My favorite commercials from the Winter Olympics were for the film, How to Train Your Dragon, and for Jay Leno’s return to The Tonight Show. Watch the animated vignettes for How to Train Your Dragon, specially created for the Olympics and showing the “Viking origins” of several Winter Olympics events, here. Watch The Tonight Show commercial here.

I was impressed by DreamWorks’ effort to create humorous vignettes just for the Olympics, and I think The Tonight Show commercial was a quick, humorous way to promote Jay Leno’s return, playing on Jay Leno’s car collection.

Although I haven’t found pricing information for the 2010 games, this news release from January 2010 indicates that the average price of a 30-second unit in the 2006 Winter Olympics was $224,600. For at least that amount this year, advertisers must be keen to get as much feedback as possible on their impact. Nielsen Ratings showing the number of viewers of the Winter Olympics were great, but what about consumer sentiment?

Social media monitoring SaaS products such as Biz360 provide a solution for evaluating the buzz about any topic, not just among journalists, but including any social media activity among the consumers that advertisers are trying to reach.

Biz360 dashboard showing Topic Track and Awareness reports for How to Train Your Dragon

I created two dashboards in Biz360 that monitor social-media activity for How to Train Your Dragon and The Tonight Show in the last 30 days. How to Train Your Dragon was mentioned 3,879 times in social media outlets. The topic track and other reports include comments in addition to original posts. Its high point before the Olympics was 93 mentions on one day; during the Olympics, its coverage steadily climbed, reaching a peak of 231 mentions on one day. Following the Olympics, coverage remained steadily over 100 mentions per day. Sentiment was 59.4 percent positive; 35.4 percent neutral; 2.7 percent negative; and 2.4 percent mixed. I can see all outlets where it was mentioned, the measure of sentiment for each outlet, the number of mentions per day, and I can even drill down to each individual mention.

Biz360 dashboard showing The Tonight Show trend and sentiment reports

The Tonight Show was mentioned 19,596 times in social media outlets over the last 30 days. Coverage rose from a low point of 245 mentions on one day before the Olympics to 1,035 mentions on one day during the Olympics to 3,289 mentions on March 2, the day after Jay Leno returned to the show. Sentiment was 57.4 percent positive; 25.1 percent neutral; 11.7 percent negative; and 5.8 percent mixed. The top outlet was Digg, with 712 items. Here’s an article in The Hollywood Reporter that I found through the Biz360 reports, when I dug down through the mentions that Biz360 found on Digg. I could have found the same article from a web search, but Biz360 adds tremendous value because it aggregates all mentions, including comments, and then analyzes awareness, trend, sentiment, velocity, top sources, top authors, and content distribution by type (blogs, discussion forums, and micro blogs).

Biz360 shows that both How to Train Your Dragon and The Tonight Show are doing well in social media outlets. How to Train Your Dragon will likely receive many more mentions after it is released on March 26th, just like The Tonight Show did after Jay Leno’s return.

Wouldn’t it be great to have similar insights for your company, products, or executives?

U.S. Bobsled Team and Night Train

I spent the last two weeks watching the Winter Olympics every night. Probably like most people, I was impressed with the athletes’ skill and dedication, and the international character of the Olympics. Here are links to the Vancouver 2010 website and to NBC for results, videos, and athlete profiles.

Holcomb, Olsen, Mesler, Tomasevicz

You probably saw, read, and heard a lot about most of the medalists, but what about the three men behind driver Steven Holcomb on the U.S. gold medal bobsled team? I never saw them named or addressed when they stood behind Holcomb in the televised interviews. So, without further ado, I offer special congratulations to the other three men on the U.S. bobsled team: Justin Olsen, Steve Mesler, and Curt Tomasevicz. Congratulations to Steven, Justin, Steve, and Curt for winning the first four-man bobsled gold medal for the United States since 1948!

Geoff Bodine

The winning bobsled, Night Train, leads us to two more illustrious sports careers: NASCAR Driver Geoff Bodine and NFL football hall-of-famer Dick “Night Train” Lane. Bodine won the Daytona 500 in 1986 and he was honored as one of “NASCAR’s 50 Greatest Drivers” during NASCAR’s 50th anniversary celebration. In 1992 Bodin founded the Bo-Dyn Bobsled Project with chassis and suspension design specialist Bob Cuneo, because he correctly believed they could build a better bobsled than the imports that American teams were using. Bodine and Cuneo had already collaborated for years on Bodin’s NASCAR vehicles. Here’s an excellent case study about the sled design. Bodine was extremely lucky to survive this truck racing crash on February 18, 2000 and then see his bobsled win at the Olympics 10 years later on February 27, 2010.

