Wednesday, January 9, 2008

Wanted: Software that helps you make money

Can enterprise software help companies actually make money?

Most enterprise software is designed to automate business processes with the hopes to drive down cost. I understand that when costs decrease, net revenue increases. However costs are finite. Can software be designed to help accelerate revenue on positive side (as opposed to decrease the negative)?

My peers and I could only think of the marketing apps that based on purchase history, user profile, or surfing history, can directly advertise things that you might be more interested in. But are there any more?

Software shops that focus on this aspect of the world have to be the wave of the future in my eyes, otherwise the software industry is doomed to remain marginalized as the cost centers of the business world.

Let me know your thoughts....

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Enterprise reporting software can help identify new opportunities.

Anonymous said...

Check out Genius.com. They "qualify leads instantly so you can close more deals."

It's a nice product...worth watching the Flash demo to see how it works. Seamless integration with Salesforce.com too.

Cheers,
-- Frank Leahy

p.s. Full disclosure: I used to work at Genius and wrote a good portion of the original code base.

Anonymous said...

It would seem that anything that accelerates the product development process would fit into this category: e.g. CAD/CAM, collaboration tools, prototyping or software development tools.

If you buy into Peter Drucker's thesis that a "firm has only two real functions, marketing and innovation, and everything else is cost," then you might broaden your "make money" definition to include innovation.

Sean Murphy www.skmurphy.com

Anonymous said...

read "My Life as a Quant". There are lots of examples of software that makes money in the trading world.

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