托比編者按：眾所周知，國際B2B業(yè)務(wù)的發(fā)展比中國早了約20年，與B2C的占比約為8:2，80%的美國上市公司都是B2B；而在國內(nèi)，B2B的投資只占全部投資的5%，美國則達(dá)到40%。這表明國內(nèi)B2B未來有著巨大的發(fā)展空間。
為幫助國內(nèi)從業(yè)人員了解國際B2B行業(yè)發(fā)展?fàn)顩r，托比網(wǎng)從即日起開設(shè)“國際B2B”欄目，編繹國外重要文章，以最新觀點(diǎn)、最新案例、重要消息為主，原則上每日一篇，供行業(yè)人參考與借鑒。托比網(wǎng)致力于成為國內(nèi)最專注、最專業(yè)、最權(quán)威的重度垂直媒體，讓行業(yè)永遠(yuǎn)有方向，伴隨B2B企業(yè)共成長。
本文來自美國紅點(diǎn)資本的投資人托馬斯·通古斯的博客。文中的一個(gè)觀點(diǎn)非常有趣，SaaS行業(yè)格局將進(jìn)入整合的局面?？紤]到中美企業(yè)服務(wù)上有近似度，我們將此篇文章翻譯共享。以下為編譯內(nèi)容，enjoy。
托比編譯必為B2B前沿精品，歡迎轉(zhuǎn)載，請載明出處。否則必糾。
譯文：服務(wù)于銷售和營銷的軟件廠商已經(jīng)出現(xiàn)爆炸增長，3年時(shí)間從500家到超過3000家。快速擴(kuò)張的周期是不是結(jié)束了？軟件廠商們一直在搖擺，究竟是提供套裝產(chǎn)品，工具合集還是最佳單點(diǎn)解決方案哪個(gè)才是出路？
這樣破碎的生態(tài)會(huì)是常態(tài)么？Okta公司的企業(yè)商業(yè)報(bào)告指出，多數(shù)企業(yè)為10-15個(gè)企業(yè)級應(yīng)用付費(fèi)。這些應(yīng)用是與公司的IT部門提出采購的。
Netskope的云計(jì)算報(bào)告得出企業(yè)平均使用613個(gè)云應(yīng)用程序，這數(shù)字是2015年的兩倍。此外，超過20％的受訪企業(yè)使用的Saas的數(shù)量為1000多個(gè)。CEB發(fā)現(xiàn)企業(yè)超過30％的IT支出實(shí)際上是由業(yè)務(wù)人員提出并實(shí)施的。
這種情況會(huì)繼續(xù)下去嗎？ 目前IT采購的一個(gè)長期趨勢是，采購決策從首席信息官轉(zhuǎn)移到企業(yè)主手中，這是因?yàn)檫@些新方案、單點(diǎn)方案往往圍繞企業(yè)主的需求提供差異化。差異化必然帶來碎片化。使用頂級營銷自動(dòng)化解決方案實(shí)現(xiàn)獲客的營銷人員并不會(huì)輕易放棄自己正在使用的軟件。但是，這種正在擴(kuò)張的單點(diǎn)解決方案的確存在一些問題。
首先，賬單問題。 企業(yè)難以精準(zhǔn)了解在軟件上要花費(fèi)多少，這種碎片化的問題有多嚴(yán)重。
第二，大量軟件的整合無疑是一個(gè)巨大的挑戰(zhàn)。 API會(huì)起到一些作用，卻無法解決所有問題。
第三，你如何訓(xùn)團(tuán)隊(duì)熟練掌握如此多的軟件？如何讓新員工迅速上手？
第四，當(dāng)產(chǎn)品出現(xiàn)問題需要支持的時(shí)候，究竟哪個(gè)電話能找到正確的聯(lián)系人？
單點(diǎn)解決方案的優(yōu)點(diǎn)只有超過這些成本才有前途。最近10年是SaaS的第一個(gè)十年，軟件領(lǐng)域創(chuàng)業(yè)將分銷、設(shè)計(jì)、技術(shù)等等優(yōu)勢帶了進(jìn)來，甚至創(chuàng)造了新的功能場景。可以預(yù)見，那些具有可持續(xù)競爭優(yōu)勢的創(chuàng)業(yè)公司將繼續(xù)興旺。
但是，我們開始看到一些細(xì)分領(lǐng)域出現(xiàn)大量的新玩家，僅在價(jià)格上有差異。這些細(xì)分領(lǐng)域已經(jīng)確立但卻沒有足夠的護(hù)城河擋住其他進(jìn)入者。最近風(fēng)險(xiǎn)投資的火爆勢必加劇了相同領(lǐng)域競技企業(yè)的競爭。
在這樣的領(lǐng)域套裝產(chǎn)品、綜合產(chǎn)品會(huì)繼續(xù)發(fā)展，商品化是必然趨勢。
如果你主打價(jià)格戰(zhàn)，在某些程度上，你將會(huì)墊底，因?yàn)槟憧傆幸粋€(gè)成本無法消除。這時(shí)競爭將體現(xiàn)在服務(wù)上而遠(yuǎn)非產(chǎn)品，客戶獲取，技術(shù)優(yōu)勢、場景的建立能力等等將起到重大作用。盈利能力更佳的企業(yè)將最終獲勝。
上述的套裝產(chǎn)品有望給企業(yè)提供更多價(jià)值，保證單一流程、單一客戶體驗(yàn)并實(shí)現(xiàn)無縫產(chǎn)品銜接。如果沒有足夠的差異化，這將成為影響買方?jīng)Q策的重要手段。
今年，我們已經(jīng)看到超過30起10億美金規(guī)模的軟件并購案例。我們將看到更多、更大的公司開始將軟件捆綁到他們的產(chǎn)品中創(chuàng)建成SaaS組合。 如果沒有差異化或技術(shù)門檻，這可能是很好的獲勝策略。 同時(shí)，成功的創(chuàng)業(yè)公司將繼續(xù)保持他們已有的競爭優(yōu)勢：技術(shù)，執(zhí)行速度和分銷能力。
作者簡介：托馬斯·通古斯Tomasz Tunguz，紅點(diǎn)風(fēng)險(xiǎn)投資風(fēng)險(xiǎn)投資人，暢銷書《用數(shù)據(jù)獲勝》聯(lián)合作者。他投資了一系列SaaS公司，如Axial（一款適用于企業(yè)管理的“相親”應(yīng)用，幫助銀行人員和私有企業(yè)收購或出售公司，2015年完成并購交易有500多筆，多在500萬到1億美元之間），數(shù)據(jù)分析公司Dremio，中型企業(yè)管理開支的智能應(yīng)用Expensify等等，對SaaS公司頗有研究。
原文：Are We Seeing The Beginning Of SaaS Consolidation?
The number of vendors selling to sales and marketing has exploded from 500 to more than 3000 over the last three years. Are we reaching the end of an expansionary cycle? The software pendulum tends to swing between software suites, offering a collection of different tools, and best-of-breed point solutions.
But, have we reached the point where the best-of-breed, fragmented ecosystem is a permanent fixture? Okta’s Businesses at Work 2016 report calculates most enterprises pay for somewhere between 10-15 corporate applications. Those are the ones sanctioned by IT. How about the others?
