throughout their organization.

It also helps to include invested stakeholders in understanding the wider battlefield. We are lucky to have customers and partners that can help to ensure we are on the right track. We might have been able to get there ourselves, but it would have taken much longer and we would have had to go through multiple versions before finding success.

That said, it does take a commitment throughout your organization to reconsider current business practices and to work together in new ways.

As growth rates in some verticals slow and new business models put pressure on prices, software executives are looking for new ways to grow profits. At the same time, enterprise buyers are struggling to achieve the levels of functionality utilization and user penetration that delivers desired business results. For many software verticals, enterprise buyers are achieving less than 20% of their potential business value. This effective usage challenge represents a significant opportunity for profit growth if providers are willing to redirect their focus and investments.

This paper discusses the revenue and cost benefits available to software providers who choose to enable their customers' effective usage. Specifically we discuss the three critical investment decisions software executives face should they choose to pursue effective usage driven profits.
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Industry Statistics

The following insights / statistics have been extracted from The Aberdeen Report: State of the Market 2007.

Revenue growth & profitability were cited by 73% of respondents as the top corporate goals of their company.

Business execution, well ahead of new products, was perceived as the key to achieving corporate business goals.

Pricing compression, followed by market share erosion were listed as the key challenges coming into 2007.

Company reputation, achieved through customer satisfaction levels was listed as the number one competitive advantage to defend against these market challenges.

We could not make a better argument for software companies to pursue effective usage and the value it delivers to customers as a key basis of competition.

Software Business 2007 - Santa Clara, CA, October 2nd - 3rd, 2007
The annual conference focuses on current strategic business, financial and technology issues and growth opportunities facing top executives of software companies. Neochange has been invited to discuss the three critical investment decisions facing software companies that wish to compete using effective usage.
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SLAM 2007 Conference - Denver, CO, June 6th - 7th, 2007
Neochange presented Effective User Adoption™ Strategies to key executives, managers and consultants of leading and fast-growth software companies.

Software 2007 - Santa Clara, CA, May 8th - 9th, 2007
Neochange co-hosted a discussion session with the Chasm Institute on how software companies can drive their customer's effective user adoption. Software 2007 is a gathering of 2,000 software industry executives. Other speakers included Microsoft's Steve Ballmer and Salesforce.com's Marc Benioff.