ISVs: Take the pain out of growth and innovation

Written by North America Commercialization Lead, Damla Taskin

Transformation and growth are never easy. As an independent software vendor (ISV) that is trying to disrupt old ways of doing things in a specific vertical, you know this too well. The hours in your journey to launch were long; full of late-night development work, going back to the drawing board and pitching your vision to investors.

Now, as an established ISV, you’re faced with more growing pains and challenges in balancing the pull between developing in-house vs. outsourcing or partnership and connecting with your end customers.

All this hard work is worth it because the opportunities are there, so how can you tap into that?

Market research from Proficient Market Insights indicates the global ISV market could expand at a compound annual growth rate of 9.69% through 2027 and be worth more than $162 billion by 2027.

Take a chunk of the market growth

In an industry where it’s essential to stay agile and adaptive, getting the recipe right on partnerships vs. in-house can potentially seriously impact your business growth and customer retention.

For many, there’s a strong desire to keep as much as possible in-house. Naturally, it helps you retain full control of your vision, output and product timelines. However, as your business grows, the ability to manage all development in-house can erode your product roadmap as development maintenance needs pop up – which can become costly, if it isn’t a core expertise of your teams.

Strategic partnerships have become an important strategy for companies to accelerate their growth and enhance their offerings. Through utilizing partners, your business can have access to additional resources, capabilities, expedite go-to-market activities, adopt new technologies and be introduced to new potential customers.

The challenge for ISVs adopting a partnership strategy is to determine:

• What areas to focus on partnerships vs. building in house
• Finding the right partner that supports your goals, vision and can help you grow

Considering the monetization opportunity integrating payments processing into your software represents, your first instinct may be to jump into development. However, in today’s ever-expanding payments landscape, it can also be cumbersome and full of challenges. The complex payment ecosystem means it isn’t easy for ISVs to navigate a globally diverse financial environment – especially if your software offering is not one specialized in payments. Multiple payment method integrations, domestic regulations, as well as the complexity in maintenance, updates and PCI certification can be overwhelming, distract you from your real business goals and potentially hurt your revenue and growth forecasts.

Minimize friction, choose a payment partnership for growth

Getting started with a payment partner seems straightforward enough. ?However, as your business grows and expands to established merchants with existing acquiring relationships, you may find you’ve outgrown your existing solution, need to expand your addressable market with a partner who can advance your business and help you win with customers that are resistant to changing existing acquiring relationship they already have.

You’ve reached the next growing pain in your business. While your potential customers are interested in your software, they cannot adopt your technology till you’ve transformed and re-evaluated your payment processes to minimize adoption friction and can offer more diversity, particularly when it comes to payment methods and acquiring.

With an enterprise partnership solution for payments, ISVs are empowered to provide their customers with a seamless payment experience and retain their focus on their end business goals. As you dive more into what this new era of your business looks like, here are some areas you may want to consider when you evaluate any potential organizations:

• What acquirer connections does this new payment partner offer?
• What is their customer support model?
• How can they future proof my business?
• How flexible is their solution?
• Do they have existing fraud solutions integrated?
• What are their areas of expertise?

Connecting your ISV to a world of possibilities through a single touch point

Finding a partner with a successful acquiring network can be key to success in moving your business forward with merchant customers and helping you stay focused on your product’s innovation. With a global network of over 200 acquirers, +35 alternative payment methods and domestic schemes and over 50 years payments experience, Mastercard Gateway can provide you a single point of integration into the world of payment for your merchants.

With Mastercard Gateway as a partner, your merchants can freely adopt your new software all the while getting access to digital payment solutions, both locally and globally? without disrupting their acquirer connections.

In addition to an extensive acquirer network, Mastercard Gateway can provide your customers with enhanced payments security and advanced technology offering them frictionless and secure end-to-end commerce across the payment’s ecosystem.

To learn more about Mastercard Gateway’s acquirer network and the solutions it can offer resellers and ISVs, visit Mastercard.com/Gateway