Why Bad Software Has Historically Flourished

As a software developer at heart, it used to bother me to no end seeing what I knew to be clearly superior software lose out in the market to what I knew to be inferior software. Whether a multi-million dollar sale, a high placement in an analyst evaluation, a glowing puff piece in a tech publication, or a multi-billion dollar acquisition, it just wasn't fair. I naively used to think "If that journalist only knew how badly their ORM leaked memory, they wouldn't have written so kindly about their product."

Software that's downright ugly used to win because the buyers of the software were business users who couldn't tell Java apart from JavaScript. They care about one metric - are they able to meet their business objectives using the software? Meeting business objectives means promotions and raises. Failing to meet business objectives means demotions and firings. The cost of the software is even irrelevant most of the time. While the software itself is most often the reason for success, there's a whole value chain that the more technically minded folks out there seem to forget about or downplay. That entire value chain is often the difference between a customer failing or succeeding. Flawless software means nothing if nobody knows about it, can implement it, or isn't able to get support for it, at least at the enterprise level.

Let's have a look at the software value chain in its entirety.

• Marketing needs to be publicizing the right features of the right products to the right buyers at the right organizations
• Sales needs to build support across an organization for the sale, often helping the business sponsor sell the project internally. Sales needs to sell the product on its current capabilities, not create slick demoware that fools less technical people into believing the software does more than it actually does. Contracts need to be written in a way align the interests of the organization and the vendor itself. Sales needs to include training, professional services and other value adds, even though they may not be directly compensated for adding these ancillary services
• The partnership/alliances team needs to forge relationships with systems integrators who are capable of successfully implementing the software
• The training organization needs to successfully train developers on how to implement and work with the software on a daily basis
• Professional services needs to support the architecture and implementation, while coaching in-house architects and developers shoulder-to-shoulder
• Customer success must regularly engage with the customer to ensure they're getting what they need from the vendor and that business metrics are being met
• Support needs to quickly answer inquires, while training the customer along the way

Then there are the more back-office functions like finance, human resources, legal, facilities and so on. Successful implementations are an entire company's responsibility.

Some software vendors, especially the large multi-national vendors, are famous for having what are clearly inferior software products but otherwise successful businesses. This has historically worked because the rest of the value chain makes up for the poor products. They can out-market even the best funded startups. They can get extremely creative with pricing and sales tactics. They have legions of highly paid consultants ready to be dispatched a moments' notice to put out fires. They can provide free professional services when implementations aren't going well. So long as they're selling to less savvy business users, and those business users are meeting their objectives, this model works.

The new world of SaaS has completely democratized software, allowing any person or vendor to quickly bring a product to market in a matter of months. SaaS is largely consumable a la carte and priced on a metered basis, often without commitment contracts. Customers of the software are more likely to be savvy IT organization who care far more about the product than sales and marketing. With more options on the market than ever, buyers can afford to be picky about the products.

Where you get real success in today's market is when you have a superior product and the backing of the rest of the organization. There isn't a week that goes by that I don't hear of some nascent competitor of ours along with some variation of "Their product looks exactly like ours! Aren't you concerned?!?" To show how little I'm concerned, here are some examples of these types of vendors: Commerce Layer, Crystallize, vendure, and Sylius. On paper, yes many of these products look remarkably like what we've built - a next generation headless commerce platform that's backed by microservices and fronted by APIs. Many offer GraphQL. Most are public cloud multi-tenant as well. But when you peel back the covers a little bit, this is what you'll find:

These companies are usually founded by lone developers who then make software for other developers. While this may work fine at the consumer-level, the enterprise-level requires that whole value chain I briefly covered earlier. Three person companies aren't companies - they're mercenaries writing code for sale. That code isn't a product, it's just source code. It's entirely different from a 200+ person software vendor offering a software product that's backed by an entire organization. With some luck, some of these companies will grow up to one day challenge us at commercetools. We welcome that challenge.

On the other side of the market, the big enterprise vendors peddling bad products to less technical buyers also need to start investing substantially more in their products. Today's buyers are technical and they have many choices available due to the SaaS revolution we're in the midst of.

About commercetools

commercetools is a next generation software technology company that offers a true cloud commerce platform, providing the building blocks for the new digital commerce age. Our leading-edge API approach helps retailers create brand value by empowering commerce teams to design unique and engaging digital commerce experiences everywhere – today and in the future. Our agile, componentized architecture improves profitability by significantly reducing development time and resources required to migrate to modern commerce technology and meet new customer demands. 

The innovative platform design enables commerce possibilities for the future by offering the option to either use the platform's entire set of features or deploy individual services, á la carte over time. This state-of-the-art architecture is the perfect starting point for customized microservices, enabling retailers to significantly reduce time-to-market for innovative commerce functionalities.

With offices in Germany and the United States, B2C and B2B companies from across the globe including well-known brands in fashion, E-Food, and DIY retail trust commercetools to power their digital commerce business.

Visit www.commercetools.com for more information.