Abstract
Fast-paced and turbulent business environments force companies to make repeated decisions concerning their solution strategy. This paper presents a retrospective case study that investigated changes in the strategy of a successful SaaS solution provided by a medium-sized Finnish software company. The study concentrated on the following research question: “How did the solution strategy evolve during the life-cycle of the software solution?” The main finding of the study is that the solution strategy has undergone four distinct stages over nine years. The stages differed in terms of whether the focus was on existing or new services offered to potential or new customers. Each of the four stages contributed to sustaining the solution’s revenue growth in an increasingly competitive and maturing market. The study’s findings suggest that customers’ customers are crucial for growth opportunities, particularly once the original market has become mature.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
Christensen, C.M., Suáres, F.F., Utterback, J.M.: Strategies for Survival in Fast-Changing Industries. Management Science 44(12), 207–220 (1998)
McGrath, M.E.: Product Strategy for High-Technology Companies, 2nd edn. McGraw-Hill, New York (2001)
Giachetti, C., Marchi, G.: Evolution of Firms’ Product Strategy over the Life Cycle of Technology-Based Industries: A Case Study of the Global Mobile Phone Industry, 1980-2009. Business History 52(7), 1123–1150 (2010)
Karakaya, F., Kerin, R.A.: Impact of Product Life Cycle Stages on Barriers to Entry. Journal of Strategic Marketing 15(4), 269–280 (2007)
Klepper, S.: Industry Life Cycles. Industrial and Corporate Change 6(1), 145–181 (1997)
Brereton, P., Budgen, D., Bennett, K., Munro, M., Layzell, P., Macaulay, L., Griffiths, D., Stannett, C.: The Future of Software. Communications of the ACM 42(12), 78–84 (1999)
Komssi, M., Kauppinen, M., Heiskari, J., Ropponen, M.: Transforming a Software Product Company into a Service Business: Case Study at F-Secure. In: Proceedings of the 33rd Annual International Computer Software and Application Conference, COMPSAC, pp. 61–66 (2009)
Sharon, A.M., Eschinger, C., Eid, T., Swinehart, H.H., Pang, C., Pring, B.: Market Trends: Software as a Service, Worldwide, 2008–2013, Update. Gartner, November 4 (2009)
Katzmarzik, A.: Product Differentiation for Software-as-a-Service Providers. Business & Information Systems Engineering 3(1), 19–31 (2011)
Concha, D., Espadas, J., Romero, D., Molina, A.: The e-HUB evolution: From a Custom Software Architecture to a Software-as-a-Service implementation. Computers in Industry 61(2), 145–151 (2010)
Lassila, A.: Taking a Service-Oriented Perspective on Software Business: How to Move from Product Business to Online Service Business. IADIS International Journal on WWW/Internet 4(1), 70–82 (2006)
Lehtola, L., Kauppinen, M., Vähäniitty, J., Komssi, M.: Linking Business and Requirements Engineering: Is Solution Planning a Missing Activity in Software Product Companies? Requirements Engineering 14(2), 113–128 (2009)
Scheuing, E.E., Johnson, E.M.: A Proposed Model for New Service Development. Journal of Services Marketing 3(1), 25–34 (1989)
Kim, W.C., Mauborgne, R.: Blue Ocean Strategy. HBS Press (2005)
Kaartemo, V., Peltola, K.K.: New Service Development in an International Context: a Case Study of a Finnish Technopark Company in Russia. International Journal of Business Excellence 2(3-4), 338–401 (2009)
Ziesak, J.: Wii Innovate - How Nintendo Created a New Market through the Strategic Innovation. GRIN Verlag (2009)
Bozeman, B., Kingsley, G.: R&D Value Mapping: A New Approach to Case Study-Based Evaluation. Journal of Technology Transfer 22(2), 33–41 (1997)
Yin, R.K.: Case Study Research – Design and Methods, 3rd edn. Sage Publications Inc., Thousand Oaks (2003)
Gummesson, E.: Qualitative Methods in Management Research, 2nd edn. Sage Publications Inc., Thousand Oaks (2000)
Patton, M.Q.: Qualitative Research and Evaluation Methods, 3rd edn. Sage Publications Inc., Thousand Oaks (2002)
Internet Achieve WayBackMachine, http://web.archive.org/web/ */ http://www.f-secure.com
Macmillan, I.C., McGrath, R.G.: Crafting R&D Project Portfolios. Research Technology Management 45(5), 48–60 (2002)
Gupta, S., Lehmann, D., Stuart, J.A.: Valuing Customers. Journal of Marketing Research 41(1), 7–18 (2004)
Grönroos, C.: The Relationship Marketing Process: Communication, Interaction, Dialogue, Value. Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing 19(2), 99–113 (2004)
Collins, J.: Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap ... and Others Don’t. Collins (2001)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2011 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
About this paper
Cite this paper
Komssi, M., Kauppinen, M., Ropponen, M., Palomäki, P. (2011). Transformations of a Solution Strategy: A Case Study. In: Regnell, B., van de Weerd, I., De Troyer, O. (eds) Software Business. ICSOB 2011. Lecture Notes in Business Information Processing, vol 80. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-21544-5_12
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-21544-5_12
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-642-21543-8
Online ISBN: 978-3-642-21544-5
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)