CrownPeak is the first company to offer Web Site Management as a Service, and remains the only Enterprise-Level software service providing Web Content Management and Search.  Below are a few of the advantages of working with a Software Service, versus an installed product, open source installation, or custom development.

Lower Risk
A traditional software vendor sells a customer its software and the customer takes the risk that the project will launch on time and on budget and that the users will like the system. When a customer chooses a software service like CrownPeak, the risk is transferred to us. If the system doesn't work well or the users don't adopt it, we get fired. The good news is that we know how to deliver.  With 97% of our customers renewing year-to-year, we are doing something right! This is an especially amazing statistic in an industry that has been estimated to have as high as a 30% failure rate.1  Also remember that some of our customers have projects that are only designed to live for a year or less, which accounts for much of the turnover rate.  

In addition to offering lower risk on application failure, we also offer lower risk on cost overruns, which can be common with CMS and Search implementations.  We fixed-bid our implementation projects and guarantee our work.  We also fix the fee for software management and support, guaranteeing that price and service level for multiple years. 

Finally, CrownPeak offers a very strong support and management package, along with a Service Level Agreement (SLA) guaranteeing our redundancy, disaster recovery and support services.  We also offer guaranteed, 24/7/365 security management on our systems and our applications as part of our standard package.  At absolute worst, CrownPeak is doing everything a world-class IT organization would do to ensure high uptime, high reliability, high service levels and exceptional contingency planning.  At best, we are providing these services to organizations that could not otherwise afford them.

c/Net quoted an industry analyst in a recent article:  With hosted applications, "the risk is very low for the customer," said Joshua Greenbaum, an analyst at Enterprise Applications Consulting in Daly City, Calif. "You don't buy the perpetual license and hope you use it some day. You pay for what you use, which makes sense in a bad economy. It makes sense anytime, but particularly now."

Lower Cost
CrownPeak typically costs between ½ and ¼ of what an installed software application does.  In addition, CrownPeak bills monthly, so costs are spread out across the lifetime of the product’s usage.  Further, as we discuss in the Risk section, above, if our clients decide to terminate the service, they won’t have paid the “full” cost of using the system.  When selecting a traditional software product, all of the risk of project failure or non-adoption falls on the customer, because all of the fees are paid upfront, before anybody knows if the project was worthwhile or not.

In addition to the visible costs of working with Software Services, there are the added advantages of saving “hidden” costs for system management, security management, IT management, trouble-shooting, upgrades, and so on.  The analyst group IDC believes that these costs represent as much as 2/3 of the total cost of ownership of an application.  All of these costs are covered by CrownPeak’s standard service agreement.

Greater Speed
CrownPeak is typically live in 6 to 8 weeks, which is much quicker than an installed application can be live.  CrownPeak’s applications are already installed and operational.  There is no hardware to buy, no software to purchase and install.  It’s all ready to go.  Even more important is that CrownPeak’s system is built to rapidly configure.  It doesn’t take an army of specialist programmers to implement.  Because CrownPeak’s system is so rapid to implement and customize, it’s equally rapid to change and modify over time.  Better Service

CrownPeak has to earn our customers every month.  As a result, we build a service package into our standard monthly fee.  We have a dedicated account manager, with an escalation path for emergency support, available 24/7.  And remember – this is all part of a package that costs between ½ and ¼ of what a traditional software package costs. 

Lower Overhead
Because CrownPeak takes care of every aspect of implementing, managing, and supporting the applications over time, our customers have a much lower overhead in implementing and then managing the system.  Longer-Lived Application

CrownPeak has over 97% renewal on our system year-to-year.  We also have retained over 93% of our customers since the company’s founding over 4 years ago.  Those are amazing statistics in an industry that has an average application life of under three years and a project failure rate that may be as high as 33%.1  CrownPeak cannot definitively say that our application will live longer, but the statistics point convincingly in that direction.  Remember that CrownPeak has a dedicated account representative who is there to modify the application over time, train new users on the system, and so on.  Also remember that all application upgrades are included in the standard monthly fees, keeping the most up-to-date version of the application live for all of our customers all the time.

1 Jupiter Research, 2003