Comments on: Should Enterprise 2.0 Software Vendors Provide Professional Services?

By: Karyn German

Karyn German — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 16:32:48 +0000

Another vendor's perspective: At NewsGator, I am leading this charge and finding a substantial demand for our services, which run the gamut from the traditional implementation consulting to more high-level coaching on building and driving community adoption. We are also partnering wisely with firms who have expertise that we are not interested in developing or trying to scale with internal staff.

By: Jordan Frank

Jordan Frank — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 18:36:07 +0000

One vendor's perspective: At Traction Software we offer best practice based implementation consulting and development services. While much of the best practice experience readily applies to other platforms, much of what we do on an assignment seeks to help customers leverage the differentiating capabilities that led them to choose TeamPage over other platforms.

As a result, we are best off focusing on supporting our customer needs and, in the process, gathering insight into customer needs that will contribute to strategic decisions about our product roadmap. From this perspective, offering professional services is an essential part of business strategy.

More detail here: http://traction.tractionsoftware.com/traction/per...

By: Bill Ives

Bill Ives — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 19:40:07 +0000

Lee and LLiu – Thanks for your comments. I agree that the vendors seem more committed to making business perform better and not just making profits. I have interviewed many on the AppGap and I have been impressed on this factor for the most part. I think many of the KM vendors took us away from KM's goals to get large document management implementations. This is one reason I am excited about the new lower cost E20 tools. LLiu – I also agree that th ebest role can be as a swat team that works with both the software firm and the third party implementor. That was when I saw it work best as mentioned above. George Dearing made a similar point on Twitter.

By: LLiu

LLiu — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 17:32:02 +0000

I agree with Thomas's comment over at Stewart Mader's blog entry that there is no one size fits all answer. Nevertheless, I believe that software vendors need to strike a careful balance between using PS to ensure that the software is successfully implemented and adopted vs. trying to make significant profit from PS. For a vendor that is truly focused on advancing its software, PS should have a supplementary role within the org rather than a dominant one. Moreover, the vendor should have key PS partners, who are focused on business solutions and have vertical industry expertise because the vendor's own PS will be much more software centric. In many cases, the best approach is to have a 3 way joint effort between the software vendor's PS, an industry focused PS firm, and the customer.

By: Lee Bryant

Lee Bryant — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 18:44:28 +0000

This is an interesting topic right now. I sense that several vendors, despite having very good products, are suffering from over-optimistic projections on how long this market is taking to mature. In some cases, I sense investors may be applying some pressure to diversify revenues. Whilst I hope they can be patient – I think there are some very good vendors in this space – I also think that diversifying into professional services might help in some cases. Atlassian is obviously the exception here with their incredibly successful cheap, direct delivery model.

The bigger issue is that professional services is NOT just about integration/customisation of software. We do not want to recreate the SAP model, which although highly lucrative for the company and its partners, is not always quite so successful for its customers.

The professional services required to push through the change we need to see in businesses today go way beyond integration of tools towards education, employee engagement, task support and business / organisational design. It requires a blend of business analysis, social sciences, experience design and other fields, not just suited technical consultants whose conclusion is "install X". Also, as Shirky said, we need much more "situated" software, not just out of the box installs of generic platforms.

Ultimately, the software cost is trending to zero, and its values lies in the way it is leveraged to achieve results (by combining it with professional services).

Like my colleague Jon, I don't disagree with Gia about Jive, but I can also see Stewart's point. Obviously, whilst the vendors might develop their own Professional Services divisions, the most independent (probably never totally independent, for reasons you mention above) approach will come from vendor-neutral advisers.

I know a little company based in London who have been clear about this vision since they started, but they are a really boring traditional business that makes a profit and works with its clients over the long-term to see through change.

We are lucky to have some committed, innovative vendors in this space (unlike, say the KM field of the 1990s) and I would like to see them thrive, so if professional services helps them in that endeavour, they should certainly consider it.