Comments for Bruce Cleveland's Rolling Thunder http://www.interwest.com/rolling-thunder Cloud Computing, Venture Investing & Life in Silicon Valley Tue, 24 Jan 2012 00:20:00 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 Comment on Are Physical Sales Seminars Still Relevant? by Yann Risz http://www.interwest.com/rolling-thunder/on-demand/are-physical-sales-seminars-still-relevant/comment-page-1/#comment-2766 Yann Risz Tue, 24 Jan 2012 00:20:00 +0000 http://www.interwest.com/rolling-thunder/?p=1177#comment-2766 Great approach. I already forwarded to our VP of Marketing as input to our next user conference. Great approach. I already forwarded to our VP of Marketing as input to our next user conference.

]]> Comment on Are Physical Sales Seminars Still Relevant? by J David Hill http://www.interwest.com/rolling-thunder/on-demand/are-physical-sales-seminars-still-relevant/comment-page-1/#comment-2756 J David Hill Fri, 06 Jan 2012 21:01:00 +0000 http://www.interwest.com/rolling-thunder/?p=1177#comment-2756 Great walkthrough of best practice events. I did something similar at The Economist, bringing our experts in for a presentation and Q&A. I know IHS sometimes does similar workshops and training sessions for economic forecasting. Great walkthrough of best practice events. I did something similar at The Economist, bringing our experts in for a presentation and Q&A. I know IHS sometimes does similar workshops and training sessions for economic forecasting.

]]> Comment on Are Physical Sales Seminars Still Relevant? by Scott Whitney http://www.interwest.com/rolling-thunder/on-demand/are-physical-sales-seminars-still-relevant/comment-page-1/#comment-2755 Scott Whitney Fri, 06 Jan 2012 20:18:00 +0000 http://www.interwest.com/rolling-thunder/?p=1177#comment-2755 Their live streaming of the event is pretty cool as well. (Disclaimer: We produced it.) Their live streaming of the event is pretty cool as well. (Disclaimer: We produced it.)

]]> Comment on Are Physical Sales Seminars Still Relevant? by Debra Durbin http://www.interwest.com/rolling-thunder/on-demand/are-physical-sales-seminars-still-relevant/comment-page-1/#comment-2750 Debra Durbin Wed, 04 Jan 2012 00:14:00 +0000 http://www.interwest.com/rolling-thunder/?p=1177#comment-2750 Excellent Bruce! Excellent Bruce!

]]> Comment on Are Large Incumbents Structured and Motivated to Innovate? Spin Ins Might Help by Bruce Cleveland http://www.interwest.com/rolling-thunder/on-demand/are-large-incumbents-structured-and-motivated-to-innovate-spin-ins-might-help/comment-page-1/#comment-2751 Bruce Cleveland Wed, 04 Jan 2012 00:14:00 +0000 http://www.interwest.com/rolling-thunder/?p=1136#comment-2751 Nimish: I haven't seen them do this but I haven't attended many of their events recently. I have found the executives at Oracle and SAP to be extremely bright and have enjoyed success for decades as a result. Until they encounter difficulties with their current business models, marketing/sales approaches, I doubt there is much that will cause them to deviate from status quo. In other words, until other companies start beating them regularly, there isn't much impetus for them to do something different. After all, they are the market leading incumbents, therefore they must be smarter/better than everyone else, right? :). I do think that if they tried some of these new techniques, they could be even better but for now I suspect it will be the start ups with nothing to lose and everything to gain that try new things and, if successful, Oracle, SAP and others will eventually "borrow" those ideas. Nimish: I haven’t seen them do this but I haven’t attended many of their events recently. I have found the executives at Oracle and SAP to be extremely bright and have enjoyed success for decades as a result. Until they encounter difficulties with their current business models, marketing/sales approaches, I doubt there is much that will cause them to deviate from status quo. In other words, until other companies start beating them regularly, there isn’t much impetus for them to do something different. After all, they are the market leading incumbents, therefore they must be smarter/better than everyone else, right? :) . I do think that if they tried some of these new techniques, they could be even better but for now I suspect it will be the start ups with nothing to lose and everything to gain that try new things and, if successful, Oracle, SAP and others will eventually “borrow” those ideas.

]]> Comment on Are Large Incumbents Structured and Motivated to Innovate? Spin Ins Might Help by Anonymous http://www.interwest.com/rolling-thunder/on-demand/are-large-incumbents-structured-and-motivated-to-innovate-spin-ins-might-help/comment-page-1/#comment-2749 Anonymous Tue, 03 Jan 2012 23:55:00 +0000 http://www.interwest.com/rolling-thunder/?p=1136#comment-2749 Hi Bruce - great concept.  I really like the out of the box thinking (as we have discussed previously).  We work a LOT with Oracle and ALL of the concepts above would apply to Oracle.  Except one: convincing senior management of the virtues of this approach. Has this been tried with either Oracle or SAP? Hi Bruce – great concept.  I really like the out of the box thinking (as we have discussed previously).  We work a LOT with Oracle and ALL of the concepts above would apply to Oracle.  Except one: convincing senior management of the virtues of this approach.

