托比編者按：眾所周知，國際B2B業務的發展比中國早了約20年，與B2C的占比約為8:2，80%的美國上市公司都是B2B；而在國內，B2B的投資只占全部投資的5%，美國則達到40%。這表明國內B2B未來有著巨大的發展空間。
為幫助國內從業人員了解國際B2B行業發展狀況，托比網從即日起開設“國際B2B”欄目，編繹國外重要文章，以最新觀點、最新案例、重要消息為主，原則上每日一篇，供行業人參考與借鑒。托比網致力于成為國內最專注、最專業、最權威的重度垂直媒體，讓行業永遠有方向，伴隨B2B企業共成長。
本文來自美國紅點資本的投資人托馬斯·通古斯的博客。文中的一個觀點非常有趣，SaaS行業格局將進入整合的局面。考慮到中美企業服務上有近似度，我們將此篇文章翻譯共享。以下為編譯內容，enjoy。
托比編譯必為B2B前沿精品，歡迎轉載，請載明出處。否則必糾。
譯文：服務于銷售和營銷的軟件廠商已經出現爆炸增長，3年時間從500家到超過3000家。快速擴張的周期是不是結束了？軟件廠商們一直在搖擺，究竟是提供套裝產品，工具合集還是最佳單點解決方案哪個才是出路？
這樣破碎的生態會是常態么？Okta公司的企業商業報告指出，多數企業為10-15個企業級應用付費。這些應用是與公司的IT部門提出采購的。
Netskope的云計算報告得出企業平均使用613個云應用程序，這數字是2015年的兩倍。此外，超過20％的受訪企業使用的Saas的數量為1000多個。CEB發現企業超過30％的IT支出實際上是由業務人員提出并實施的。
這種情況會繼續下去嗎？ 目前IT采購的一個長期趨勢是，采購決策從首席信息官轉移到企業主手中，這是因為這些新方案、單點方案往往圍繞企業主的需求提供差異化。差異化必然帶來碎片化。使用頂級營銷自動化解決方案實現獲客的營銷人員并不會輕易放棄自己正在使用的軟件。但是，這種正在擴張的單點解決方案的確存在一些問題。
首先，賬單問題。 企業難以精準了解在軟件上要花費多少，這種碎片化的問題有多嚴重。
第二，大量軟件的整合無疑是一個巨大的挑戰。 API會起到一些作用，卻無法解決所有問題。
第三，你如何訓團隊熟練掌握如此多的軟件？如何讓新員工迅速上手？
第四，當產品出現問題需要支持的時候，究竟哪個電話能找到正確的聯系人？
單點解決方案的優點只有超過這些成本才有前途。最近10年是SaaS的第一個十年，軟件領域創業將分銷、設計、技術等等優勢帶了進來，甚至創造了新的功能場景。可以預見，那些具有可持續競爭優勢的創業公司將繼續興旺。
但是，我們開始看到一些細分領域出現大量的新玩家，僅在價格上有差異。這些細分領域已經確立但卻沒有足夠的護城河擋住其他進入者。最近風險投資的火爆勢必加劇了相同領域競技企業的競爭。
在這樣的領域套裝產品、綜合產品會繼續發展，商品化是必然趨勢。
如果你主打價格戰，在某些程度上，你將會墊底，因為你總有一個成本無法消除。這時競爭將體現在服務上而遠非產品，客戶獲取，技術優勢、場景的建立能力等等將起到重大作用。盈利能力更佳的企業將最終獲勝。
上述的套裝產品有望給企業提供更多價值，保證單一流程、單一客戶體驗并實現無縫產品銜接。如果沒有足夠的差異化，這將成為影響買方決策的重要手段。
今年，我們已經看到超過30起10億美金規模的軟件并購案例。我們將看到更多、更大的公司開始將軟件捆綁到他們的產品中創建成SaaS組合。 如果沒有差異化或技術門檻，這可能是很好的獲勝策略。 同時，成功的創業公司將繼續保持他們已有的競爭優勢：技術，執行速度和分銷能力。
作者簡介：托馬斯·通古斯Tomasz Tunguz，紅點風險投資風險投資人，暢銷書《用數據獲勝》聯合作者。他投資了一系列SaaS公司，如Axial（一款適用于企業管理的“相親”應用，幫助銀行人員和私有企業收購或出售公司，2015年完成并購交易有500多筆，多在500萬到1億美元之間），數據分析公司Dremio，中型企業管理開支的智能應用Expensify等等，對SaaS公司頗有研究。
原文：Are We Seeing The Beginning Of SaaS Consolidation?
The number of vendors selling to sales and marketing has exploded from 500 to more than 3000 over the last three years. Are we reaching the end of an expansionary cycle? The software pendulum tends to swing between software suites, offering a collection of different tools, and best-of-breed point solutions.
But, have we reached the point where the best-of-breed, fragmented ecosystem is a permanent fixture? Okta’s Businesses at Work 2016 report calculates most enterprises pay for somewhere between 10-15 corporate applications. Those are the ones sanctioned by IT. How about the others?
Netskope’s Cloud Report calculates the average enterprise uses 613 cloud apps, a figure that doubled over the course of 2015. In addition, more than 20 percent of those surveyed use more than 1000. CEB found more than 30% of IT spend is bottoms up.
Can this continue? Consumerization of IT is a powerful secular trend that has shifted the purchasing decision from CIOs to line of business owners, because new solutions, these point solutions offer important differentiation to the line of business owners.
As long as this differentiation is substantial, we will continue to see fragmentation. A marketer who uses a best in class marketing automation solution to attain their lead and meeting numbers is not going to give up that piece of software without a fight.
But, this expanding constellation of point solutions does present some problems. First, billing. How does an organization understand exactly how much of the spending on software and so much of the purchasing decision is fragmented? Second, integrations across a thousand different pieces of software will be an enormous challenge. APIs certainly solve some of these data movement challenges, but they will not eliminate all friction. Third, how you train a team on so many different pieces of software? How do you ramp up new employees? Fourth, when something goes wrong who do you call? You have a thousand phone numbers to choose from.
The advantages of point solutions have to outweigh those costs. Over the last 10 years, the first decade of SaaS, startups have brought distribution, design, technology advantages and even have created new categories. Those startups who have sustainable competitive advantage will continue to thrive.
But, we are starting to see some categories with large numbers of entrant, where suddenly price is the diffentiator, because the category has been established and there very few barriers to entry. The recent boom in venture capital investment certainly intensifies competition with lots of new businesses chasing the same dollar.
These are the spaces where we will see suites develop, where commodification is inexorable. If you are competing on price, at some point you will bottom, the price you cannot undercut. At that point, the business will begin to compete on service rather than product, customer acquisition, technology, category creation etc. And whoever has the bigger balance sheet balance sheet will win.
Businesses can unlock a lot of value in bundling the collection of commodity products. They sell an integrated suite to a customer offering them a single purchasing process, a single customer support experience, and a “seamless” product. Without sufficient product differentiation in the market, this is a powerful way to change the buyer’s key purchasing criteria.
This year, we’ve seen more than 30 $1B software acquisitions. We will see more, and bigger companies will begin to bundle software into their offerings creating suites in SaaS. In categories with little technology or other differentiation, that may very well be the winning strategy. Meanwhile, successful startups will continue to do what they always have: develop sustainable competitive advantages through technology, speed of execution, and distribution innovations.
