The flawed expectations of SaaS and APIs

SaaS is a powerful trend that can’t be denied. Great examples would be Salesforce making web delivery of CRM far less expensive and Workday smashing ERP paradigms at high speed. SaaS is a valuable way to increase innovation and lower cost by joining with the many others using the functionality of a single application being delivered on common infrastructure.

Where SaaS fails

But what if you want to solve the problem no one else chooses to solve? What if you want to set yourself apart from the rest of the market? What if you see an opportunity no one else sees? How does classic SaaS make that happen? It doesn’t.

Solving hard problems, new problems and differentiating a business isn’t very likely to happen on today’s SaaS platform. For these things to happen, companies need to create something new that they can own and use to their best advantage.

What about API’s?

But there is something that isn’t SaaS and has to come up…API’s…those red-hot, web-enabled application programming interfaces that allow everyone to have embedded maps from Google or any other encapsulated thing. They’re an innovator’s turbo charge but still don’t in themselves differentiate.

Technology that differentiates

For all of the noise and focus on the SaaS and API trends, the way the top companies use technology to compete still falls back on solving hard problems, doing brand-new things and truly differentiating. That isn’t found within the things that exist…it is found in the things that need to be created.

Be ready to create or expect to be overtaken.

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Christopher Taylor