some brief thoughts from my part: * keep the name "OpenERP" * explain both the Apps and the ERP (if it stays in the name, so you wouldn't drop it, right?) * emphasise the importance of open source and software freedom (no lock-in, free/open license, competitive market place, community, dynamic innovation through open development, standing on shoulders of giants (PostgresQL, Python, ...))
As Nhomar said, open source IS a very important customer value. And even if some people don't understand much of it, I think it is very important to explain the enormous differences between free software/open source vs proprietary/closed software. It's the end of monopolies.... and customers generally do appreciate the strategic value of freedom. best, Wouter On 02/17/2014 12:11 AM, Carlos Vásquez wrote: > Hi Fabien, > > I do like your thoughts about the marketing strategy in general. I agree > with the communication techniques you propose. > > > *ERP vs. Apps* > > As our fellow partners stated, the main discussion point is which image > we do want to market to our customers. Speaking about the ERP vs. Apps > approach, I kind of agree with both you and the other partners. We do > not spend one cent in marketing, we only follow-up sales of people that > contact us. For now it has been enough to keep us busy and running. > Those people who contact us are almost always looking for an ERP. We > usually have to sell an implementation project where other ERP solutions > are also participating, sometimes there are big ERP solutions (SAP, > Dynamics, Oracle, etc), and usually there are local ERP solutions. I > think dropping the ERP solution as a marketing point, would affect us in > this market. > > But, we have more and more calls from people looking for a cheaper and > faster solution for their problems. An ERP implementation is not > affordable nor suitable for their business. We are getting ready to > offer OpenERP in a way very similar to your SaaS offer. This offer will > be ready very soon and we already have several customers waiting to test > it. Also, we started doing fast, out-of-the-box implementations about 3 > months ago to gain experience for our new "SaaS" offer. It has proven to > be very successful. These customers are more prone to identify > themselves with a solution marketed as business apps running together. > Here I do understand your point and it will help to bring more customers > for this line of service. > > > *Open Source* > > Also, the first kind of customers are usually more interested in an Open > Source solution and they often understand its benefits and it can be an > important sale point for them. The later kind of customers, usually do > not know about Open Source, and they do not care. They need a good, > affordable and reliable solution for their needs. Open or closed is the > same for them. So again, we do have here 2 ways of marketing this > because there is in fact (as Ana said) 2 targets. > > The one thing that help us in the sale process is that our customers can > easily find us in the partners directory. The new partners page with > automatic country filter is doing a great job with this. Also the way > you redirect all kind of leads to us. > > > Maybe it is a good idea to separate the ERP/OpenSource and the > Apps/Product approach. Is it really necessary to choose only one way? I > always like simplicity, but in this case, focusing only one target may > be wrong, it is worth the discussion. > > > *Pull strategy* > > There is one more thing I think I can give some valuable feedback. The > services you offer to partners are somewhat rigid in some cases. I would > love to sell an Enterprise contract with every OpenERP implementation. > But this is not possible. The OPW is not made for end-users, us partners > we have to take part in the process. We have worked out several bugs > with the support team. Our experience has been varied. Sometimes the > person assigned to the bug can solve the problem in a reasonable time > frame, other times we have ended up fixing it ourselves. In all cases we > have to spend at least a couple of hours in total of our time. If our > customer reports a bug, we have to test to know where is the problem. If > there is something wrong with some official code and there is an OPW > contract we can send it to your team. In most cases, your team needs > several replies from us. They usually do not do a very good job finding > the problem, we have to do some heavy testing for them as they keep > rejecting the issue of proposing some simplistic workaround. For > important bugs, we end up spending more than 2 hours answering mails and > doing remote desktop demo sessions. At the end we have to integrate and > deploy the solution. I explain all of this because we have to charge > several hours to our customers on top of an Enterprise contract. And we > also need to support the localization and customizations. The total cost > of support gets expensive. Of course your contract also includes > migration. But if we want to use this service, we also need to charge > some extra fee to migrate the localization and customizations. This is > the main reason we do not sell Enterprise contracts very often, and the > ones we have sold, are not renewing. > > For partners which do develop and do heavy customization, I find the > Enterprise service and its pricing method very rigid. I am worried > because we could work much better with your team and get you to earn > more money, which is good for all of us. And for our new "SaaS" offer, I > contacted you guys to work out something to include support from your > team in our cost structure, but the only thing you have to offer is the > regular Enterprise support with the usual "per user" pricing method. > This will at least duplicate our cost for each user. This is not > acceptable, nor is reflecting the reality. You know that in this kind of > service, the amount of support is deluded because everyone is using the > same exact code base. So we decided to go on our own, without your > support. We ran some numbers, and we think it will be cheaper to support > the platform ourselves, even with the migration process. > > So as of now, I do not think you have good service offer for us. The > pricing structure do not work outside Europe of North America. I know > and appreciate you are making efforts to adapt your prices. It has been > a very good first step. But it is not enough. You have to differentiate > configuration only partners, from development ones. We are more than > open and willing to work with you. So, even if you make a great > marketing strategy, the pull strategy you propose will not work very > well in our particular case. I think it is the best way to go, we need > to improve who does generating partners revenue will create revenue for > OpenERP S.A. > > > *Recap* > > All of this said. I do appreciate your efforts to involve the community, > and do think that there are great things we (the partners) can do with > you (OpenERP S.A.). A marketing investment in marketing will benefit us. > And I do trust your judgment to integrate internal ideas with community > suggestions into an excellent marketing strategy. > > Regards, > -- > Carlos Vásquez > CTO · Director de Ingeniería > CLEARCORP S.A. > > carlos.vasq...@clearcorp.co.cr <mailto:carlos.vasq...@clearcorp.co.cr> > Cel: +(506) 8351 4484 > CR: +(506) 4000 CORP (4000 2677) > US: +1 (786) 472-4267 > skype: crvasquez > twitter: cvclearcorp > > 300 m. Este de la Escuela > Calle de Platanares > 11402 San Jerónimo, Moravia > San José, Costa Rica > (GoogleMaps: http://goo.gl/8YqM4S) > > http://www.clearcorp.co.cr > > > _______________________________________________ > Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~openerp-community > Post to : openerp-community@lists.launchpad.net > Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~openerp-community > More help : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp > _______________________________________________ Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~openerp-community Post to : openerp-community@lists.launchpad.net Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~openerp-community More help : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp