At first glance, you may have thought the title was a typo – “multi” prem? Not on-prem? Not cloud? You may also be wondering what multi-prem software even means. It’s a legitimate question that begs a deeper explanation.
Over the past 20+ years, I’ve witnessed firsthand the evolution of software development and delivery from monolithic on-premises to SaaS – but onething remains consistent: I’ve never met a CIO/CSO who was comfortable with handing custody of their data to third parties in a SaaS model. “Resigned” might be a better description.
2020 and 2021 have seen an unprecedented level of private and public sector exposure to data breaches. In a perfect world, most enterprises would really prefer an alternative to multi-tenant SaaS. Enterprise needs solutions that provide more comprehensive control over their data. Until recently, these companies were faced with an unavoidable trade-off decision: Purchase on-premise software and absorb the costs andinefficiency in exchange for data integrity; or adopt the efficiency and operational ease of SaaS, surrendering control of their data to 100s ofvendors of all sizes.
Fortunately, today we need not make that tradeoff. Containerized architecture and software development pipelines like CI/CD bring automation, uniformity, scalability, and observability to software deployment and management. And this now enables the packaging of cloud-native applications for multiple customer environments, including on-premises, private clouds, and airgapped servers.
This is multi-prem. A means of bundling and delivering software entirely agnostic of the environment it will be deployed to. According to Synergy Research Group, in 2019 the SaaS market sat in the shadow of traditional on-prem, making up only about 20 percent of total enterprise spending. As the Chief Revenue Officer (CRO) for Replicated, where we provide software vendors a platform for easily deployingcloud-native apps inside customers’ environments, I’d like to share four ways multi-prem software delivery can – and will – increase your company sales and how you can better tap into this $400B market.
1. Expand to New Verticals
Companies that deliver a multi-premoption have had an advantage when approaching companies in the verticalsof finance, healthcare, pharma, the Department of Defense, and more.CIOs and CTOs of companies within these verticals have never fullyembraced SaaS. Today, we are seeing a big push toward virtual privatecloud as a controlled environment. However, deploying to an unknownenvironment can be difficult for a SaaS company to tackle, requiringdevelopment work on two versions of their application (a SaaS versionand an on-prem version). Software vendors need the ability to deliverto any destination irrespective of where the customer wants to go orthey are forced to make a tradeoff, deliver to a customer-controlledenvironment, or lose a sale.
2. Reach New Geographies
This goes for opening up salesopportunities in new geographies too. During my time in Asia working as aCRO for a global multi-million dollar SaaS vendor we were precludedfrom doing business in markets like Korea or China unless we committedto building data centers “in country” – something that just wasn’tfeasible without a revenue stream to off-set that level of investment. In Europe, GDPR requirements are forcing many companies to rethink howto deliver their applications to many customers. There are so manydifferent, stringent data privacy and data sovereignty laws that must befollowed, and with multi-prem delivery, your applications can bedelivered in a way that fits the customer’s requirements from a securityperspective, while also conforming to regional regulatory guidelines.
3. Increase Deal Velocity
If you’re a SaaS vendor, there are a lotof hoops to go through for security and compliance teams in anEnterprise sales motion. Most of us have been in positions where acompliance review pops up just as we are working to negotiate and close adeal, resulting in the dreaded “slip” to the next quarter. Bydelivering an on-prem solution, a software vendor can circumvent a lotof the challenges that can stall deals for months because the endcustomer has confidence in the security and compliance of theenvironment they set up and control themselves.
4. Simplify Cross- and Up-Sell
Many software vendors have acquiredother companies and technologies over time, and often they havedifferent delivery mechanisms for different products. Some are SaaS,some are strictly on-prem, which makes cross-sell and up-sellopportunities difficult. It can be really frustrating for sales. Havingthe ability to deliver the full product suite via a multi-prem approachwhen requested improves your cross-sell and up-sell of differentproducts by making the implementation of multiple products smooth andseamless.
At Replicated we work with a wide variety of SaaS and traditional on-prem software companiesthat have experienced the value of selling their applicationsmulti-prem to deliver their applications to enterprise customersanywhere and in any environment, from private cloud to bare metal. Whereit was once considered a build-only option, these partners have chosenus to simplify packaging, licensing, automation, security, and supportso deals move faster and they no longer have to leave money on the table.
Final Thoughts
Regardless of how you choose to go aftermulti-prem sales opportunities, this market will continue to grow andso will the customer roster. By offering a wide range of softwaredeployment environments, your organization can be non-discriminatorywhen targeting potential customers. If you want to open up new customerand revenue opportunities, offering multi-prem software delivery optionsis a sure-fire way to do just that.
Dustin Dean currently serves as Chief Revenue Officer for Replicated, inc. Before joining Replicated in early 2020, he served in similar roles for early-stage startups Elliptic LTDand Snaps, Inc, leveraging his previous 12 years of experience in thedigital messaging space to help Snaps pivot into a true B2B SaaSprovider. His background includes several years of international work,with a substantial amount of time spent outside the US in theAsia-Pacific region. In his free time, Dustin indulges in fly-fishing,deep-sea diving, mountain biking, and reading. He holds a Bachelor ofArts degree in marketing from Michigan State University.