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Published on: March 2008
Type of content: WHITE PAPER
Format: Adobe Acrobat (.pdf)
Length: 10 pages
Price: FREE

Overview:
The software industry is undergoing unprecedented changes.

These changes are placing tremendous pressures on the Incumbent Software Vendors (ISVs), as well as new emerging players. Customers are demanding easier to use and more economical, web-based applications. At the same time, the barriers to entry within the software industry are rapidly dissolving due to a combination of low-cost development tools and offshore development skills.

As a result of these forces, ISVs and emerging software players must adopt more effective financial management systems to better manage their global operations. These forces are also fueling the rapid growth of on-demand, Software-as-a- Service (SaaS) solutions. In order to develop and deliver these web-based solutions ISVs must invest in redesigning their legacy applications to fully embrace the multi-tenant architectural requirements of a true SaaS approach. They must also reorient their corporate cultures and business processes to adopt a services-orientation. And, they must make these changes while their revenue recognition models are restructured significantly to accommodate the “pay-as-you-go” subscription pricing schedules of the SaaS marketplace rather than the upfront, perpetual license approach of traditional “shrink-wrap” or customer premise based packaged applications.

Based on our research, THINKstrategies firmly believes the SaaS movement is not a short-term trend or cyclical phenomena which will subside or collapse in the same way the dot.com era came to a crashing halt.

Instead, THINKstrategies sees many factors in place which will continue to fuel the shift of customer attention from traditional, on-premise software to on-demand, SaaS solutions.

These escalating demands are forcing ISVs to institute stricter cost-controls as they also establish new accounting procedures. In response to these pressures, an increasing number of ISVs and emerging software players are adopting a new generation of on-demand financial applications, such as those provided by Intacct Corporation, to meet their intensifying corporate management requirements.

This whitepaper will examine the trends which are transforming the software industry and driving leading ISVs to leverage on-demand financial applications.

It will also provide practical guidelines for ISVs who are considering these new SaaS solutions based on the real-world experiences of software companies who have implemented Intacct’s on-demand applications to meet their rapidly changing needs.

These guidelines address management of multiple business lines, varying revenue recognition models, multinational transactions and real-time visibility across the enterprise.