As apposed to developer teams building individual software modules for enterprise customers, designing an open platform and PRACTICAL (uncomplicated) ecosystem first, may prove most beneficial for future sales growth.
Benefits include :
- Establishing a customer relationship, as a “day to day” user experience
- Growing your brand name using meaningful data points and services within a system’s environment
- Accumulating more enterprise customer purchases in increments, defined by broader needs, and predicting customer benefits with the availability of new technologies and “combinational” flexibility
Requirements :
This platform approach requires a core value proposition that is practical and easily understood, reflecting inherent and particular customer needs, ideally also strengthening distinctive competitive advantages i.e lowering customer switching costs and integration expenses for the service provider.
Challenge :
So, what data sources and services are most important for your particular enterprise customer, and how will you take advantage of this acquired knowledge ?
Start with a small platform, keep it “light” and very easy to use.