Platform vs Pure Plays - Cloud Ratings

Analysis of multi-product software vs point solution alternatives from the perspective of users, vendors, and investors.

Platforms vs Pure Plays December 2023 Report

RESEARCH BY

“2023 Buyer Behavior Report”

Source: “2023 G2 Buyer Behavior Report”

12 Software Categories With Clear Platform vs Pure Play Dynamics 46 Companies Data + Comparison Tools Used Platform vs Pure Play Research Approach

Examples: (Logos shown reflect *partial* sample of companies included in each category comparison)

Platform vs Pure Play Summary

PLATFORM BEST

PURE PLAY BEST

DIMENSION

WINNER

Weighted

Platform 58%

42%

Meets Requirements

Equal

50%

Ease of Use

Pure Play

33%

67%

Ease of Setup

Pure Play

42%

58%

Ease of Admin

Pure Play

25%

75%

Quality of Support

Equal

50%

Good Partner

Pure Play

25%

75%

Product Direction

Platform 67%

33%

Weighted Customer Satisifaction

SCORE BY CATEGORY

PLATFORM LESS PURE PLAY

Platform Pure Play

<- Pure Play Wins | Platform Wins ->

TOTAL Collaboration + Productivity #1 Collaboration + Productivity #2

Finance + ERP #1 Finance + ERP #2

HR + HCM #1 Marketing #1 Marketing #2 Marketing #3

Sales #1 Sales #2 Sales #3 Service #1

0 2 4 6 8 10

-0.5 -0.4 -0.3 -0.2 -0.1 0 0.1 0.2

Dimension Level

SCORE BY DIMENSION

PLATFORM LESS PURE PLAY

Platform Pure Play

<- Pure Play Wins | Platform Wins ->

TOTAL

Meets Requirements

Ease of Use

Ease of Setup

Ease of Admin

Quality of Support

Good Partner

Product Direction

0 2 4 6 8 10

-0.15 -0.1 -0.05 0 0.05 0.1 0.15

President + Chief Product Officer:

" For the customer, a technology platform helps them get much better economies of scale . They’re working with one vendor in terms of what they're buying, deploying, putting through security reviews, teaching their own entire employee base, so change management and customer support get significantly easier and better. The total cost of ownership is also more manageable. The benefit for a platform vendor like Brex is simple: we can increase the depth of the relationship and commercial partnership that we have with existing customers. This improves our customer acquisition costs since winning new customers can take a lot of time and resources.

The best SaaS companies are the ones with a high attach rate to multiple products.

Further, these customers trust us with more jobs to be done, because we’ve proven we can do the first few they’ve given to us exceptionally well. ”

- Karandeep Anand , President + Chief Product Officer, Brex

“Clydesdale Rule”

".. 2020 HubSpot transcript where CEO, Founder & Chairman Brian Halligan spoke about the “Clydesdale Rule” and how it related to HubSpot’s multi-product strategy; one Clydesdale horse can pull 1,000 pounds but if you add a second Clydesdale that can also pull 1,000 pounds , the two combined can pull 4,000 pounds i.e., 1 + 1 = 4. The “Clydesdales” are HubSpot’s different products or Hubs (Sales, Service, CMS, etc). They’re built on shared services underneath, the UI is the same, and it’s the same data model. HubSpot’s Hubs are greater than the sum of the parts. ”

Source: “Multi-Product Considerations and a HubSpot Case Study” by

Investor View: Tidemark + Lone Pine Capital

Source: Tidemark Capital + Lone Pine Capital

Brinker + Riemersma: Composability + Aggregation

“We see this driving a slow but steady change in the martech industry: the rise of “composable” architectures . Automations, apps, workflows, customer experiences, AI agents, and other kinds of digital solutions can be created by combining data and services from multiple products and data sources to serve bespoke use cases . Marketers apply the best features to each particular use case, independent of the software products in which those features are hosted. Instead of “best-of-breed,” we think of this approach as “best-of- feature.” While composability may sound like a strange new concept to many marketers, the truth is that we’ve already embraced degrees of composability in our stacks for many years.”

