With a solid strategy executed to date, and a pending acquisition of Gelco, it is time to explore the next step in this evolution. One obvious goal would be expansion of the customer base. Here I get more interested in strategic alliances and their potential benefits in accelerating this process. SM: What is your next
Here are some of the nuggets from the MIT Enterprise 3.0 event last night: * If you are an entrepreneur looking for opportunities to focus on, there are white spaces in the portfolios of larger players like Microsoft, Google and Cisco, especially in the area of Prosumer productivity and collaboration. Probably more built-to-flip models. *
Steve says he does not segment his customer base by size. I push, because I think he should. SM: You do not have any bias one way or the other? SS: Not at all. Our distribution strategy is to reach customers of any size. We have no concentration of revenue, by customer or by market
A crucial advantage of any on-demand software model is the ability to reach into new customer bases. I press hard here to understand the demographics of the company further. SM: Help me understand your customer base a bit. Are you focused on Fortune 500, Global 2000 or are you focused on smaller companies? SS: Early
As a smaller company, Concur does have to compete in a very deliberate manner with industry stalwarts such as SAP and Oracle. In order to win, they must have a definite comparative advantage. Here I search to understand what Concur believes is their unique advantage. SM: When you compete with SAP, what is your competitive
SM: Most of the expense reporting is around travel. However, there are other expenses to be incurred, right? SS: That is exactly correct, there are expenses which occur outside of travel. The same solutions can be applied whether it is business travel or taking a client out for lunch. The core point is that as
Dealing with and properly addressing change is a substantial aspect of the success or failure of companies. Shifting to the on-demand model without any other examples to follow was visionary, but if implemented incorrectly could have been devastating as well. SM: How did you change the channel at this point? You shifted to an on-demand
SM: 1998 you went public with $6M a quarter revenue. What happened after that? SS: The company did well in the public market for a period of time. One of the major changes for us was in April 2000, before the bubble burst. A true story, which gives you some context about us. I was