#norocketships Issue 48
Nobody is needier than me
Spring is springing, the rain is abating here in the UK, and still the world of tech is in real turmoil. SaaS vendors are in stasis, AI vendors aren’t equipped to sell what they’ve got quite yet, and trust between the customer and the new world is not established.
Normal service then.
Vile Rumour & Gossip
Time to respond - There’s some weirdness going on when it comes to vendors responding to sales enquiries. For some reason it has become “accepted” practice to take some time, in some cases days. I recently made an introduction to Shopify and they responded to the client 5 days later 🙂. They are not alone… is it cool to look less needy? I may use the phrase “in my day” here, but surely this isn’t representative of the hunger in sales teams? Also - statistically I’m informed that almost always the first vendor to respond and build a relationship wins.
Private Planes & bribery - For years large trade shows have paid customers to attend. Shoptalk Luxe funded brand leaders up to $2000 in “travel” costs to attend this year, but some are going further. A SaaS vendor is offering private plane travel to Vegas in a few weeks, which gives you 4 hours in a metal tube to build a relationship. The conclusion in our Commerce Futures community is that this is the onlyfans of B2B marketing.
When a webinar has no value - I watched a joint sales webinar this week, from a payment provider and front-end-as-a-service player. They had a customer join - and 30 minutes later I left having learned…. absolutely nothing. The customer got 5 minutes, the three other people from SaaS took the remaining 25 mins, and honestly I could have made the presentation myself and had the chat, and I know very little. No wonder these things have no attendees.
Be nice to us please? - I struggle to have sympathy with the vendor ecosystem when they complain about customers ghosting or negotiating hard at the end of a quarter for a contract. Anyone who has had an Oracle sales director in their front garden will know where the issue lies - in the quarterly commission system and the behaviour that generates.
Rise & Fall of community
As you know I moderate a “group”, of brand-side people I know, have met, interviewed and given access to one another. I don’t go by job title or seniority, I go by mindset. If I see someone who seems helpful I include them. Chatting to someone at a recent event I heard them explain “Not another community”... in exasperation. Then yesterday I was told by a couple of our lot - that the other group is so dull, full of people showing off.
In tech we see new words all the time which are overused, commoditised and ultimately discarded. It would be a real pity if such a powerful word was cheapened by people who were monetising or egotistical in their aims in this area, I for one enjoy being the benign dictator of one far too much to cheapen it with $$$.
Redefining ERP
A fascinating conversation last week amongst 7 brands in our group - all in various states of urgency to implement an ERP. For some their current platform is closing down (20 yrs old and the owner is retiring). For others they are growing fast and have avoided ERP for 10 years since launch.
Given the innovation we see in the wider market it’s a great pity that this is such a frustrating space. Old tech, mafia pricing (again), long implementations and no guarantee of success.
It’s the first space where brands are asking if AI will replace allow them to replace the idea of ERP in the medium term. Nobody it seems thinks that this space will have a commercial offering for mid-market or smaller businesses in the next 5 years.
Meanwhile - MS v Netsuite all over again sadly.
SaaS consumption will decline - an enterprise warning
Large organisations are where the interesting AI implementations are taking place. Anyone mid-market or smaller is just going to rely on their vendor stacks (can you keep up with Shopify’s innovation?).
I am recruiting for MACH’s Toronto conference currently, and SaaS should be a teeny bit scared I think. I’ve got several customer Engineering and CTO types who will present their AI layer, and say that they’re already using 20% less SaaS than 2yrs ago. And that’s all front-end.
You will start to see me in the wild in a few weeks. I’m the MC for commerce live in April, and I’ll be at MACH X in Toronto - expect an unfiltered summary of all.
Jamie
