{"id":2811,"date":"2014-12-26T11:00:15","date_gmt":"2014-12-26T05:30:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sketharaman.com\/blog\/?p=2811"},"modified":"2021-11-05T17:03:16","modified_gmt":"2021-11-05T11:33:16","slug":"product-or-service-cbsa-helps-you-take-the-dilemma-by-the-horns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sketharaman.com\/blog\/2014\/12\/26\/product-or-service-cbsa-helps-you-take-the-dilemma-by-the-horns\/","title":{"rendered":"Product Or Service? CBSA Helps You Take The Dilemma By The Horns"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"components\"<\/a>Many technology vendors sell analytics as a product.<\/p>\n

However, many marketers want to buy analytics as a service (because it’s easier to get a tangible Return on Marketing Investment that way).<\/p>\n

This results in a dilemma of whether to position analytics as a product or service.<\/p>\n

Before exploring ways to address this dilemma, let me clarify that I’m using the term “service” to refer to a managed service delivered using a technology platform. In this context, it’s different from the second “S” in “Software As A Service”, which emphasizes the business model of a SaaS to be sold as monthly subscriptions \u00e0 la cable, Internet and other “services”.<\/p>\n

\n

Palantir<\/em>\u00a0from USA and Mu Sigma<\/em> from India are two companies who have succeeded by positioning their analytics offerings as a service.<\/p>\n

However, most technology companies have opted to take the product positioning for their analytics offerings. This could be because product companies enjoy the following real \/ perceived advantages:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Product development is intellectually more satisfying<\/li>\n
  2. Product results in IP<\/li>\n
  3. Top talent prefers working on products<\/li>\n
  4. By coding someone else’s requirements, service offers little scope for creativity or innovation<\/li>\n
  5. The service business model is perched precariously close to a risky outcome-based model<\/li>\n
  6. Product companies enjoy a higher valuation-to-revenue multiple than services companies<\/li>\n
  7. Most investors fund only product companies.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    From this list, it’s clear that many of the factors undergirding this dilemma go beyond analytics and cover a fairly wide swath of other technologies, especially big ticket size, ROI-based ones.<\/p>\n

    Systems Integrators can bridge the gap between what a vendor offers (product) and what the customer wants (service). But very few product companies are able to attract SIs.<\/p>\n

    Therefore, the product-or-service dilemma can’t be cast away so easily.<\/p>\n

    \n

    Component Based Solutions Assembly<\/em><\/strong> takes the product v. services dilemma by the horns. The framework was launched by Gartner in the early 2000s.<\/p>\n

    Under CBSA, technology vendors start with a library of reusable components and build massively customized solutions on top of them.<\/p>\n

    The component core helps them enjoy the advantages of a product company.<\/p>\n

    The massively customized solution helps them demonstrate tangible ROI to prospects and customers.<\/p>\n

    As the following exhibit shows, CBSA is often the best of both product and services worlds.<\/p>\n

    \"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

    While a CBSA strategy is more complicated to devise and execute than a pure-product or pure-service approach, it has proven very effective in breaking out of the product versus service dilemma.<\/p>\n

    To translate CBSA into faster deal flows requires sophisticated marketing and selling skills. With our experience of taking CBSA solutions to market successfully, we can be of help there.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Many technology vendors sell analytics as a product. However, many marketers want to buy analytics as a service (because it’s easier to get a tangible Return on Marketing Investment that…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2811,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2811","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-b2-product-v-services","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sketharaman.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2811","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sketharaman.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sketharaman.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sketharaman.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sketharaman.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2811"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/sketharaman.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2811\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5988,"href":"https:\/\/sketharaman.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2811\/revisions\/5988"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sketharaman.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2811"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sketharaman.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2811"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sketharaman.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2811"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sketharaman.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2811"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}