Does SAP – or Oracle – have product/market fit?

6 points by franciscomello 10 years ago | 9 comments

Marc Andreessen says: "You can always feel when product/market fit isn't happening. The customers aren't quite getting value out of the product, word of mouth isn't spreading, usage isn't growing that fast, press reviews are kind of "blah", the sales cycle takes too long, and lots of deals never close." Yet, if you survey 100 SAP - or Oracle - customers, 99 will behave exactly like that; they don't even like the product; end-users hate them; there are no killer features; etc etc etc.

How can I solve this mental conundrum?

argonaut 10 years ago |

They sort of do, they sort of don't. And it doesn't matter at all. Product market fit is a concept used to describe startups. Specifically, I take it to mean when a startup has managed to engage/sell to a small, rapidly-expanding group of very passionate users/customers. It doesn't apply to huge enterprise companies at scale. Everybody has heard of Oracle. Nobody has heard of <foo> startup.

Not everything can be analyzed with the same types of analysis. It is a complete mistake to try to analyze startups like you analyze large companies, and vice versa.

GFischer 10 years ago |

I think you're confusing users with customers. Most SAP users probably don't like it or hate it, but the people buying or paying for it? (CEO's, shareholders, etc).. they probably love it, and word of mouth does work - if someone has a SAP-killer that people don't know about, I haven't heard of it.

ju-st said it best - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10617830

Also, long sales cycles are normal in huge multimillion dollar B2B products.

gladmind 10 years ago | |

well said GFischer, I agree with you

MrTonyD 10 years ago |

Stop believing the often BS personal opinions of "experts" like Andreessen or Horowitz. Most customers hate the products that they buy - but they need them to solve a problem and they have few choices. It is only in some markets where there are "commodity" products to choose between and you can evaluate the product in the way suggested by these guys.

Maybe the real point is that there are different types of markets with different characteristics. And whenever you read some billionaires opinion you really need to be skeptical - there is always some personal set of values and experiences behind those opinions.

argonaut 10 years ago | |

Marc Andreessen isn't suggesting Oracle doesn't have p/m fit, only the OP is.

ju-st 10 years ago |

I'm sure big companies love SAP. The killer feature is that it works. There is no other comparable software. You will never run out of guys who can maintain the system. The user interface is complicated by design; it's reusable and you can check/see every value multiple times before it is finally saved (wrong data leads to wasted time & wasted money); and finally it's easier for the consultants to implement. And in my opinion the most important fact is that the customers of SAP are top-level executives and so on and not the end-user.

franciscomello 10 years ago | |

I've seen big global companies spend months without being able to bill and/or collect money because of SAP problems. SAP is basically a cover a%$ for terrible decision makers, i.e., a marketing play. No?

cakes 10 years ago | |

There will also, often, be multiple integrated components of the suite so you have buy-in across multiple points (finance, inventory, sales, etc.) of the enterprise and the software becomes somewhat entrenched.

tixocloud 10 years ago |

SAP and Oracle are great at leveraging the network effects of having thousands of businesses built on top of their product offering. Think of how many consultants, books, courses and who knows what else that is based on SAP and Oracle. It's also customizable to anything their customers want. There's a huge amount of after-purchase support that ensures the buyer has some degree of confidence.