Dick "Night Train" Lane

I don’t know if Night Train the bobsled is named after Dick “Night Train” Lane, but he was the greatest defensive back in NFL history, according to this video. He still holds the record he set in 1952 for most interceptions in one season, although the way he tackled around the neck is dangerous and is now not allowed. I sort of crossed paths with both Night Trains; Dick “Night Train” Lane ultimately played for the Detroit Lions in my home state Michigan, and I was nicknamed “Night Train” after him. Night Train the bobsled was built in Connecticut, where I lived for two years.

You host a business and IT olympics every time you consider a new IT strategy, contract, or purchase. You need to collect and vet ideas to define an appropriate strategy, and then find and vet the best products, team, and vendors that can carry you to victory.

Like a leading olympic coach, Appregatta helps you steer your project to success. We act as scouts to identify and vet the best cloud-based products, sales and consulting services that will carry you victoriously across the finish line.

Consider these Cloud Olympic champions that will help you drive revenue growth and profitability, improve business performance, gain insights from social media, and solve IT concerns in the cloud:

What types of business and IT projects are you planning for success in your organization, and are you planning to use cloud-based solutions to speed you to your best performance?

Jay Leno's first monologue back on The Tonight Show. NBC photo

I think it’s interesting to watch what happens when a company changes a familiar brand, such as when The Tonight Show switched hosts last year from Jay Leno to Conan O’Brien. Unfortunately or fortunately for both Leno and O’Brien, their new gigs did not deliver the audiences that NBC expected. O’Brien exited with $33 million (plus $12 million for his staff of almost 200) while Leno moves back to his old job beginning tonight. Even after five years of preparing the audience and the show for the change, it didn’t produce the expected results.

Technology brands usually don’t suffer as much from change, because technology is expected to change and it must change to continually improve. Can you provide an example similar to the reversal of The Tonight Show in tech? Steve Jobs returned to Apple with great results, but few tech products were modified with improved technology and then returned to their former version due to rejection.

We are now experiencing a shift in computing from on-premises systems to cloud-based systems that is much more significant and far-reaching than The Tonight Show example. Here are just a few recent articles pointing to the change, in addition to the thousands that have been written over the past few years confirming enterprise transition to cloud computing:

• “Goldman Sachs: Shift toward cloud unstoppable” (CNET News)
• “Piper Jaffray Sees Gold Rush In Cloud Software” (InformationWeek)
• “Beyond CRM: SaaS slips into the mainstream” (Computerworld)

Lindsey Vonn with Jay Leno on The Tonight Show. NBC photo.

The timing was perfect to kick off Jay Leno’s return to The Tonight Show right after the Olympics, which were also broadcast on NBC. He is a comeback champion like guest Lindsey Vonn, downhill gold medalist and Olympic rock star.

According to this article on ChannelWeb, “CIOs See Big Cloud Computing Shifts in 2010,” the timing is perfect for cloud computing as well. The economy, budget cuts, and the rapid pace of change in business are fueling the need for affordable, flexible, and easy-to-deploy cloud-based information systems that move with your needs.

Kevin Eubanks

As your host of the Appregatta Tonight Show, I’m proud to introduce these honored guests who will play in your environment and enhance your business just like Kevin Eubanks and The Tonight Show Band, or like the stellar performance by guitarist John McLaughlin in this video:

Another difference between The Tonight Show reshuffle and the transition to cloud-based systems is that we won’t turn back from the cloud. We’ll see which way it goes with The Tonight Show. Furthermore, if you want to implement the above cloud-based solutions, it won’t take five years of preparation and $45 million to exit if you decide to make a change.

As host of your business audience, what cloud-based solutions do you want to showcase to drive your approval ratings over the top?

Chris Grundy, Host of "Cool Tools"

Although I’m not much of a do-it-yourselfer, I do tend to watch some of the TV shows on the DIY Network. One show I watch frequently is “Cool Tools.” If you haven’t seen it, host Chris Grundy introduces the audience to great new products that fill a certain niche for the DIYer. Chris and team test the products, show you how they work and then let you decide if they’re a good fit for your project.

