[Infographic]: SaaS Capabilities Meet Expectations

This post was first written and published by me for BootStrapToday.

TechRepublic’s informal online survey in February reveals that an overwhelming 91% of companies (n=105) implementing SaaS solutions are mighty pleased with their outcomes.

This survey also reveals that cloud computing will continue to grow at a healthy pace, and Gartner’s prediction supports the healthy growth of cloud. It says that by 2015, worldwide SaaS revenue is expected to reach $22.1 billion dollars.

The survey points out that mobile access is one of the reasons for companies to move to cloud. Microsoft Windows mobile operating system stands out as the ‘most wanted’ from the SaaS vendors, as this infographic shows.

Interestingly, the respondents of TechRepublic’s survey also pointed out several characteristics that they wanted in a SaaS provider, and ‘performance’ topped that list. To get the holistic picture of SaaS, it is also important to note here that the benefits of SaaS (as suggested by Forrester analyst Stephen Mann) are mostly universal.

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What about Google+?

What about Google+? Google, being a big brand people love to associate with, can pose stiff competition to any market leader in any of the consumer internet services. No doubt! Similar is the case with Google+. The media is abuzz with speculations to what it will do to the social networking world. Will it replace Facebook and the users will take to it with a zoom? Maybe.

There are many points of views which I want to summarise first before trying to draw any logical conclusion.

Features:

Google+ has features which lets people have better control over their privacy with the people they network with. Google+ has circles which lets users segregate their friends depending on the type of acquaintance a person might have with each of them. The user gets to decide what content to share with which circle. At the same time Google+ lets you share content publicly too.

Then there is Hangout which lets you choose people from any circle and have a video chat with up to 10 people at a time. Circles and hangout are the two promising features of Google+ which can create the pull effect to increase the users exponentially.

Brand value and Fan following:

Another aspect for Google+ is that it is a platform from the brand Google which has trust, confidence and fan following with many internet users due to many of the Google’s earlier products such as Gmail, Search and Google Docs. That’s good enough a reason for users to consider Google+ as their social networking platform, as all their favourite services will be under one umbrella of Google brand.

Changing Social Needs of the Internet Users since Facebook was Launched:

Facebook users have come of age since it was launched. The initial users were primarily the college students who were there to network with their friends. Networking needs and styles are very different during college stage and the subsequent stages of life where people move on with their professional and personal family lives. The social networking needs change. Due to the changed needs you may not want to continue being friends with some people with whom you were friends back in college days. You may not want to be tagged in someone’s picture and not be able to untag it. It is at times annoying when you move on in your life out of college.

At the same time social networking is the thing that people need and want especially having experienced it with Facebook and LinkedIn. To all these issues that are posed by Facebook, Google+ can provide a solution. But before I draw any conclusion it also important to note that the big-wigs in the social networking world understand that privacy in social networking is not an issue for the young. It is an issue for the older generation. It must also be noted that the behaviour on the internet is perceived to be very different than from the real life for most people.

If we take the essence of all the above points of views, it will be practical to say that maybe Google+ will be more acceptable by the professional who are now working with a job. That will also include those young users of the Facebook who have now grown up and are out of college. With Google+ they might want to start afresh. For such users Google+ might be the opportunity to dump their Facebook accounts and create their profiles afresh with more carefully chosen content, pictures and friends.  Having said that, I think that Google+ has a potential market in the age group of 24 years and above which is huge. Google also has the advantage of riding on its brand value and the trust that it has built with many professionals world-wide. Hence integrating the sleek features that Google+ is offering and the not-so-obvious needs of the people, Facebook might see a drift in certain types of profiles to Google+. Facebook might still be the first choice for social networking with the majority of school/college students and with the celebrities.

Meet Some of the Women Entrepreneurs Featured In the Book

Good Enough Never Is

“Good enough never is,” says Fields. “Set your standards so high that even the flaws are considered excellent.”*

“Good enough never is”, a business philosophy closely associated with Mrs. Debbi Fields, is one of my favourite quotes. When you are out there in the market providing a service or a product, what do you think defines “good enough” for your product or service? Nothing! “Good enough” is just a milestone or a stage in the continuous process of improving the quality of your service or product. So it keeps moving further and it is difficult to capture it [for your business] within the bounds of a definition for a long time-period or for that matter, even for the moment when you try to define it!

