Guest
Pinar Günes
Global Head Strategic Revenue & Optimization, IFS
Episode description
In this episode, Pinar Gunes, Head of Strategic Revenue and Optimization at IFS, shares her experience on the company’s successful transition from a perpetual license business to a subscription-based model, focusing on three key points.
Highlights
Shifting from Perpetual to Recurring Revenue Model
As Pinar explains, IFS shifted from a perpetual to a subscription-based model “to prioritize customer intimacy and satisfaction”. This decision was driven by the desire to adapt to changing customer needs and focus on delivering more value to customers. By reengineering its flagship solution, IFS Cloud, to prioritize customer value, IFS was able to deliver more value to its customers beyond just receiving annual or quarterly payments.
Delivering Value to Customers
When designing its new subscription model, IFS considered the entire customer journey, from product to support and delivery of specific outcomes. As Pinar notes, “it’s not just about receiving annual or quarterly payments, but about delivering value to the customer”. To achieve this, IFS worked with pioneer customers to test the new model and developed a bi-annual release schedule with enhanced features and AI capabilities. This approach allowed IFS to gather customer feedback, leverage internal expertise, and adapt to customer needs in real-time.
Agility and Flexibility in Subscription-Based Model
Pinar highlights the importance of agility and adapting to customer needs, which is facilitated by a subscription-based model. She notes that understanding how to deliver value was an experiment that required a combination of customer feedback, internal expertise, and flexibility. With a subscription-based model, customers can easily upgrade or downsize their subscriptions as their needs change, allowing IFS to adapt quickly to changing market conditions. As Pinar concludes, most larger software companies have already transitioned to a subscription-based model, and a perpetual-only model is rare.