BasicGov / BLOG

Change is good!

I recently did an interview with a local journalist about how we moved CloudBench from enterprise software to a SaaS business model (see BC Business article from interview, “The Accidental Innovator”). While we’re still learning how to explain the benefits of SaaS to our local government marketplace, there were some key lessons I learned as we moved from traditional software to a subscription-based product.

Lesson 1: Sometimes the safe, proven solution is the most dangerous for both customers and suppliers.  When we still ran an enterprise business, it was hard work to get customers live quickly.  This was frustrating for them because anyone who takes months – even years – to go live will eventually question their purchase decision.  And it was expensive for us, as more and more working capital was needed to span the time we were working for clients who weren’t ready to pay us.

Lesson 2: SaaS and cloud computing were already being adopted by businesses and consumers.  You didn’t need to be Nostradamus to predict that government would also adopt the technology.

Lesson 3: You can’t run a Hummer franchise under the same roof as a Toyota dealership.  Building a SaaS business alongside traditional enterprise software is a recipe for internal strife.  Enterprise revenues are threatened by SaaS’s dramatically lower cost and time to implement.  As the SaaS team wins more business, enterprise revenues are cannibalized and the staff on the traditional side of the business don’t know whether to switch jobs or change company.

So was the change easy?  No.  Would I do it again? Absolutely!

It is encouraging to see that in a recent survey conducted by Mustel Group and sponsored by us (BasisGov) that software is being used by local governments to help manage neighborhood complaints (code enforcement) but there is still a myth among the non-users that it is costly.

• Approximately 80% said that the foreclosure crisis has resulted in an increase in citizen complaints over the past year;
• The most frequent complaints were overgrown yards (87%), property damage (61%) and garbage dumping (47%);
• 88% do not plan to increase staff to manage the overall problem;
• 79% of the municipalities surveyed use software applications to manage their code enforcement process and already one in four of those were using web-based software;
• among non-users, 61% thought cost a deterrent in planning to implement software.

With the rise in foreclosures, increase in related complaints at city halls and the freeze on hiring more staff, overcoming the high cost myth will help many municipalities.

Do you think cost is the only deterrent?

(Photo credit – http://www.flickr.com/photos/respres/ / CC BY 2.0)