Has this been tried with either Oracle or SAP?

]]> Comment on Back To The Future…. by Subraya Mallya http://www.interwest.com/rolling-thunder/saas/back-to-the-future/comment-page-1/#comment-2722 Subraya Mallya Sat, 10 Dec 2011 09:36:00 +0000 http://www.interwest.com/rolling-thunder/?p=1154#comment-2722 Hi Bruce, Agree with you completely about the inability of incumbents to chart the course of transitioning from on-premise vendor to SaaS or doing both simultaneously as both Oracle and SAP seem to suggest. I wrote about this in my post - On-Premise to SaaS - A Road Less traveled (http://www.prudentcloud.com/saas/on-premise-to-saas-road-less-traveled-03032010/) a year ago and till now not seen anyone demonstrating successfully doing that. The fact that they are acquiring companies RightNow, SuccessFactors despite the complete overlap with their supposedly cloud enabled products seems to prove that they are giving up. I see large companies acquiring more companies like Marketo, HubSpot, Concur, Taleo  in the next 6 months and letting them run as separate (co-operating) SaaS busineses much like GE has done with Medical, Plastics, Aerospace etc. Hi Bruce, Agree with you completely about the inability of incumbents to chart the course of transitioning from on-premise vendor to SaaS or doing both simultaneously as both Oracle and SAP seem to suggest. I wrote about this in my post – On-Premise to SaaS – A Road Less traveled (http://www.prudentcloud.com/saas/on-premise-to-saas-road-less-traveled-03032010/) a year ago and till now not seen anyone demonstrating successfully doing that. The fact that they are acquiring companies RightNow, SuccessFactors despite the complete overlap with their supposedly cloud enabled products seems to prove that they are giving up. I see large companies acquiring more companies like Marketo, HubSpot, Concur, Taleo  in the next 6 months and letting them run as separate (co-operating) SaaS busineses much like GE has done with Medical, Plastics, Aerospace etc.

]]> Comment on SaaS: Lead Generation – Not Sales Capacity – Drives the Model by lud castle http://www.interwest.com/rolling-thunder/market-leadership/saas-lead-generation-not-sales-capacity-drives-the-model/comment-page-1/#comment-2712 lud castle Thu, 08 Dec 2011 11:49:00 +0000 http://www.interwest.com/software-as-a-service/?p=158#comment-2712  After six years in the online lead generation market at TARGUSinfo, we launched Loud Castle to optimize lead gen programs. Today, our lead management platform manages millions of online leads for lead buyers and sellers on a monthly basis. Not only do lead sellers improve lead transparency, they can score and determine which leads best match each lead buyer. <b><a href="http://www.loudcastle.com/" rel="nofollow">lead management</a></b>  After six years in the online lead generation market at TARGUSinfo, we launched Loud Castle to optimize lead gen programs. Today, our lead management platform manages millions of online leads for lead buyers and sellers on a monthly basis. Not only do lead sellers improve lead transparency, they can score and determine which leads best match each lead buyer.
lead management

]]> Comment on The Value of Growth for SaaS Companies by Naveedsy http://www.interwest.com/rolling-thunder/investment/the-value-of-growth-for-saas-companies/comment-page-1/#comment-2703 Naveedsy Mon, 05 Dec 2011 01:19:00 +0000 http://www.interwest.com/rolling-thunder/?p=998#comment-2703 This is a very informative article on what needs to be done to see growth in <b><a href="http://www.xaasoptions.com" rel="nofollow">SaaS</a></b> companies. Of course as others mention that when you have great marketing leadership it definetly helps the growth of the company in the market. This is a very informative article on what needs to be done to see growth in SaaS companies. Of course as others mention that when you have great marketing leadership it definetly helps the growth of the company in the market.

]]> Comment on Back To The Future…. by Nitin Goyal http://www.interwest.com/rolling-thunder/saas/back-to-the-future/comment-page-1/#comment-2693 Nitin Goyal Tue, 29 Nov 2011 12:18:00 +0000 http://www.interwest.com/rolling-thunder/?p=1154#comment-2693 One other challenge (which you have not covered) for the pure play Saas vendor is how to engineer the product so that it can run without too many operational touchpoints.  It is very easy to hire a lot of people in India to support a 24x7 multi-tenet architecture, however it really requires a "product" mindset vis a vis a "service" mindset. One other challenge (which you have not covered) for the pure play Saas vendor is how to engineer the product so that it can run without too many operational touchpoints.  It is very easy to hire a lot of people in India to support a 24×7 multi-tenet architecture, however it really requires a “product” mindset vis a vis a “service” mindset.

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