The products could be as simple as the Zibra Open It! universal package opener that makes opening clamshell packages a breeze; or as practical as the FastCap 3rd Hand that holds something in place while you do other work. Generally speaking, the products shown are a great value when weighed against the project time savings; so they are, in many ways, well worth the investment.

Thanks to modern technology (man, I love technology!) I don’t need to spend my time sitting on the couch waiting for the next show because I can always visit the DIY Network website and browse the different categories to find a tool that fits my need. How great is that? I know I need a tool that can help me complete a project with relative ease and I don’t have to go out and browse through my local Home Depot or Lowe’s. It’s right there on the website, I can find it, order it and it’s right at my doorstep a few days later.

Well, that’s pretty much what we do at Appregatta Technologies, too.

We go out and find those “cool tools” to improve your organization’s business processes. We study the company that is bringing the product to market; test it to make sure it functions as documented; assure you that the company behind the product is financially sound; and then we can demonstrate to you how it works in your organization so you know exactly what you are purchasing. And, you don’t have to search through a bunch of products to find the right fit; we’ve already done that for you.

Thanks again to modern technology, you can visit our website to find out all about our cloud-based solutions or “cool tools” that help you solve complex business and IT issues. From data security to business intelligence to dashboard mashup solutions, we bring you the best of the best, delivered right to your doorstep in just a few days or weeks.

What SaaS projects do you have planned, and how can we help you select and implement cloud-based products that fit the projects and attain your objectives?

"Creation of Adam" fresco by Michelangelo

One of the most iconic images from all works of art is The Creation of Adam by Michelangelo, part of his Sistine Chapel ceiling frescos in the Vatican. Learn more about Michelangelo and the Sistine Chapel frescos in this video. I saw the Sistine Chapel frescos and many other works of art while backpacking through Europe as a student. It was very interesting to learn and see how the Renaissance transformed Europe in all of the arts and sciences, and laid the foundation of the world we live in today.

I think the greatest advancement during the Renaissance was the invention of the printing press, which dramatically increased the dissemination of knowledge and ideas. The same thing is happening now at a far greater scale with the Internet; we can now learn almost anything online. Furthermore, there is yet another advancement occurring now: the ability to run business applications online from almost anywhere.

Sistine Chapel Ceiling

Artists and works of art are not equal. Studying art helps us to understand why some works and artists are considered great, while others are not. Forrester analyst Boris Evelson provides similar insights about BI SaaS vendors in this post, “BI SaaS Vendors are Not Created Equal.” He provides excellent criteria for evaluating BI SaaS vendors, and most of his suggestions apply to any type of enterprise SaaS application.

Although it’s good to evaluate art based on our own experience and criteria, we learn more quickly and thoroughly from formal study. The same is true for enterprise SaaS applications, which are new advancements in our quest that began in the Renaissance for more information more quickly to more people.

Rather than evaluating alone the many SaaS applications created for the many disciplines of your organization, wouldn’t it be better to get help on that groundwork from an expert, while you focus on speed to market and ROI? That’s what we do at Appregatta; we continually vet SaaS applications in various disciplines and offer the best works of art to you, such as:

"The Last Judgement" fresco by Michelangelo

As an enterprise application artist at your organization, what would you focus on if you were asked to create a “fresco” of cloud-based applications to improve knowledge, insights, and business performance?

USS Constitution

While living on the East Coast for a couple years, I enjoyed visiting the USS Constitution, the oldest commissioned naval vessel afloat in the world. Learn more about the USS Constitution in this video. It takes a lot of effort and resources to keep a wooden warship in service since 1797; it also takes a lot to keep a business afloat for many years, through good times and bad.

Even after downsizing, reducing expenses, and lowering prices to stay afloat during the recession, some companies are still having difficulty staying above water. What else can they do to keep their ship from sinking while sailing away from danger toward calmer seas of prosperity and stability? They can look for leaks in the vessel itself rather than further reducing crew and cargo. In business, one of the main leaks that can lead to drowning is a price leak.

According to this article, “Price Fixing,” in CFO Magazine, a price leak occurs when a company doesn’t get the price it could or should get for an item. If enough price leaks occur, the company will sink into a sea of losses that cannot be recovered without significant effort, investment, analysis, and correction of the root causes. In some cases, there is no way to stem the tide in time to rescue the company from going under.

