Once a term that was thrown around in boardrooms, “digital transformation” is now a reality across the globe, across all industries – and with it we’ve witnessed an explosion of technology start-ups hoping to get a piece of the action. The software development industry in the UK alone has grown 5% each year on average since 2016.
However, with every thriving industry, there is the need for existing players to ensure that their customers remain their customers and aren’t tempted away by the competition. So how can software providers achieve this without having to reduce prices and ultimately take a hit on their profits?
When it comes to business-critical applications, there is something that is more appealing than lower subscription costs and that’s operational resilience. If a technology partner can offer its customers a guarantee of business continuity, the likelihood of that customer being tempted to look elsewhere is significantly reduced.
According to Gartner, following the Covid-19 pandemic, businesses are more cautious than ever when choosing their preferred SaaS company. “78% of businesses (on average) said they prefer either a well-established company/brand or one they had already worked with. Only 21% of global respondents expressed openness to any software or SaaS provider with a solution that could meet their needs.”
So more than ever, application providers are having to ensure that they are able to answer a prospect’s concerns about resilience in order to be in with a chance of winning their business. They need to instil confidence at a very early stage to be able to gain their trust.
For start-ups or smaller more niche providers this has created another barrier for growth, therefore having the right service wrap has never been so important.
By embedding software escrow into their service, even during the procurement process, providers can start to build the foundations of trust and reliability. Putting the software source code into a secure virtual vault, the organisation can rest assured that should anything happen to their software provider or its service, they can still have access to that business-critical software and minimise any negative impact on their business.
Whilst minimising risk can be used as a key selling point when trying to close a deal, it’s also something that providers should look to use to their advantage with their existing customers too. By offering an extra layer of resilience to the application that the business is already using, it can protect that business for the ISVs when it comes to licenses coming up for renewal. It’s a value add that should make customers stickier and prevent them from shopping around.
You can find out more about embedding software escrow into your service offering through the NCC Group Partner Network:
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