Case study Candor Technologies
Case study
Candor Technologies
»With the Fujitsu ISV Cloud Program, we can make our CRM solution available
online with demand-oriented scalability, flexibility and use-oriented business models.«
Gerd Leszinski, CEO Candor Europe
The customer
The Candor Technologies Group is a software house that specializes in
SaaS/Cloud applications. Besides CP3 products like the popular
BizCardPrint, the company also offers other innovative products like SIS
(Sales Information System), an online database for small and
medium-sized companies. Candor‟s applications are on-demand business
applications, i.e. applications that are available 24 hours a day and 365
days a year. Candor sees itself as a „technology factory‟ coupled with an
idea-development house. The mission of the Candor Technologies Group
is to be able to offer clever services and applications worldwide in which
the focus is on the benefits and a high return on investment for the
customer.
The customer
Country: Germany
Industry: Software company, specialized
on SaaS /Cloud applications
Founded: 1995
Employees: 25
Website: www.candor.com/de
The challenge
Software is showing tremendous growth as a service market, both in
Germany and worldwide. The question for independent software
vendors is how they can benefit from this growth as quickly and
easily as possible, and with minimum resource requirements, while
also being able to offer their own software-as-a-service (SaaS)
products. This means creating an online presence as quickly as
possible while incorporating existing software code.
The solution
SaaS is a trendsetting business model for software manufacturers.
With the ISV Cloud Program, Fujitsu is offering ISV a Web-based
platform with which software products can be provided on a rental
basis. That way, Candor users get a low-cost complete solution over
the Internet and save the procurement, licensing and operating costs.
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The challenge
When new software is introduced, medium-sized companies are
increasingly faced with the question of whether to select an on-site
solution, i.e. traditional licensed software, or whether an on-demand
solution might fit the bill. It is often the case that such software is
considerably more attractive as a service model because the advantages
are obvious: low to no procurement costs, low capital commitment, and
clearly calculable operating costs. However, it is also necessary to
remove any security doubts about loss of data and data misuse as well as
any concerns about constant availability. Here, hosting in the supervised
computer center of a professional provider is a clear argument for SaaS
and a “pay-as-you-go” model for many companies.
The solution
With the CMS solution SIS (Sales Information System), Candor
addresses companies in the German-speaking region and offers the
software exclusively via a SaaS model. In doing so, Candor uses the
Fujitsu ISV Cloud Program as a platform. Since this online platform
reproduces the associated business functions such as an online market
presence, product structure, price model through to billing, Candor can
set these up efficiently and without any development costs itself. For
example, the preconfigured services that Fujitsu offers include user
registration, customer and subscription administration, as well as billing
and payment by credit card or direct debit.
http://ts.fujitsu.com/bes
Case study Candor Technologies
The benefit
Products and services
■ The applications and services are provided according to need and
flexibly in real time as a service over the Internet, and invoiced
based on a choice of billing models.
■ scaleable, safe, fast and reliable
■ quickly learned, easy to operate
■ no implementation risks
■ Browser-based or built-in application
■ Activity management, forecast analysis in a great number of
versions, filtering and analysis tools, contact management, export to
Excel, full text search, SSL encryption, mobile access (via UMTS or
GRPS), automatic backups
The benefit
The market for SaaS is growing as users take an increased liking to
easy-to-use subscription services that only measure and bill for actual
consumption. Many Independent Software Providers, including Candor,
have recognized the sign of the times and are offering their customers a
variety of options to introduce new software without breaking the bank.
More and more SaaS models are now being offered, with flexible terms
and usage-dependent cost structures, so that it is possible for customers
to introduce software at the beginning of a project without high
investment costs. SaaS products from Candor are also interesting to
smaller companies that cannot or want to setup or maintain an expensive
IT infrastructure. Candor uses the complete package of Business
Enablement Services – a component of the ISV Cloud Program – for
provision of the SIS software product. With it, all the necessary services
are provided for online sales of the applications as SaaS.
Candor SIS is a customer relationship management tool (CRM) – a
database that can be used to help manage customer relationships and
activities. SIS is offered as a pure SaaS application. Candor‟s customers
derive a variety of benefits from the SaaS model. Synchronicity of data
is indispensable, especially for CRM applications. Since many
employees are often not in the office on a regular basis, and are mostly
deployed in multiple customer projects simultaneously, it is critical to
success to provide up-to-date information at all times and in any
location. As a result, employees can always access the same data and
information base over the Internet via a browser. This is independent of
time zones and regions. Bothersome synchronizations are just as much a
thing of the past as are continuous updates, version management, or the
entire administration of the applications in the users‟ subsidiaries. As a
result, the workloads of IT administrators, who are often in high demand
especially in medium-sized companies, are clearly relieved by the SaaS
solution. Saved time and hence capital can flow back into key tasks.
Especially in global competition, such dynamic IT solutions help
medium-sized companies in particular to optimize efficiency and speed
in market access through an international customer management system
that is standardized and always up-to-date.
Contact
Fujitsu Technology Solutions GmbH
Mies-van-der-Rohe-Str. 8, 80807 Munich
Website: ts.fujitsu.com/bes
2010-11-19 WW DE
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Conclusion
With SaaS, ISVs can tap into new customer segments for their business
solutions because more and more often, even medium-sized companies
are asking for on-demand concepts from which they can benefit, for
example through usage-based models and flexible access to IT
technologies, know-how and resources. With SaaS, fixed IT costs
become use-dependent expenditure that tracks business development.
Programs and individual user access can be booked on demand and then
cancelled when no longer needed. Fixed costs transform into variable
expenditures, and a company can react much faster to changes.
ISVs profit from a faster time to market for new applications and
features, enhancing customer loyalty through alternative usage offers.
The Fujitsu ISV Cloud Program gives software providers a platform that
guarantees performance, reliability and scalability to a very high
standard. The effects of scale at Fujitsu mean that the costs for software
providers are considerably lower than they would be in-house. The
online applications that form part of the SaaS offering can be run straight
away, as the offer also includes optional operation of the necessary IT
infrastructure in Fujitsu's computer centers in Germany.
"Thanks to the ISV Cloud Program from Fujitsu, we are able to provide
our CRM solutions to a much wider circle of customers. Both sides
benefit from the integrated automation and significant acceleration of the
processes", says Gerd Leszinski, CEO of Candor Europe.
About Fujitsu
Fujitsu is a leading provider of ICT-based business solutions for the
global marketplace. With approximately 170,000 employees supporting
customers in 70 countries, Fujitsu combines a worldwide corps of
systems and services experts with highly reliable computing and
communications products and advanced microelectronics to deliver
added value to customers. Headquartered in Tokyo, Fujitsu Limited
(TSE:6702) reported consolidated revenues of 4.6 trillion yen (US$50
billion) for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2010.
For more information, please see: www.fujitsu.com
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