Niagara Falls

Before any price leaks that you may have create a deluge that sinks your ship, you can perform a price waterfall analysis to discover the patterns in your costs, the discounts you offer, your current profit, and how you may be able to increase profit by making adjustments to your operations or deal structure. Read more about price waterfall analysis in this article, “The Profit Leakage: The Price Waterfall” in Chief Executive Officer magazine. You can also optimize price by segmenting the types of customers you have, their buying habits, and the circumstances that determine what various customer segments are willing to pay for your product or service.

Do price waterfall analysis and price optimization sound like entering unchartered waters of undiscovered revenue, worthwhile for the long voyage but fraught with time and expense in the short term? You probably will discover ways of increasing revenue with price waterfall analysis and price optimization. According to the CEO magazine article cited above, companies can increase profit by up to 15 percent with price waterfall analysis. However, it doesn’t need to be expensive or time consuming. With software-as-a-service (SaaS) price optimization products such as Sales Compass from Mimiran, you can quickly get the business intelligence you need to fix price leaks and help keep your ship afloat.

Do you want to learn more about steering your business to increased profitability by identifying and fixing price leaks that may be threatening your business just like battles, icebergs, or leaks threaten a ship? Here’s a great way to do that free of charge in an hour: check out the webinar, “Where B2B Companies Leave 10% of Their Profit on the Table,” conducted by Mimiran on Wednesday, February 24 at 10:00 a.m. Central Time. According to Mimiran, B2B companies often leave 10 percent or more of their money on the table during manual discount negotiation processes.  In this webinar, Mimiran will show how this happens, the impact on sales organizations and the company, and approaches to getting that money back in your pocket. Mimiran Sales Compass can help you navigate through the straits of price optimization and price waterfalls to an undiscovered sea of increased profitability. Price optimization may be one of the best investments you ever made in your business.

Do you have a good chart of your customer segments, the price they’re willing to pay, the price they do pay, what factors determined that price, how it affects your revenue and profit margin, and what you can do to change course and fix price leaks?

The New Hyundai Sonata

What do you think of the commercials shown during Super Bowl XLIV? If you’re not sure which Super Bowl that is, it’s the one played in the year MMX. Please post a comment below. Even though Appregatta is a cloud-computing company, and this blog still doesn’t get quite as many hits as The New York Times, I assure you, with social media monitoring, your comment will be seen by the companies you mention.

Social media monitoring products such as Biz360 allow companies to collect and analyze what is being written and said about them in global print, broadcast, online news, social media, and customer opinion sources. The value of this information is very high, because it provides direct insights into how consumers, bloggers, and journalists value a brand. It creates limitless possibilities for companies to react by reaching out to customers, re-thinking their messaging, analyzing their competitors, creating or re-designing products, and tweaking their keywords for search engine optimization.

The cost of a Super Bowl commercial is high, but I think the cost of not monitoring the public’s reaction through all media outlets is even higher, given the fact that social media is a goldmine of information about consumer sentiment. I’m now driving my second Hyundai Sonata, and the Hyundai Super Bowl ads (here’s one featuring Brett Favre) made me want a third because of the new design. What is it worth to Hyundai to read sentences like that, to find out directly from the public what they think of the new Hyundai Sonata and the Super Bowl ads? I think MasterCard would agree it’s priceless. If Hyundai uses social media monitoring and reads this, they could directly offer me a 25-percent discount on my next Sonata.

Do you think that CBS got the right price for the advertisements? How would you know, and how would CBS know? CBS would know if they used price optimization software as a service from companies such as Mimiran. Price optimization is a hot sector of business intelligence that analyzes the many factors contributing to getting the right price, including what consumers are willing to pay and your cost of providing a product or service. Pricing makes or breaks a business, so it’s crucial to get the right price.

Social media monitoring also informs other analytics, such as predicting and reporting sales results. For example, if the response to an advertisement is positive, there’s a good chance that sales will increase. You can even predict in which segments sales will increase based on the granular level of social media reporting. Companies can also use SaaS predictive analytics products such as eiVia to predict sales results based on social media monitoring reports, so that they can prepare to meet demand. SaaS BI products such as Birst can report sales results, and those results can be compared to consumer sentiment from social-media monitoring reports from Biz360 and sales forecasts from eiVia.

Rather than switching between SaaS applications to get reports on social media monitoring, price optimization, sales results, and sales forecasts, how about seeing all of it on one screen, in a dashboard? That level of visualization gives you the power and confidence to define and execute a strategy like the best CEOs and coaches. With SaaS enterprise mashup products such as mashmatrix Dashboard, you can create or modify a dashboard in minutes to see whatever you need from available information to chart your course.

