Our CEO, Pankaj Malviya, has been published on GigaOm recently discussing the how IT and PaaS (Platform-as-a-Service) solutions can work hand in hand.
Below is the complete article:
The Long Tail of IT
Pankaj Malviya, June 25, 2008
Everyone who has worked in — or even with — an IT department knows that the demand for projects always exceeds IT’s ability to deliver them all. IT is able to address only those most highly prioritized, core business projects that receive the budget, staff and priority to develop, test, deliver and maintain over time. If projects don’t make the “A” list, the project either doesn’t get done or workers have to find a way to do it themselves.
Today’s more tech-savvy, Web 2.0 workforce has increasingly resorted to getting the tools it needs from SaaS software providers. In an ideal world, IT must be an active partner in prescribing technology to help the rest of the business work better together, move information efficiently, and get the answers needed to make the next strategic or tactical decisions. This is what the Long Tail of IT is all about: really important IT automation projects that would help the business but that consistently don’t make the list of must-do projects.
The platform-as-a-service evolution that is starting to emerge (for example, with solutions from Amazon, Google and LongJump) is one that has potential to restore the luster of the IT department, because these solutions are focused on delivering “customized, situational applications” that connect to a range of common and uncommon processes.
Platform-as-a-service provides a turnkey environment to build applications that teams can use to share data and collaborate. There is no infrastructure to install, and the time and cost to build, deploy and customize new applications is greatly reduced.
PaaS solutions should also be able to integrate with other sources of data using simple web-services APIs. Connecting to enterprise data sources securely is fundamental. Additionally, customization is extremely important; applications that are created must meet the unique requirements of businesses. PaaS should provide a visual way to create new forms, model and automate processes and workflows, and implement actionable data policies.
Rather than needing to work with a one-size-fits-all application (and an extensive, dedicated IT architecture), PaaS platforms need to be able to draw from functional domain experts from Marketing to Sales to HR to easily customize applications, or quickly create and publish situational applications, that are better suited to their unique business requirements. The PaaS platforms also need to deliver enterprise-level service, security, and hardware and software architecture, as well as rich functionality for each application, ranging from configurable dashboard widgets to a flexible database architecture that enables extensive relationships between application data, search capabilities across all applications, etc.
PaaS’ rise is built upon need. The fact that PaaS is on demand and in the cloud is driven by the reality that IT isn’t able to support its multi-departmental constituents with a flexible business platform of information and collaboration. Information workers don’t have time to build a server, manage a database, design a UI, etc. PaaS offers a convenient, predictable, leverageable alternative to yesterday’s big IT initiatives.
That doesn’t mean IT is off the hook, however. In fact, PaaS needs IT to succeed. Not just to bless the technology around security and scalability issues, but to be the guiding light of information management:
How do you organize your data permissions?
What data needs to connect to other data to form applications?
Do the new applications meet required compliance standards for users’ data protection? What should that data and application look like?
How much is customer-facing, and how much is back-end?
What external systems need to connect to this data?
PaaS gives IT something it never had: the ability to manage the ‘I’ without the need for too much ‘T.’ No hardware to install; no database to optimize; no web servers to update. PaaS provides structured, centralized data and processes that are enterprise-agnostic. The focus is then realigned on the applications one can build and the business problems one can solve, not on the technology that built them.
It’s very clear that the infrustructure of web products and components is starting to consolidate into ready-to-go solutions from hosting, applications, and (like LongJump) complete enterprise application development plaforms.
According to Om Malik:
The platforms on which we have done business for over a decade are starting to provide diminishing returns; the smart money, meanwhile, is seeking new platform structures.
We completely agree with Om’s assessment. The time is certainly right for Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) solutions like LongJump. With functionality on the web ever improving, the need to drive down operational costs always looming, the agility of a business a paramount importance, it’s only a matter of time for enterprises large and small to move some key areas of their business on the grid.
Recently, there was a news report on how a lot of families are dealing with the (possible) recession by growing their own fruits and vegetables. Makes perfect sense. It cuts down on expensive gas, its self-replenishing, and you can grow what you need. It also is tasty and satisifying. What’s the point?
