Customization in the World of Shrink Wrap

In the off-the-shelf software market, one-off customizations can be a nightmare for product managers trying to drive features with broad appeal. The question is inevitable, though, especially as larger and larger organizations begin standardizing on your software and adapting it to fit their own purposes.


Here at OnePager, there are only so many ways you can make a Gantt Chart, but we take a pretty disciplined approach to customizations, and really try to make the distinction between a one-off change and a feature request that, if generalized slightly, could appeal to other users.


Nonetheless, we do occasionally find ourselves in a situation where a customization or two is critical to winning a large site license, and the feature has no commercial viability outside the requestor's site.


In cases such as these, we have to weigh the potential revenue of the sale against the opportunity cost that our engineering team incurs when they have to go create some custom code. The difference between these two estimates is how we decide how much to bill for the custom work, or whether to subsidize it to provide further incentives for the customer to move forward.


That said, our frequency of requests for customization is relatively low--thanks largely to a great product team, and a well-defined market. I'd be curious to know if other shrinkwrap shops take a similar approach, welcome more customization, or try to discourage it altogether.

Non-Technical Salespeople in Software?

Having worked for a number of different software companies, including starting my own here at OnePager, I've met a lot of people who sell software and professional services.

It's always interested me how some technology companies hire non-technical sales staff, and then backfill the technical role with sales engineers. Having been a sales engineer myself at one point, I certainly get that that skills in sales and skills in technology do not always go hand-in-hand.

Here at Chronicle Graphics, we've had some salespeople who are incredibly technical--people who know the ins and outs of our OnePager Gantt Chart software almost as well as someone in our product or tech support teams. At the same time, we have had salespeople who never even bothered to install our products. They sold on value alone.

We've been fortunate that both types of salespeople have been successful here at Chronicle Graphics, but it does make me wonder if the days of sales teams that aren't technically hands-on are numbered (and by that same token, what happens to sales engineering as a standalone role?). Doesn't it make more sense for companies to seek out tech-savvy sales teams? Are there instances where you don't want a tech-savvy sales team?