challenges for software companies

Challenges for software companies continue to grow, with a marketplace even more competitive than the 1990s. This $90 billion business has been consolidating faster than any other U.S. industry, with more than 1,700 U.S. software companies acquired during 2006. Margins are being squeezed, with 80% of the software industry’s profits generated by three huge companies: SAP, Oracle and Microsoft. That leaves more than 5,000 other software companies to wrestle for the remaining 20%.

The changing economics of the software business all contribute to the crunch: the Internet dramatically lowers distribution costs; finding new and unanswered customer needs is increasing difficult, and the open source movement provides free industrial-strength software alternatives to traditionally licensed products. How do you navigate these complex markets to create and deliver value?

The agile movement is driving software companies of all sizes to rethink how they build their products. Enthiosys is at the forefront of agile product management—how to imagine, launch, market, manage and support software products to keep pace with faster markets and more nimble development teams. Our clients are bringing software products to market more quickly, issuing new releases much faster, inventing innovating pricing and licensing models, and truly connecting with customer needs. The result is higher revenue and profitability and greater customer loyalty.

Do you want to be one of these companies? Enthiosys can help you implement agile product management through a variety of services:

  • Identifying customer needs. Every successful software product is the result of product managers and marketers who have incisively identified the most important needs of their target customers – whether they are individual users (for personal software), departments or entire companies (for enterprise software). Enthiosys has a proven and proprietary approach to helping you divine your customers’ critical needs. We call it Innovation Games. Learn more.
  • Creating agile product roadmaps. After gaining a deep understanding of your customers’ most important needs, you must have a solid plan that guides how you are going to answer those needs over your product’s lifecycle. What versions, features and benefits should you release to what customer segments and when? We call this developing an agile product roadmap. Learn more.
  • Creating effective pricing and licensing models. Even when product managers possess a great understanding of customer needs and a solid roadmap guiding software releases, their software products struggle or fail in the marketplace because of poorly conceived pricing and licensing models. Many software companies create few pricing and licensing models and expect different customer segments to adhere to them. We help companies determine the optimal pricing and licensing model for each target market. Learn more.

Enthiosys works with software companies of all sizes, from start-ups to the largest global players, to improve their software products and product portfolios.