There is a term in sales called “low-hanging fruit,” identifying prospects and customers that you can capture and sell to quickly without a lot of background work or negotiation. In sales, being able to identify which businesses are due for some type of re-marketing or outreach, can reduce the chances of existing easy revenue slipping through the cracks. Its easier to sell repeat business than it is to start from scratch.
Here’s an example. Let’s say you’re a restaurateur and you keep contact with your frequent patrons that come to your restaurant. CRM Solutions like LongJump’s Sales Force Automation suite would enable you to pull data from your cash registers and let you analyze across both data sets when one of your regulars hasn’t paid a visit in a few weeks.
How can you use this valuable customer information? Add an email marketing campaign with LongJump Campaign Manager to repeat each week for all your missing regulars with a “we miss you” type message, a coupon for something unique like a free bottle of house wine with dinner for two, and a tantalizing list of new menu items.
If they come, again push that register data back into LongJump, and send that customer a thank you, with the same offer that they can pass along to one of their friends.
You’ve now created a low-cost, self-replenishing, referral-driven campaign.
Before CRMs, contact managers were the norm. They sat like an unattached rolodex on the sales rep’s computer, usually built as a part of their email client. But contact managers put too much sales information on an island, making sharing and management of customer information difficult. They also significantly put your data at risk. A hard drive crash or stolen computer can debilitate you for weeks.
If you’re a team of 10 or more, relying on contact management software to run your business is a lot like dialing up each member of your team individually and asking “how’s it going” and trying to condense that into actionable intelligence.
Part of what makes real CRMs so powerful is establishing a sales portal for all necessary information regarding accounts. This involves pooling data from various internal business systems and often requires a commitment to help from IT departments. LongJump can provide all the necessary integration points, enabling internal organizations to establish the necessary project requirements within their teams to get the data.
Data integration is critically important to getting sales teams to actively use the tool because of the time-savings they achieve by gaining a 360º view of a customer in single screen, including their orders, customer issues, credit status, finance notes, contract detail, credit limits, contacts, etc.
This complete view of the customers is what enables people to break away from emails, spreadsheets, physical file folders and sticky notes as the convenience choice. And it allows the business itself to maintain a record of account activities and contacts for seamless hand-off to other Reps or teams when assignments change. LongJump provides that view of all the customer data you need.
LongJump is designed to integrate with existing enterprise data using a variety of methods (including REST-based Web Services). And once that data comes into the platform, a series of actionable processes can be put into place, automatically triggering workflows, emails, tasks, SOAP messages, changes in the data, or even internal scripts to further automate business processes. And LongJump’s reporting engine enables even the most basic user to design reports based on mashed up data.
In short, there is no comparison to LongJump with your run-of-the-mill contact management software.
Partners Drive Day-to-Day Relationships with Client, Enjoy Upsell Opportunities and Earn Multi-Year Commissions
SAN FRANCISCO, CA, Friday, April 25, 2008 – Today at the Web 2.0 Conference and Expo, LongJump, a provider of highly customizable, interconnected on-demand business applications, unveiled a “Jumpstart Partner” reseller program. The new program serves the requirements of resellers, developers, and consultants with either a vertical market focus or a functional business area focus, such as CRM or HR. LongJump helps partners implement their technical expertise and best practices and provide customized consulting services and training to businesses.
LongJump’s Jumpstart Partner Program is ideal for resellers who want to leverage a true multi-tenant, Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) platform and deliver custom database-driven applications that meet their customers’ needs. The program was designed to provide partners with an exceptionally attractive incremental revenue channel where they can monetize LongJump’s platform with their own premium services.
“To stay on the leading edge, resellers want to participate in the growing SaaS market. Therefore, LongJump plans to invest aggressively in our partners through lead generation campaigns, business opportunity referrals and generous multi-year commission plans. We believe that resellers will find LongJump a true partner in growing their business and maximizing revenue-building opportunities,” noted Pankaj Malviya, LongJump’s CEO.
