20 TOPDESK MAGAZINE - MARCH 2017

George Cox
is Office Sales Consultant at TOPdesk.

Why would I want to

subscribe to anything?
Its no secret that everything from consumer technology to business services are moving
towards a service-based, or subscription-based model. Now, its not uncommon to
bemoan this as a method of industry maximizing revenue (which of course, is certainly
one way of looking at it). However it is important to recognize this trend for what it
delivers to the consumers: value.

The success of consumer
subscriptions
If we truly want to understand the value
of subscriptions, lets start by looking at
the biggest players in the consumer sphere
Spotify, Amazon and Netflix. Although
these are essentially entertainment options,
with the partial exception of Amazon, it is
interesting how many and how much people
are willing to spend their hard-earned cash on
these commodity services.
Spotify had 40 million paid subscribers as
of September 2016. Amazon Prime had a
healthy 63 million customers as of July 2016,
with an increase of 19 million from the
year before. This figure is so high now that
it is estimated that Prime members now
outnumber non-Prime members.
When services such as Netflix and Spotify
started to emerge, there were many
worries. What would happen to CD and DVD
sales? Well, time has told that sad story,
unfortunately for those industries. However,
it has resulted in consumers being able to
access the content they want more easily,
quickly, and affordably than ever. So, when we
ask ourselves why we spend our disposable
income on these services, the answer is
obvious. They deliver more value than any
other delivery method, and give continuously
add to this.
Same buck, more bang
The beauty in all of these services is that unlike
buying a DVD or CD and being stuck with
that one option, they continuously refresh
their offerings. Take Amazon Prime. When the
service launched, it was based around the idea
of free one-day delivery on any eligible items
which was often considered valuable enough.
Then Amazon acquired LoveFilm and produced
an instant video streaming service, now
including proprietary content, like Netflix, such
as The Grand Tour. After this success, they also
bundled in a music service to rival both Spotify
and the less successful Apple Music. However,
the important part of all these additions is that
it at no point affected the membership cost.
So, customers were continuously offered a
more valuable service simply as part of their
existing subscription.
Netflix recently added $800 million of
debt to help fund more and more original
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content, leading to hit shows such as Narcos,
new series of unrenewed shows such as
Black Mirror, and many more original ideas.
Suddenly, Netflix is not just a streaming site for
all the TV shows you love, or movies you want
to see but a channel in and on itself. Hooking
subscribers with the promise of new seasons of
content that cant be obtained anywhere else.
The point here is that these subscription-
based services deliver value to the customer
by continuously improving their offerings,
bringing out new features, and delivering more
and more of this value to subscribers.
What does this mean for
businesses?
Its no secret that businesses tend to lag behind
consumer trends. Legacy systems scattered
throughout an organisation usually ensure this,
and the requirement for due diligence over
every penny spent. However, we can already
see some parts of this shift occurring namely
in Microsofts Office 365. Office is of course
the industry standard for word processing,
spreadsheets, PowerPoints. The fact that even
a non-Microsoft presentation will still be called
a PowerPoint is evidence of this.
This suite has taken businesses into the first
step of cloud reliance, with a 70% increase
in subscribers, bringing its numbers up to
18.2 million. No longer do those 18.2 million
organisations need to worry about paying to
upgrade to the next numbered product, when
it just updates automatically.
And this trend is ever widening. Most
business support systems, whether they be
ITSM, CAFM, eHR, ERP, accounting software
or what have you, are starting to offer robust
service-based models. Not so long ago, for
any of these systems, a business would be
urged to pay a huge capital expenditure, with
an operational expenditure support contract
to use these systems. Now at the time this
was all fine and dandy. Budget was found,
used, and a shiny new system was installed.
Great. Now its 4, 5, or even 8 years later. The
world has moved on, but the way of working
hasnt changed. Was that investment really
as valuable as it seemed at the time? Being
cutting edge for a year, but then what?
And then the other issue raises its ugly
head: the sales person like me on the
other end of the phone trying to get their
hands in the business pockets to move from
one version to another and then rinse and
repeat. Trust me, I hate that conversation as
much as you do.
It seems it might be time to learn from the
consumer model. Lower op-ex expenditures in
a subscription format to produce the Amazon
Prime of business support systems. Why
allow departments to stagnate until they are
forced to spend all their budget just getting
TOPDESK MAGAZINE - MARCH 2017 21
back up to speed? Especially when, for a lower
level investment, the business can stay at
the cutting edge with the ever-expanding
portfolio of functionality. You have already
switched to this at home, why not in your
home away from home the office?
Benefit from TOPdesk
subscriptions
Did you know that TOPdesk has moved
to a subscription-based model? Gone
are the days where an environment is
out of date, or in need of an overhaul.
Gone are the days where you pay huge
upfront costs for a perpetual licence. We
offer and apply updates on a fortnightly
basis to bring you the freshest features,
meaning any woes from using a legacy
system can finally be put to bed. Want
to know more? Discuss the possibilities
of SaaS and subscriptions with your
account manager.