Featured Article from Software Monetization

 “The Age of Acceleration,” is everywhere. It is an age defined by the realities that the only constants are change and the speed at which it is increasing.

Thanks to the Internet and the big technology trends we all know—mobility, virtualization, software-centricity, the Internet of Things (IoT), the push for universal broadband all-IP connectivity, etc.—the consequences of not just accommodating but leveraging change already is separating winners and losers in almost every geographic and vertical market worldwide. Here too, the speed at which business models, markets and national economies are being transformed is accelerating. 

The impacts on the buyer/seller relationship as a result of “E”verything speeding up are profound. Today, those who leverage technologies to be ever more responsive to customers’ unique requirements get the business. Those who are not responsive do not. Plus, because choices are only a touch or click away, and dissatisfaction can go viral in an instant, the definition of “responsive” has expanded. It now encompasses what rightfully is called the “customer journey” or “customer lifecycle.” 

Legacy systems and processes cannot keep up with the speed of the market

Companies want more and more information and visibility into their customers’ behavior so they have the ability to react quickly, decisively and correctly. This means the systems, tools and business processes required must be state of the art.  Legacy solutions, in their silos, are not up to the task. 

New solutions must be agile. They need to be capable of capturing data from multiple places (physical and virtual, premises and cloud) and sources. They must have the ability to turn data into not just so-called “actionable insights”, but insights that can be effectuated in a compelling and cost-effective manner extremely fast. 

All of this raises interesting and somewhat urgent challenges for companies who sell products and services. As the world continues to rapidly shift to a world that wants instant gratification and great user experiences, how can these companies’ best deliver on their brand promise?  It’s not just about delivering great products and services anymore.

Agile (News - Alert) Monetization Platforms (AMPs) — Recurring Revenue Models, and Licensing and Enhanced Entitlement Management

The answer to the question posed above is that in The Age of Acceleration, companies that embrace change “rethink” and leverage new Software monetization solutions will maximize their opportunities, increase their revenue, and reduce costs all while creating loyal customers for life.

How so?

Moving toward a new technology base for obtaining visibility and control over the customer journey, changing the corporate culture to one that embraces change and allows sharing of information, evolving a new ecosystem of technology and channel partners, and enhancing customer relationships are all complex undertakings.  And, they require a holistic approach if success is to be achieved.  It is why the recent webinar, Monetization Strategies and Technologies to Future-proof Your Business, is highly recommended as the place to start or continue your journey on becoming knowledgeable about software monetization strategies and technologies that really can make the trends be your friend.

This is a rare opportunity to hear subject matter experts, Brendon O’Brien, Co-founder & Evangelist, Aria System, Omkar Munipalle, Director and Business Development, Gemalto, and Andrew Dailey, Managing Director MGI Research, delve into how using best of breed solutions for monetization have differentiated winners and losers and can do the same for your company going forward.  As the sub-head says, it is through what Dailey calls “Agile Monetization Platforms”.  These entail recurring revenue models that incorporate capabilities such as Aria’s for enhanced billing and integration with back office and customer facing systems and workflows. They also involve Gemalto’s (News - Alert) suite of licensing and entitlement management solutions.

The combination of capabilities—of a next generation billing hub with Gemalto’s ability to provide comprehensive data on software usage, enabling developers to quickly price, package and change features based on user behaviors—as Dailey says, “goes beyond transactions to the entire customer lifecycle.” 

As an inducement to view the archived webinar, the benefits of AMP Dailey describes are illustrated below. 

Source (News - Alert):  MGI Research: Monetization Strategies and Technologies to Future-proof Your Business

As Munipalle notes regarding sophisticated entitlement management and its ability to enable companies to be responsive, “it lets you bundle on the fly.” 

O’Brien explains the value of moving to recurring revenue models in a world where “the bill is your brand.” He says, “Recurring is all about customer acquisition, customer retention and having permission to up sell.” He adds that this is, “not just one transaction but an infinite number of potential transactions and interactions.  Recurring is about maintaining the relationship. The goal is to elevate customer satisfaction, using automated programmatic tabs on the lifecycle of the customer beyond the transaction itself.”

In short, when everything relevant to building the best possible customer lifecycle profile is appropriately linked, companies can react appropriately. This means having the agility to react on a micro and macro level based on what the customer is doing and is likely to do. As two use cases and market data in the webinar highlight, the proof is in the numbers.

Realities are that agility, visibility over usage and compliance, control and integration to produce the best possible customer journey profile are key.  The good news is that while all of this is complex, the tools, from trusted partners, to remove complexity and create differentiated and sustainable value that are future-proof are now available and are evolving to meet changing customer needs at market speeds or above.