Archive for October, 2009

In the wake of news reports that Venture Capital fund raising had its lowest quarter since ‘03, you might be surprised that very sophisticated buy-side firms such as Hedge Funds, Venture Capital firms and Private Equity firms often rely on the must rudimentary, home made fund raising methods (see article: Only 17 venture capital firms raise money in Q3 — fewest in 15 years.) For example, many firms are still tracking their efforts in Excel or via notes in Outlook. It’s a very manual, time consuming and arduous way to track and manage their efforts.

Ironically, this is happening at a time when it has never been easier for a Venture firm to switch to better systems with almost no effort. The same browser they use to search for news and research can also be used for the industry’s most sophisticated CRM. No hardware needed other than the laptops they are now using and access to the Internet.

Whether they use our service built on the force.com platform or on top of salesforce.com or some of the other services out there, you have to wonder why, during this time of great stress they are still trying to make do with Excel and Outlook. If it is cost that is holding them back, you really have to wonder. We have priced our service at about the price of a couple of cups of coffee a day on Wall Street. On top of that, our Marketing Department is launching a “buy one get one free” promotion.

If you are in one of these financial firms and suffering from the funding drought – maybe it’s time to think about improving your pumping equipment?

At least 5 people asked me that question in the last 2 weeks.  These people are customers, competitors as well as our partners. Everyone has been surprised at our success in the Financial market with our Force.com based services (or products, as some would call them) to manage operations for Capital Markets and Asset Management firms. But then, they figured it makes sense since Navatar is offering the lowest cost option to those who have no money to spend these days.

Is it true then, that our Financial Services solutions for Force.com are popular because they’re low cost? Of course. Navatar’s solutions to manage CRM, Operations and Portfolio for these firms are probably the most cost effective alternatives. They deliver on the Cloud Computing promise – to lower costs and enable scalability as financial firms navigate the turbulent waters of today and prepare for the future. You can read about how Transparent Value, a Guggenheim Partners Company is achieving this, in the article, Asset Management Firm Moving Apps to the Cloud, written by Penny Crosman at Wall Street & Technology.

However, there is another important aspect to all of this.  Around 60% of our financial customers bought from us since someone (another firm) recommended us.  You would think the recommender probably said, “Yes, indeed, the cost is low and the product has all the features we need.”  In reality, our recommenders endorse us for much more than that - they are happy to recommend us for the combination of product features and the service they receive from folks well versed in Financial Services. They like the idea of a one-stop-shop they can turn to, for anything related to running their operations efficiently. And it’s all baked into the cost of the service.

The service aspect really is the crux of the Cloud Computing model.   A cloud service provider is a company that delivers cloud services as part of its business model. The public “Cloud” will be an abstract place through which service providers will deliver things like storage as a service, software as a service, or maybe even sushi as a service in Indiana one day.  But the common link between all those things is, and ever shall be, the delivery of “service”.  That quote is from an article Delivering Cloud Services: ISVs – Change or Die or both! written by Daryl Plummer at Gartner.

So, let’s ask the question again. Is it really the cost?  My answer is that the big differentiator is the value that the Cloud Computing model enables us to provide.  It makes us successful and it is exactly that value which will help our Financial Services customers take advantage of the new upcoming opportunities in this downturn.