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Company: OpenAir, a NetSuite Company
Started: 1999
Located: Boston, Massachusetts
Geography: Global
Market: Cloud Computing PSA Solutions
Products: OpenAir Business Development, Resource Management, Project Management,
Knowledge Management and Project Accounting
Key Customers: American Federation of Teachers, Clickability, MetricStream, Model N,
PreVisor, Selectica, State of Oregon, and SupportSoft
Website: OpenAir
Twitter: @OpenAir
Recent News:
OpenAir CEO Joins SIIA Panel to Discuss Growting a SaaS Business Internationally
OpenAir Launches OpenAir Connect for SAP, Oracle and Salesforce.com
I asked Morris Panner, OpenAir’s CEO a few questions about his business and his view of the SaaS market as we move into 2010.
Did you start out as a Software-as-a-Service company?
We started the company in 1999 and were one of the original Software-as-a-Service pioneers like Salesforce.com according to Phil Wainewright who was at ASP News at the time.
Professional Services Automation or PSA started out because the world economy was moving to more of a Human Capital intensive market. Companies where beginning to leverage talent wherever they could get it through outsourcing, consulting and all types of value added professional services. Product companies were also evolving into services companies that were trying to solve all types of complicated business challenges. Companies like PRTM, a global strategy firm, Lafarge Cement, Siemens, AstraZeneca, Software AG, Progress Software and BMC were all evolving into product and services companies.
All the OpenAir founders came out of a variety of professional services organizations and we realized at that time, there were no good ways to manage complex, global services projects, especially using spreadsheets and email. Then the Internet came along and OpenAir saw this market need, where existing companies were struggling, then we refined our strategy and began developing products to meet this opportunity. There were other PSA firms at the time, including Niku, who moved into IT management, but the overall PSA market space was and continues to consolidate around fewer, larger players.
About 18 months ago, Zach Nelson, the CEO at NetSuite approached me and we agreed that the market was moving towards not just SaaS-based Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) market but to a Service Resource Planning market. At that point we agreed to merge the companies and since then we also acquired QuickArrow and now the OpenAir PSA segment of NetSuite comprises more than 1,000 customers and 85,000 users globally.
Why do your customers buy from OpenAir?
We think our customers are looking for a knowledgeable, long-term PSA partner. This type of partnership is very different than an infrastructure or transaction-type of software relationship, because professional services is it is really complex business process software. Our customers expect us to bring them our specific professional services domain expertise to help to make their businesses operate more efficiently.
For example, when we launched in Europe, we did a presentation to Siemens in Barcelona. They had SAP but didn’t like using their platform for managing complex services. Siemens wanted to select a services- oriented software platform that was referenceable with large enterprises like theirs. OpenAir’s difference wasn’t just the platform; it was our deployment approach for enterprise customers as well as our people.
Being a SaaS player is also an advantage because you don’t have to install anything, which saves our customers time and cost. This especially important for large global companies, because the types of services problems they face are distributed and complex, so SaaS just makes a lot of sense for them. Typically our customers are probably using Oracle, SAP platforms or even email and spreadsheets, to manage their services projects, but they aren’t easy-to-use or efficient solutions.
Our partnership with NetSuite has definitely helped us step on the gas with regard to new customer acquisition. Zach really understands markets and how they evolve, which is why he choose to work with OpenAir. Services and consulting executives are at the center of this market shift to a Service-based economy and OpenAir is helping them improve their businesses.
What do you see as the key trend emerging in the SaaS industry?
We see the major drivers as Cloud Computing and the shift from a manufacturing-based economy to a people and services-baed economy. OpenAir’s Cloud-based solutions are going to do for the service economy, what is what SAP did for the manufacturing economy.
NetSuite is making a big bet on Professional Services Automation and now have put the resources behind our Service Resources Planning approach to the market.
What is your outlook for 2010?
Even though last year was difficult for most software companies, 2009 was a great year for OpenAir.
As we look to 2010, growing our talent is the key to the success of our company and we will continue to build out our capabilities in Boston, Austin, London and the Philippines. We doubled our headcount in 2009 and we building a great team.
We’re very thankful for our good results in 2009 and 2010 looks to be on track for us.
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