{"id":229,"date":"2016-02-04T09:33:21","date_gmt":"2016-02-04T07:33:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/whiteducksoftware.com\/?p=229"},"modified":"2021-09-30T11:13:41","modified_gmt":"2021-09-30T09:13:41","slug":"strategic-decisions-and-finance-i-wish-it-was-all-about-but-its-not","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/whiteduck.de\/en\/strategic-decisions-and-finance-i-wish-it-was-all-about-but-its-not\/","title":{"rendered":"Strategic Decisions and Finance: I wish it was all about $, but it&#8217;s not"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2>Strategic Decisions and Finance: I wish it was all about $, but it&#8217;s not<\/h2>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">As software companies grow bigger, it is imperative to investigate business cases\/opportunities. When a business idea is present, it needs to be first translated into a business case and second evaluated as such. Should\u00a0we pursue this or not?<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The ultimate responsibility of C-executives is to dedicate the (almost always) limited\u00a0resources to the cause with the greatest potential. Since evaluating and deciding on business ideas is nothing else than allocating resources, this becomes paramount.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Let me explain this using an example of a fictional vendor offering\u00a0an archiving software\/solution. The\u00a0entire solution is built on a specific database platform A.\u00a0 The customer basis is growing healthy. Customers keep asking for more, but they are happy. It is a growing market overall, so everything seems rosy.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">On a sunny day a business opportunity presents itself. According to market research,\u00a0 there is a significant market potential on database platform B, which is currently not supported. Competitors are already doing business\u00a0in this market.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Naturally, C-executives request an estimation of the (development) cost of extending the product&#8217;s functionality to database platform B, in order to make a decision.<\/p>\n<h3 style=\"text-align: justify;\">Here how things might evolve:<\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\">Scenario 1:\u00a0Due to the prohibitive (development) cost, the project gets a red light.<\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\">Scenario 2:\u00a0Since the (development) cost does not seem\u00a0 prohibitive, the project gets a green light.<\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\">Scenario 3:\u00a0On the one hand, the (development) cost does not seem prohibitive. On the other hand,\u00a0 extending the database support is not a simple financial calculation, since it has profound technical and organizational implications.\u00a0 In case of green light, much needed functional features for database platform A would have to be postponed or not implemented at all. The pace of future development would decrease, since every single new feature would have to be implemented and tested on two database platforms. Sales resources would have to get trained in a new field. Considering all these facts and despite the given potential and natural temptation, the vendor decides to focus and capitalize on the market of database platform A. While it would have been great to become competitive in two markets, it is way better to stay competitive in just one, than being left behind in both of them.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">There is nothing wrong with any of these scenarios. For mega-vendors such as Google or Microsoft, the implication of such a decision might be negligible. But for the majority of software vendors, this might be indeed a question of life or death.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Successful technology companies\u00a0understand that the most crucial strategic decisions are not only about finance.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Strategic Decisions and Finance: I wish it was all about $, but it&#8217;s not As software companies grow bigger, it is imperative to investigate business cases\/opportunities. When a business idea is present, it needs to be first translated into a business case and second evaluated as such. Should\u00a0we pursue this or not? The ultimate responsibility <a href=\"https:\/\/whiteduck.de\/en\/strategic-decisions-and-finance-i-wish-it-was-all-about-but-its-not\/\"> <\/p>\n<div style=\"color:#ff9900\">[&#8230;]<\/div>\n<p><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":2830,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_tribe_events_control_status":"","_tribe_events_control_status_canceled_reason":"","_tribe_events_control_status_postponed_reason":"","_tribe_events_control_online":"","_tribe_events_control_online_url":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[40],"class_list":["post-229","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-strategy"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Strategic Decisions and Finance: I wish it was all about $, but it&#039;s not - white duck<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"In this blog post read about the most crucial strategic decisions that do not relate to the finance only.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/whiteduck.de\/en\/strategic-decisions-and-finance-i-wish-it-was-all-about-but-its-not\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Strategic Decisions and Finance: I wish it was all about $, but it&#039;s not - white duck\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"In this blog post read about the most crucial strategic decisions that do not relate to the finance only.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/whiteduck.de\/en\/strategic-decisions-and-finance-i-wish-it-was-all-about-but-its-not\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"white duck\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/whiteduckgmbh\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2016-02-04T07:33:21+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2021-09-30T09:13:41+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/whiteduck.de\/wp-content\/uploads\/construction-370588_1920.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1462\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"975\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Dr. Ilias Michalarias\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@whiteduck_gmbh\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@whiteduck_gmbh\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Dr. Ilias Michalarias\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/whiteduck.de\\\/en\\\/strategic-decisions-and-finance-i-wish-it-was-all-about-but-its-not\\\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/whiteduck.de\\\/en\\\/strategic-decisions-and-finance-i-wish-it-was-all-about-but-its-not\\\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Dr. Ilias Michalarias\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/whiteduck.de\\\/en\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/8ab1d892787c0fa9732dc581e679963a\"},\"headline\":\"Strategic Decisions and Finance: I wish it was all about $, but it&#8217;s not\",\"datePublished\":\"2016-02-04T07:33:21+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2021-09-30T09:13:41+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/whiteduck.de\\\/en\\\/strategic-decisions-and-finance-i-wish-it-was-all-about-but-its-not\\\/\"},\"wordCount\":454,\"commentCount\":95,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/whiteduck.de\\\/en\\\/strategic-decisions-and-finance-i-wish-it-was-all-about-but-its-not\\\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/whiteduck.de\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/construction-370588_1920.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Strategy\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/whiteduck.de\\\/en\\\/strategic-decisions-and-finance-i-wish-it-was-all-about-but-its-not\\\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/whiteduck.de\\\/en\\\/strategic-decisions-and-finance-i-wish-it-was-all-about-but-its-not\\\/\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/whiteduck.de\\\/en\\\/strategic-decisions-and-finance-i-wish-it-was-all-about-but-its-not\\\/\",\"name\":\"Strategic Decisions and Finance: I wish it was all about $, but it's not - 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