by Robert Solomon | Oct 18, 2016 | B2B Software
My most popular post ever was my ground-breaking work on airline boarding procedures: the indispensable Airline Boarding Equivalency Chart. (If the subject of business travel is ever examined by the Nobel Prize folks, this work may finally receive it’s just...
by Robert Solomon | Oct 7, 2016 | B2B Software, Consolidating Competition, Financial services, Indirect Spend, Industry Concentration
For those of you interested in software platforms, marketplaces, networks, ecosystems– whatever you want to call them–it was a big week for news of giant platforms doing battle in a variety of venues. Smart Home Platforms Photo courtesy of Cnet. Google...
by Robert Solomon | Sep 27, 2016 | B2B Software, E-invoicing, Pricing, Supply Chain Finance
Early (and Fuzzy) Saas Metrics From B2B Networks Until a B2B Network catches on, the metrics can be gloomy. (The first few years of the Ariba Network were pretty dismal, for instance.) The result is that for the first few years of a B2B network’s life you tend...
by Robert Solomon | Sep 20, 2016 | B2B Software, E-invoicing, Ecosystem, Key Success Factors, Payments, Procure to Pay
As mentioned in the last post, the notion of an ecosystem from the world of biology is a useful analogy for the ecosystem digital platforms must foster. It turns out, another biological concept, the “bow tie”, is also a great analogy for how B2B SaaS platforms must...
by Robert Solomon | Sep 16, 2016 | B2B Software, Ecosystem, Enterprise Software, Key Success Factors, Payments |
One of the first great books about platform business models was The Keystone Advantage by Marco Iansiti and Roy Leven. The book was published in 2004, so it pre-dated the success of SaaS platforms such as Uber, Google, AirBnB, Facebook, and many others. As a...
by Robert Solomon | Sep 8, 2016 | B2B Software, Construction, E-invoicing, Financial services, Procure to Pay, Public Sector, Supply Chain Finance
If you are interested in B2B SaaS companies, you will be interested in a recent list published by Battery Ventures. Battery partnered with its portfolio company, Glassdoor, to publish a list entitled, “50 Highest Rated Private Cloud Companies to Work...
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