Stepping up to own the software

Hard-working resellers often feel like sleep is something they can only grudgingly afford. Between work, play, work, family and a bit more work, the idea of several luxuriant nights of long, deep sleep can seem an unattainable fantasy.

To get more sleep, many therefore realise that once you have come up with a solution to a problem for one customer you can solve the same problem faster for your next customer.

In IT, that often means resellers develop tools that help them solve the same problem over and over again. And after a few jobs – or a few years – those tools can become very sophisticated. So sophisticated, in fact, that you may even wonder if your solution is better than anything else currently on the market.

The natural next thought is to ask yourself if your tools could become a product that you could sell far and wide, instead of just deploying for your own customers.

Craig Doyle from the Sutherland Shire Hub for Economic Development (SSHED), a business accelerator set up in Loftus by the Sutherland Shire Council in partnership with the University of Wollongong and TAFE NSW, says this scenario is more than possible.

And what’s more, it is a good idea that can help you sleep better.
“As a service provider there is a ceiling on how many hours you can bill – there are only so many hours in the day. But if you can ‘productise’ your service, as the old saying goes, you can make money while you sleep,” Doyle says.

Chris Frith, a business consultant with AUS Presence, agrees that turning services into products can be a real path to success, which can increase revenues and deepen the relationship resellers have with their current customers.

No quick sales
However, turning your expertise into products is not a quick way to make mountains of cash.

“The flip side is that the development and marketing effort can be a sink hole for cash,” Frith says. “The problem is that the piece of software may have grown organically or been customised for a particular purpose. Unless there is a hard kernel of a real product underneath and clear boundaries around what the product offers, the product development process can be a real nightmare.”
Both Doyle and Frith agree that a first step for any reseller wishing to expand their business from services to products is to sit down and do some serious business analysis.

“The first question I would ask is: ‘What are you doing in your service industry that customers like – what makes you unique?’” Doyle advises.
With that question answered, Doyle says there are two main ways to move from a service to a product. You can either work out exactly what it is about your service that works and franchise it or you can take the service and turn it into a product in its own right, such as a software application.

When it comes to software applications, Frith advises digging down to the heart of the product offered. He suggests asking yourself: “‘How has this piece of software been developed? If it has grown organically, does it have the functionality to get itself off the shelf?’ Strip away the embroidery until you come to the kernel of what the product offers.” He also advises careful consideration of

own software stepping the to up