The next step is finding a way to effectively convey that to those interested in making the move. Unfortunately, too many toss operational changes to the wayside on focus just on the software.

Damon, to your point, I think that as success stories permeate SaaS communities where the success is driven by a full operational shift, a mantra of the “right way of doing things” will make its way into the minds and plans of ISVs making the shift.

As consultants in the operations space , we are starting to see our fair share of traditional “packaged” software vendors dabbling with the SaaS model. Most of the problems we see with companies who are trying to make the jump to SaaS (as opposed to our e-commerce and pure play SaaS clients who have no roots in traditional delivery models) are rooted in the fact that their company culture hasn’t absorbed that fact that they are now in the business of OPERATING software not the business of MAKING software.

Yes, of course someone has to make the software in order for there to be a service… but that’s not the driving point of the company. In a successful SaaS company, everything (from the developers to the janitors) exists to support those operations. Operations provides the service and the service is what makes you money. Developers don’t like to hear this, salesmen don’t like to hear this, and finance and marketing folks often miss the subtlety and don’t know how to adjust their budgets and attention. Turf wars abound.

Take an informal poll of 20 software companies trying to make the jump. Those companies that get this… probably flourishing. Those that don’t… probably stuck in the mud.

Companies that think they can “SaaS-ify” themselves without fundamentally rethinking their entire organization are in for a really rocky road.

Thanks for the write-up
Cheers,