I used Biz360 to analyze recent buzz about the Hyundai Sonata. Biz360 found 1,116 content items mentioning the Hyundai Sonata over the last seven days (Super Bowl XLIV was five days ago). Here are some results:

• On Saturday before the Super Bowl nothing was written.
• On Super Bowl Sunday 236 items were written.
• On Monday through Friday following the Super Bowl, 270, 295, 186, 117 and 12 items were written, respectively.
• Sentiment was 44 percent positive; 40 percent neutral; 12 percent negative; and 4 percent mixed over the last seven days.
• Coverage has been trending up over the last 30 days; the highest daily peak four weeks ago was 50 items; the highest daily peak this week was 295 items.
• I can drill down and read any of the articles, posts, and tweets, and contact the writers directly.
• Social media content distribution over the last seven days was 42 percent discussion forums; 31 percent blogs; 27 percent micro blogs.

What possibilities can you imagine with similar information from social media monitoring for your company, products, industry keywords, competitors, and their products?

Yes performing "in the round."

One of my favorite concert experiences was watching the progressive-rock band Yes perform “in the round” on a circular, revolving stage located in the center of the arena. With this approach, there wasn’t a bad seat in the house; everyone had a 360-degree view of the performance, rather than only a partial or distant view as is sometimes the case in concert halls. The sound was also excellent, because the speakers were also arranged in a circle to project equally in all directions. Check it out in this video.

In business, we also prefer 360-degree views over partial views. For example, we want a 360-degree view of our customers so that we have a complete picture of their relationships and interactions with our company to better serve their needs. Some companies prefer 360-degree performance reviews, which incorporate perspectives from peers, subordinates, superiors, and possibly also customers and other business partners in addition to supervisors.

With the advent and importance of social media, we definitely need a 360-degree view of all that is being written or spoken about our company and our competitors. It is no longer sufficient to only monitor traditional media, because we can learn more than ever before from all who interact with our organizations and share their experiences online. The largest focus group in history is available to us in social media today if we just put some effort in to listen, participate, and share with our audience, and measure the results.

That’s why I’m excited about Biz360, a new Appregatta portfolio product that provides 360-degree monitoring of all the “buzz” about anyone or anything from all media sources based on selected keywords. You can use the information that Biz360 provides to connect with customers, answer a question, solve a problem, create or modify a product, and see how you stack up against other companies in your category.

You can also use Biz360 to analyze the specific words and phrases that your audience uses in social communities when discussing your products, services, solutions, and issues. Then, you can integrate those words and phrases into your page titles, website content, pay-per-click campaigns and ad copy. In the new world of social media, customers own, define, and refine your brand and messages almost as much as you do.

For more information, take a 360-degree view of this page, and say “yes” to the benefits of social media monitoring and Biz360. Social media monitoring is part of a complete business and communications strategy; it will put you ahead of your time and your competition, just like the members of Yes were when they performed “in the round” and interacted in ways never before possible with their audience.

What is your social-media strategy, and how do you plan to monitor the many outlets that customers, media, and other influencers have to share their opinions and observations of your business performance?

In the movie, “The Wizard of Oz,” Dorothy suffers a head injury during a tornado and is catapulted, with her house and dog, Toto, to the magical Land of Oz, where she has many adventures and cleanses the land of two wicked witches. In the business book, “Inside the Tornado,” author Geoffrey Moore describes the tornado as a period of exponential growth for new companies and technologies as the market tips in their favor. Moore uses the “Land of Oz” metaphor to describe the spectacular, “magical,” rapid growth that new companies and technologies achieve after they cross the chasm from early adopters to the mainstream market. Read the “Land of Oz” and “Crossing the Chasm” chapters of “Inside the Tornado” here, thanks to Google Books!

In a recent post on TechCrunch, “The Coming Tornado: Cloud in the Enterprise,” Aaron Levie, CEO and co-founder of cloud content management provider Box.net, argues that cloud computing is ready to go inside the tornado of mainstream adoption in enterprise computing. I think he is right, because several funnel clouds have already touched down to positively change the computing landscape at high-profile enterprises.