Source: “Martech in 2024”

Rewrite of Cerner With AI

"The next is to replace feature after feature after feature of the older Cerner system with a new Cerner system , new Millennium, which we are not coding in Java like we usually do. The new Cerner system is being generated, as you know, generative AI generates code .” “The rewrite of Cerner , it's not armies of programmers that are going to be rewriting this. We are generating the new Millennium software using APEX. And that's also going to save us a lot of human labor and generate higher-quality code and higher-quality user interfaces and better security all at once.” - Larry Ellison

Source: Oracle Earnings - September 2023

Platforms vs Pure Plays Data

RESEARCH BY

Meets Customer Requirements

SCORE BY CATEGORY

PLATFORM LESS PURE PLAY

Platform Pure Play

<- Pure Play Wins | Platform Wins ->

TOTAL Collaboration + Productivity #1 Collaboration + Productivity #2

Finance + ERP #1 Finance + ERP #2

HR + HCM #1 Marketing #1 Marketing #2 Marketing #3

Sales #1 Sales #2 Sales #3 Service #1

-0.4 -0.2 0 0.2 0.4

0 2

Ease of Use

SCORE BY CATEGORY

PLATFORM LESS PURE PLAY <- Pure Play Wins | Platform Wins ->

Platform Pure Play

TOTAL Collaboration + Productivity #1 Collaboration + Productivity #2

Finance + ERP #1 Finance + ERP #2

HR + HCM #1 Marketing #1 Marketing #2 Marketing #3

Sales #1 Sales #2 Sales #3 Service #1

0 2

-0.4 -0.2 0 0.2 0.4 0.6

Ease of Setup

SCORE BY CATEGORY

PLATFORM LESS PURE PLAY

Platform Pure Play

<- Pure Play Wins | Platform Wins ->

TOTAL Collaboration + Productivity #1 Collaboration + Productivity #2

Finance + ERP #1 Finance + ERP #2

HR + HCM #1 Marketing #1 Marketing #2 Marketing #3

Sales #1 Sales #2 Sales #3 Service #1

0 2

-0.8 -0.6 -0.4 -0.2 0 0.2 0.4 0.6

Ease of Admin

SCORE BY CATEGORY

PLATFORM LESS PURE PLAY

Platform Pure Play

<- Pure Play Wins | Platform Wins ->

TOTAL Collaboration + Productivity #1 Collaboration + Productivity #2

Finance + ERP #1 Finance + ERP #2

HR + HCM #1 Marketing #1 Marketing #2 Marketing #3

Sales #1 Sales #2 Sales #3 Service #1

0 2

-0.8 -0.6 -0.4 -0.2 0 0.2 0.4

Quality of Support

SCORE BY CATEGORY

PLATFORM LESS PURE PLAY

Platform Pure Play

<- Pure Play Wins | Platform Wins ->

TOTAL Collaboration + Productivity #1 Collaboration + Productivity #2

Finance + ERP #1 Finance + ERP #2

HR + HCM #1 Marketing #1 Marketing #2 Marketing #3

Sales #1 Sales #2 Sales #3 Service #1

0 2

-0.8 -0.6 -0.4 -0.2 0 0.2 0.4

Good Partner

SCORE BY CATEGORY

PLATFORM LESS PURE PLAY

Platform Pure Play

<- Pure Play Wins | Platform Wins ->

TOTAL Collaboration + Productivity #1 Collaboration + Productivity #2

Finance + ERP #1 Finance + ERP #2

HR + HCM #1 Marketing #1 Marketing #2 Marketing #3

Sales #1 Sales #2 Sales #3 Service #1

-0.6 -0.4 -0.2 0 0.2 0.4 0.6

0 2

Positive Product Direction

SCORE BY CATEGORY

PLATFORM LESS PURE PLAY

Platform Pure Play

<- Pure Play Wins | Platform Wins ->

TOTAL Collaboration + Productivity #1 Collaboration + Productivity #2

Finance + ERP #1 Finance + ERP #2

HR + HCM #1 Marketing #1 Marketing #2 Marketing #3

Sales #1 Sales #2 Sales #3 Service #1

0 2

-1.5 -1 -0.5 0 0.5 1 1.5

Platforms vs Pure Plays Public Company Examples

RESEARCH BY

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