Building a Software Ecosystem

Today, software vendors are under intense pressure to create new products and services faster and more cost-effectively than ever before. To address this challenge, a growing number of ISVs are opening their technology to third-party developers, creating ecosystems of applications that complement their core solutions. A thriving developer ecosystem can not only drive revenue but also give SaaS companies a huge competitive advantage. Despite these benefits, many SaaS companies struggle to create ecosystems. Indirect third-party sales—transactions where vendors may have little to no involvement with the buyer—are the fuel for ecosystem monetization, but the legacy solutions that many enterprise ISVs have in place are simply not built for third-party commerce. ISVs need a better way to launch, scale, and support software ecosystems while driving value, both for developers and for their own bottom lines.

To create successful software ecosystems, SaaS vendors must find a way to remove the technology and process barriers to ecosystem monetization. In practice, this means delivering a fully featured developer solution that can power multi-sided, omni-channel commerce across the ecosystem. The AppDirect platform is the only solution that provides tools for managing the third-party billing, management, and provisioning of software ecosystems. According to Accenture, 69 percent of developers believe return on their investment is the most important factor when choosing a developer ecosystem. With AppDirect, software companies can deliver the ROI that is critical to creating an ecosystem.

AppDirect is the only platform that provides all the tools SaaS vendors need to launch and support software ecosystems. With AppDirect, software companies can create an integration layer that connects their existing first-party solutions to the third-party commerce systems necessary for ecosystem monetization. Instead of needing to rip and replace existing technology, AppDirect acts as a flexible interface for data flowing between current and new systems. Powered by APIs, a layer of this type is the least disruptive and most cost-effective way to transition to an ecosystem-centric platform model. AppDirect is a trusted advisor to enterprises around the globe—including IBM, ADP, and others—as they explore their options for launching or scaling developer ecosystems.