For example, last year Los Angeles County approved a $7.25 million deal to move its 30,000 employees to Google Apps, while global electrical engineering and electronics powerhouse Siemens signed a deal to roll out SuccessFactors software-as-a-service human resources solution to 420,000 users in 80 countries and in 20 languages. Last month, Hewlett-Packard and Microsoft announced they would spend $250 million to co-develop cloud computing systems, while IBM announced what it says is the biggest cloud deal to date: Panasonic will port more than 300,000 employees, partners, and suppliers to IBM’s LotusLive online collaboration system. Also last month, Salesforce.com announced record quarterly revenue and Google’s profit more than quintupled in the fourth quarter 2009 to $1.97 billion, or $6.13 a share, from $382 million, or $1.21 a share, a year ago. Gartner forecasted last month that, by 2012, 20 percent of businesses will own no IT assets. That prediction follows Gartner’s listing of cloud computing as the top strategic technology for 2010.

If we are now moving inside the tornado to the Land of Oz with enterprise adoption of cloud computing, we, like Dorothy in the “Wizard of Oz,” have a few “wicked witches” to destroy in the chasms of compliance, security, privacy, and interoperability. However, just like Dorothy found fast friends in the Cowardly Lion, the Tin Man, and the Scarecrow in the Land of Oz, we have seasoned IT professionals at vendor, customer, and research organizations with the courage, heart, and intelligence to help us cross those chasms; follow the yellow brick road to success; and build better information systems to support the new generation of mobile information workers and agile organizations in the cloud.

Consider these magical cloud-based solutions that are experiencing mainstream enterprise adoption inside the tornado in the Land of Oz:

What is your yellow brick roadmap of success with enterprise solutions in the cloud, and how can Appregatta Technologies help you reach the Emerald City of optimized business performance and revenue growth?

Sun Tzu

“Strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory. Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat” – Sun Tzu, from “The Art of War”

John Lennon

“Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.” - John Lennon

How much strategy and planning is enough in a changing world, and how can you make your organization as agile as possible to adapt to unforeseen changes and unplanned events? These are questions that managers continually wrestle with as they steer their organizations in a changing world.

Cloud computing and software as a service (SaaS) can help you manage and adapt to change, because of their rapid time to market, pay-as-you-go service fees, scalability, and support for mobile users. However, in a recent article in InformationWeek, “Why You Need a SaaS Strategy,” IT consultant Michael Biddick argues that “too many CIOs take an ad hoc approach to software as a service. That won’t cut it as SaaS use expands.”

So, according to Michael Biddick, what is an appropriate SaaS strategy that will give you the flexibility to adapt to change while protecting your organization and its assets? Michael suggests a nine-point approach to SaaS strategy:

1. Select the right provider. Continue performing rigorous analysis of the vendor, the application, security, and your ability to extract your data if you decide to switch providers.

2. Sign the right contract. Review the contract in light of its support for your changing business needs and its exit terms.

3. Have a detailed exit strategy. Make sure you can get your data and customizations back in a form that you can use if you decide to switch providers. Look for bandwidth charges that would add up if you move large amounts of data from a SaaS provider.

4. Manage the relationship. Monitor and evaluate application performance and usage to determine if the provider is meeting your needs.

5. Create a contingency plan. This is especially critical for apps that can’t go down or data that can’t be lost. Perform a weekly full data export from your SaaS providers so that you have a local copy of all of your data.

6. Dig deep on interoperability and integration. Few applications are effective in a silo, so you must ensure that your SaaS apps communicate with other online or conventional software.

7. Agree on IT’s role in supporting the product. While conventional software support such as patching an operating system and deploying a security update isn’t required, someone still has to add users, change passwords, create workflow, do screen designs, and perform other support tasks.

8. Get senior executive support and involvement. If an application service is performing a critical business function, make sure the top leadership understands the benefits and risks of SaaS.

9. Align to the company objectives. Does the company have a goal to reduce capital spending, or shorten the time to deliver services? SaaS must be considered in that broader mission.

I think these are great suggestions for ensuring that a provider and an application meet your needs, while you still benefit from the rapid time to market, lower capital and operational costs, and flexibility that SaaS provides. This approach provides the strategy and tactics that Sun Tzu advocates in his above quote, with the ability to adapt to changes and events outside of your plans as John Lennon suggests in his quote.

Another point to consider is managing the number of SaaS vendors. Although SaaS provides a greater choice of vendors because of its low barriers to entry, you will probably need to balance that freedom of choice with the ability to manage multiple contracts, relationships, and vetting processes. Consider working with a cloud service brokerage such as Appregatta Technologies, which serves as a single point of contact for a vetted portfolio of enterprise SaaS applications such as:

What is your SaaS strategy, and how does it compare with Michael Biddick’s nine-point strategy?