Silicon Valley ASP Applicast Inc today launched fixed-cost, fixed-time SAP and Siebel packages that can be implemented in as little as four to six weeks. Called FastPack, the hosted solutions are targetted at aggressive-growth businesses in vertical industries such as Internet services, manufacturing and distribution.
Representing the next generation of ASP offerings from Applicast, the complete, pre-packaged solutions are designed to meet the most common enterprise and customer management needs of fast-growth companies. A single fixed monthly fee covers all implementation, deployment, management and support services.
“This is a shift from where we were three months ago,” VP marketing Andy Sayare told ASP-News last week. Previously, Applicast had charged implementation and software license fees separately from the monthly service charge.
Applicast is now seeing a change in the market, said Sayares. “We’re finding a more savvy customer that really understands the benefit of having a predictable cost model. They want to pay a single fee that encompasses all of the services they get.”
The FastPack solutions are targeted at companies that require fast, low-risk access to a full-service outsourcing solution that will enable rapid growth and evolution of their business, said the company. Despite the fixed cost and fast deployment time, Sayares insisted that Fastpack is not a “cookie-cutter” offering that will limit customer choice.
“This is not a simplistic, pared-down set of services that is stripped down,” he said. “It’s a framework that is set up so a customer can get on it quickly and grow with it.”
By pre-packaging a set of industry-specific best practices into the framework, Applicast says it can configure a company-specific solution without employing wholesale customization efforts. The solutions are architected for future expansion by accessing the full spectrum of Applicast e-business applications as their business needs grow.
“Applicast made the effort to understand how our business works and were able to rapidly bring to bear a complete solution that will scale with our business,” said Eric Bjerkholt, CFO of LifeSpring, a nutritional food distributor and retailer that is one of Applicast’s SAP customers.
All Applicast FastPack solutions include rapid implementation, hosted operations, support for every user, and evolution of the system as a customer’s business changes with growth, all combined in a single, fixed monthly fee.
“Customers are demanding a stronger business-focused value proposition when adopting an ASP solution,” said John McGrory, Applicast president and CEO. “Applicast FastPack solutions are complete business solutions that can provide measurable top-line benefit to the customer.”