Netskope’s Cloud Report calculates the average enterprise uses 613 cloud apps, a figure that doubled over the course of 2015. In addition, more than 20 percent of those surveyed use more than 1000. CEB found more than 30% of IT spend is bottoms up.
Can this continue? Consumerization of IT is a powerful secular trend that has shifted the purchasing decision from CIOs to line of business owners, because new solutions, these point solutions offer important differentiation to the line of business owners.
As long as this differentiation is substantial, we will continue to see fragmentation. A marketer who uses a best in class marketing automation solution to attain their lead and meeting numbers is not going to give up that piece of software without a fight.
But, this expanding constellation of point solutions does present some problems. First, billing. How does an organization understand exactly how much of the spending on software and so much of the purchasing decision is fragmented? Second, integrations across a thousand different pieces of software will be an enormous challenge. APIs certainly solve some of these data movement challenges, but they will not eliminate all friction. Third, how you train a team on so many different pieces of software? How do you ramp up new employees? Fourth, when something goes wrong who do you call? You have a thousand phone numbers to choose from.
The advantages of point solutions have to outweigh those costs. Over the last 10 years, the first decade of SaaS, startups have brought distribution, design, technology advantages and even have created new categories. Those startups who have sustainable competitive advantage will continue to thrive.
But, we are starting to see some categories with large numbers of entrant, where suddenly price is the diffentiator, because the category has been established and there very few barriers to entry. The recent boom in venture capital investment certainly intensifies competition with lots of new businesses chasing the same dollar.
These are the spaces where we will see suites develop, where commodification is inexorable. If you are competing on price, at some point you will bottom, the price you cannot undercut. At that point, the business will begin to compete on service rather than product, customer acquisition, technology, category creation etc. And whoever has the bigger balance sheet balance sheet will win.
Businesses can unlock a lot of value in bundling the collection of commodity products. They sell an integrated suite to a customer offering them a single purchasing process, a single customer support experience, and a “seamless” product. Without sufficient product differentiation in the market, this is a powerful way to change the buyer’s key purchasing criteria.
This year, we’ve seen more than 30 $1B software acquisitions. We will see more, and bigger companies will begin to bundle software into their offerings creating suites in SaaS. In categories with little technology or other differentiation, that may very well be the winning strategy. Meanwhile, successful startups will continue to do what they always have: develop sustainable competitive advantages through technology, speed of execution, and distribution innovations.