There can be two viewpoints here – one, that you can reach near-excellence, but can never actually achieve excellence. If you follow this tenet then you will always work for improvement - unless it is "good enough"! Two, that no matter how much you work to make something excellent, there will always be someone somewhere in time and space who would not be a satisfied customer - who will not find your product/service "good enough". So, you judge the "fit-for-the-purpose" state of your product/service for that time and go to the market.

What do these two viewpoints mean for Entrepreneurs? If you choose the second viewpoint, then the startup runs a risk of getting beaten down because of lack of excellence. But if you choose the first viewpoint then, for an entrepreneur who plans to launch his/her start-up, this may sound extremely unpractical and daunting. After all, if that were the case [that good enough never is] then a start-up can never take off. 

The point that should be appreciated here is that “good enough never is” should always be applied in relativity; it should be a mantra for a continuous effort towards the detail to quality. From an entrepreneur’s point of view, it is better to look at it in this way. Let us assume that you are either addressing a niche or new market with a product. For example, if you are providing a software product then you must see which features you can do with just being ‘good enough” and which features need nothing less than excellence [or close to it]. Your validation stage of Entrepreneurial Process would have helped you in adjusting the requirements and features that you have planned to finally roll out your product with. You should keep listening to your customers and judging the future trends to meet the new expectation levels of “good enough”. This way you will see your product evolve into what the market needs. Seek for perfections that could make a difference to your startup at that stage. Anything secondary could be “fit for the purpose”. But if you are venturing into a crowded market with a 'me-too' model, then the “good enough” should be nothing less than excellence - ever.

Since good enough never is, hence there is always a spark for innovative thinking and it brings out better value propositions. Open markets, globalization, efficient flow of information and business philosophies like “good enough never is” are the important factors that propagate  Entrepreneurship.

http://www.evancarmichael.com/Famous-Entrepreneurs/1558/Lesson-4-Good-Enough-Never-Is.html

How Can Failure Benefit Entrepreneurs?

Once the man arrived at a certain stage of evolution where he has been called ‘ civilized’ the biggest fear in his life has been the fear of failure. In our civilized societies, which are driven by defined patterns of activities bound by cultures, everyone wants to be successful as per the defined parameters of the society. Speaking specifically in the Indian context, in our generation we [people in their early thirties and forties] are considered successful if we get a ‘job’ and if we are constantly getting promotions and salary hike every year. Any college graduate who has not secured a job on campus faces the humiliation of not ‘getting accepted’ in his family, friends and even in the corporate world. That’s how ‘getting a job’ [after your studies] is wired into our minds. We fail to consider anything else as a possibility as that is not the preferred metrics for success in our current societal mindset.

Since nobody wants to fail, hence nobody wants to risk into venturing out differently. Entrepreneurship also gets the same treatment. Entrepreneurship is fairly a new ideology yet to be absorbed by the parents so that they can show it as an alternative or preferred career to their children. Entrepreneurship is equal to taking high risk and of course implies high risk of failure where your start-up may not even survive beyond a year! All the seminars, magazines, blogs etc., talk about successes to show the positives of entrepreneurship and hence make it an attractive discipline to follow. But here I would like to emphasize on the Benefits of Failure for an Entrepreneur to be actually successful.

Though failure by itself is relative but when measured by the metrics laid down by our society and culture, there are a few common threads which define success or failure of people in that society. Anyone who has not tasted failure lives in constant denial that he/she is invincible. But the fact of life is that everyone has to fail and would have failed at least once in his or her life - either in personal life or in professional life or some times in both. So it is wise to accept that failure is a part of life. As an Entrepreneur this will be extremely helpful because possibility of failing is much much higher than the possibility succeeding.

Failure teaches many lessons which success does not teach. Failure teaches perseverance, brings out the fortitude to correct the mistakes and try again, removes the fear of failure itself, instills higher self-confidence to bounce back, gives you a chance of honest introspection of your strengths and weaknesses and teaches you astute ability to analyse situations. At the rock bottom that the failure brings you to, you are very likely to put all your energy and mind into building your dream as at the rock bottom you lose the fear of losing anymore. And when such a situation happens, success becomes inevitable.

So as an entrepreneur you should not fear failure. Most likely you will fail in your first venture. But then you will have gained experience which will be unparalleled, and you will be able to judge the best of what ‘to do’ and what ‘not to do’. The world of entrepreneurship talks about success stories. But seldom do people talk about failures. There are many entrepreneurs whose success stories we all read but we do not know about their failed ventures. All of such entrepreneurs have had the taste of failure and have bounced back only to emerge as successful entrepreneurs.

Front Cover of the Book