Your professional services brand is going digital with enhanced offerings. Congratulations! As you forge ahead into the future, don’t lose sight of the confidence and trust your customers and employees have in you. Believe it or not, a digital transition can dislodge these critical keystones in a heartbeat.
That lesson is at the center of our guide Professional Services Branding & the Great (SaaS) Migration. In it, we offer actionable tips on building a strong software-as-a-service (SaaS) transition that strengthens your brand promise. You can do this by answering the following four questions:
- How does the technology affect our brand portfolio?
When “SaaSifying” your portfolio, there are two strategies from which to choose: silo-ing software and services or treating a SaaS platform as a natural extension of or complement to traditional professional services. You’ll want to consider how it fits within your current offerings and brand promise, how complicated your brand portfolio is already, and how the new offerings may change over time.
- Do we truly understand how the digital transition will affect our VIPs?
It is truly new and revolutionary to anyone other than the chosen few who implemented the change? Relabeling your services as such can confuse the market and disappoint your employees when the end product doesn’t fulfill the transformation that was promised. Likewise, a revolutionary transformation that isn’t expected or even deemed useful to your stakeholders can equally fail.
- Can we demonstrate sustained transition?
If you’re like other professional services firms, your transition will be incremental, with plenty of stops and starts. Be an A+ student and show your work. Your vision must meet reality in a world with more skeptical buyers, analysts, investors, and (perhaps most importantly) employees.
- How can you turn skeptical employees into brand cheerleaders?
Your staff may be your most suspicious audience. For them, a new model may raise worries: Are jobs being eliminated? Will their day-to-day routines change? How do they explain the addition to their existing clients? Without employees on board, convincing the market is next-to-impossible.
Building a strong SaaS transition is a marathon, not a sprint. It requires a thoughtful brand strategy that embraces the transition for what it is and how it can give your stakeholders what they want or need. Download Professional Services Branding & the Great (SaaS) Migration today to get started.