Increasing Sales Through Best Practice Assessments

the success story

Mural had the solution when it came to understanding Microsoft’s ISV (Independent Software Vendor) needs. Microsoft wanted insight into where and how ISV needed help in overcoming hurdles and challenges on the road to Software as a Service (SaaS). Understanding this, Mural set out to achieve two simple things (1). Develop a portal for ISVs to better understand what specific activities they should be doing for their stage in the SaaS lifecycle (Investigating, Planning, Building or Already In Market) (2). Help Microsoft to better understand an important customer segment. Using the Key Success Factors framework, Mural developed an intuitive Self-Assessment tool that enabled ISVs to assess themselves against all five of the Key Process Areas that Mural has documented as the Best Practices for SaaS. These best-practices were derived empirically by looking at more than 400 successful and un-successful SaaS businesses.

The five Key Process Areas include:

• Financial & Business Management
• Application Architecture Readiness
• Hosting Architecture Readiness
• Operations & Support Readiness
• Go-To-Market Readiness

After self assessing themselves, ISVs can view their results and the recommended Activities and are provided with a with a ‘To Do List’ of Activities that enables them to manage and track their progress over time. This proved to be an excellent customer engagement tool as ISVs kept coming back to re-assess themselves and manage their ‘To Do’ List. At the same time, Microsoft has been able to gain valuable insight into where ISVs are encountering difficulties and shape their services and programs accordingly. With the future in mind, Mural developed the tool to be flexible, allowing Microsoft to implement it across various additional customer segments and business units.