A relatively new software and professional services company is looking to expand its business in a niche market. The software product, used for articulating and managing a sustainability vision, is targeted to local governments in the US. The field of sustainability is new and uncertain. In 2007, the company's competitive advantage rests in the use of its knowledge of sustainability to deliver rapid implementation of its software product. Professional consulting services are integral to the product but also limit the company's ability to scale its operations to achieve growth. Recommendations are proposed to help this young company achieve growth in the US market. Particular focus is placed on the role of alliances in enabling the company to gain a foothold in the emerging market for sustainability reporting.

This book aims to be an easy-to-understand guide and companion to structure the thoughts for those who consider walking on the sometimes challenging but exciting path to internationalisation. The book summarises strategies, decisions and factors that impact those decisions, as well as critical success factors for taking a software company international. It is based on a combination of investigation, interviews, review of academic research literature and the personal experience of the authors and those interviewed. Specifically the research has focused on software companies, as they are inherently different to other sets of companies in their ability to distribute products in various channels with limited extra cost for each additional unit sold. This difference makes the process of internationalisation more variable and more flexible, but also equally fuzzy and potentially time- and resource consuming. The book raises important questions to help the reader challenge his or her own preconceived ideas of internationalisation. It covers critical success factors, best practices and lessons learned from company leaders interviewed for this book. Easy-to-use models and checklists that can be applied when evaluating new markets and approaches to internationalisation are also included.

Growth Strategies for Software Companies is an authoritative, insider's perspective on the ins and outs of this dynamic industry and the future of the business, on a global scale. Featuring top business executives representing some of the leading software companies across the nation, this book provides a broad, yet comprehensive overview of the current state and future shape of the software industry. These authors discuss the roles and inner workings of winning executive teams, methods for tracking growth, and strategies for making technology available to the masses, as well as identify the biggest risks companies face and ways to hedge these risks. Each executive analyzes solutions for setting up customer training and interactive programs, eliminating downtime to avoid lost revenue, and updating vision and leadership plans to parallel a constantly changing industry. These authorities also offer key tactics for providing excellent customer service, knowing the competition, monitoring financials, and using the internet as a sales footprint to reach the global marketplace. The different niches rep-resented and the breadth of perspectives presented enable readers to get inside some of the great innovative minds of today, as these experts explore in detail what it takes to secure long-term success in this ever-evolving industry. Inside the Minds provides readers with proven business intelligence from C-Level executives (Chairman, CEO, CFO, CMO, Partner) from the world's most respected companies nationwide, rather than third-party accounts from unknown authors and analysts. Each chapter is comparable to an essay/thought leadership piece and is a future-oriented look at where an industry, profession, or topic is headed and the most important issues for the future. Through an exhaustive selection process, each author was hand-picked by the Inside the Minds editorial board to author a chapter for this book. Chapters Include: 1. Dr. Pamela Coker, President and Chief Executive Officer, Acucorp Inc. ? ?Achieving Success in the Changing World of Software? 2. Rick Jackson, Chief Marketing Officer and Senior Vice President of Corporate Strategy, Borland Software Corporation ? ?Driving Growth in the ALM Market? 3. Alan Shimel, Chief Strategy Officer, StillSecure ? ?Offering Products that the Market Needs? 4. David Weiss, President and Chief Executive Officer, Numara Software Inc. ? ?It's the Solution, Not the Software!? 5. Mitchell Ashley, Chief Technology Officer and General Manager, StillSecure ? ?Strategies for a Successful CTO? 6. Dr. Parag Pruthi, Founder, Chairman, and Chief Executive Officer, NIKSUN ? ?Delivering a Long-Term Vision for Software? 7. Mark Krieger, Vice President of Development, Numara Software ? ?UniPress Software: Taking the Long View? 8. Emmet B. Keeffe III, Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder, iRise ? "Building a Successful Software Company?

This electronic version has been made available under a Creative Commons (BY-NC-ND) open access license. There has been increasing interest and debate in recent years on the instituted nature of economic processes in general and the related ideas of the market, in particular the competitive process. This debate lies at the interface between two largely independent disciplines, economics and sociology, and reflects an attempt to bring the two fields of discourse more closely together. This book explores this interface in a number of ways, looking at the competitive process and market relations from a number of different perspectives. It includes a wide range of contributors, most of whom are leading writers and thinkers in the field. The book considers the social role of economic institutions in society and examines the various meanings embedded in the word 'markets', as well as developing arguments on the nature of competition as an instituted economic process, rather than as competition being something that disturbs norms or institutions. It goes on to consider the deeper and more involved connection between markets and cognition, explaining how institutions can ease cognitive difficulties, and the effect of culture on markets and competition is also fully studied. This book will be of vital use to students and academics working in the fields of economics, sociology and business studies. It sketches the agenda for future research about markets and the competitive process.

Get from Idea to Product/Market Fit in B2B. The world has changed. Nowadays, there are more companies building B2B products than there’s ever been. Products are entering organizations top-down, middle-out, and bottom-up. Teams and managers control their budgets. Buyers have become savvier and more impatient. The case for the value of new innovations no longer needs to be made. Technology products get hired, and fired faster than ever before. The challenges have moved from building and validating products to gaining adoption in increasingly crowded and fragmented markets. This, requires a new playbook. The second edition of Lean B2B is the result of years of research into B2B entrepreneurship. It builds off the unique Lean B2B Methodology, which has already helped thousands of entrepreneurs and innovators around the world build successful businesses. In this new edition, you’ll learn: - Why companies seek out new products, and why they agree to buy from unproven vendors like startups - How to find early adopters, establish your credibility, and convince business stakeholders to work with you - What type of opportunities can increase the likelihood of building a product that finds adoption in businesses - How to learn from stakeholders, identify a great opportunity, and create a compelling value proposition - How to get initial validation, create a minimum viable product, and iterate until you're able to find product/market fit This second edition of Lean B2B will show you how to build the products that businesses need, want, buy, and adopt.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 8th International Conference on Software Business, ICSOB 2017, held in Essen, Germany, in June 2017. The 11 full papers and 5 short papers presented in this volume were carefully reviewed and selected from 30 submissions. They were organized in topical sections named: software startups and platform governance; software business development; software ecosystems and App stores.

"Product-Led Growth is about helping your customers experience the ongoing value your product provides. It is a critical step in successful product design and this book shows you how it's done." - Nir Eyal, Wall Street Journal Bestselling Author of "Hooked"