Although SaaS-based solutions are growing in popularity, resellers who have customarily delivered on-premise solutions have looked to leverage the ease of delivery of SaaS but still maintain a strong connection with their customers and provide premium services. With its new program, LongJump will maintain the customer relationship merely from a technology perspective, but the day-to-day relationship with the customer will be owned by each partner. LongJump’s robust enterprise-grade feature set and uniquely affordable price point also gives partners the opportunity to upsell their services across the entire organization.
The Jumpstart Partner Program has two participation tiers: a Silver Medalist and a premier Gold Medalist level. Certified partners benefit by having more leads directed to them by LongJump. There is a one-time program fee for certification, but to kick-start its program, LongJump will waive the program fee for the first 20 partners who sign up at the Gold Medalist level.
As part of its Jumpstart Partner Program, LongJump will provide comprehensive sales tools and materials, sales support for complex deals, lead generation and qualification programs, training and certification designed to rapidly prepare partners to build applications and provide custom implementation services to their existing customers or new ones. LongJump also plans to participate in co-marketing initiatives with Gold Medalist partners.
LongJump’s introduction of its new Workflow Designer had some great comments from the media. Its ability to map, route and automate business processes is something everyone can easily understand and see value from. Plus, its uniquely simple visual design definitely breaks away from most web-based applications.
“This process would ordinarily be accomplished over email or even physical slips of paper that make their way through various ‘in’ and ‘out’ boxes around the office. Now it can all be handle in one central online location with variously designated user accounts for employees.”
“Workflow is a nice addition, not only because it helps all of the features of LongJump work together well, and go to work for you, making sure emails are sent, events are added to the calendar, customers are served promptly and more, but also because it does the same with the third party applications.”
”Smart vendors are the ones that, like LongJump, go the extra mile and actually build applications that their business customers will find useful. This tackles both aspects of the curse of customization: you give people somewhere to start, and you constrain them into choices where you at least have some idea of what their needs are likely to be, so you can make sure you’ve built those needs into the platform already.”
“Human Resources may establish a customized workflow process for new job candidates, whereby the workflow process takes the potential candidate’s record through multiple hand-offs and stages, including resume review, telephone interview, in-person interview and multiple interviewer sign-offs and approvals.”
Last year, LongJump gave a sneak peak of the customizable business applications platform at the Under the Radar conference presented in Mountain View, California by Dealmaker Media. Today LongJump is back as a member of the Graduate Circle comprising a hand-picked group of companies that have “graduated” from being under the radar and are gaining major momentum.
If you happen to be in Microsoft’s offices, do stop by the break area where we can show you some of the cool new stuff we’re working on. Our CEO Pankaj Malviya is also going to be presenting an update about our current successes as well as our vision and plan going forward.
By the looks of the companies showcased and our own momentum, it is an exciting time to be providing webware business services and applications as more of your typical backend operations and enterprise data moves necessarily to the web. The on-demand application promise is key to strengthening collaboration, management and information exchange between staff, departments, partners, and customers.
Vator.tv’s Bambi Francisco had a followup interview with CEO Pankaj Malviya and how LongJump was able to reach a point of self-sufficiency and profitability without backing from any venture capital firms.
Pankaj states that when you are bootstrapping on your own, the key is working every customer relationship to its full potential so you can build revenue as well as an enduring customer.
LongJump’s CEO Pankaj Malviya provided some perspective to the entrepreneur and venture capital community on how LongJump built its business to the readers of the Under the Radar blog. The posting entitled “To VC or Not VC – Going It Alone,” provides the history of the company as well as the approach it took getting to where it is today.
There are times when a VC will let you get away with things, because they’ve already hedge their bets with you by investing in other companies. They might overlook a bad decision and tend not to intervene until it’s too late. Going at it alone forces you to grow within your own means. It’s also the best way to ensure applied innovation – that is, innovation with real revenue potential rather than just a technological potential.
Ok. It doesn’t seem that hard a question to answer, but there are still a lot of people who don’t think of relational databases when they think of how to build applications in LongJump. Yet it is the most basic structure in computing and especially web computing. Consider the most popular online sites and services: eBay, Amazon, iTunes, Netflix, Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn. At their very core, if you took away the whiz-bang features and the great content, you would have in essence relational databases.
