关键词: 企业级软件, 渠道策略, 产品定制, 软件即服务(SaaS)

Abstract: Enterprise software is one of the important tools in the digital transformation of enterprises. The maturity and development of cloud computing technology have a certain impact on the distribution strategy of enterprise software. In addition to the traditional retail channel, pure SaaS channel and mixed channel have gradually attracted the market's attention. There are some differences between the retail and SaaS channel: First of all, the products of retail channel are installed on the users' servers, while in SaaS channel the products are installed on the vendor's servers, so the users only need to bear the infrastructure cost in the retail channel. However, considering data security, system stability and other issues, users' acceptance of SaaS channel is lower than that of retail channel. Second, users can get the ownership and the right to use the product at the same time when they buy the product in the retail channel, but in the SaaS channel, users only get the right for use through remote access to resources through the network, and the ownership always belongs to the vendor. Last but not least, the products of retail channel can be customized one-to-one according to the needs of users, while SaaS channel are usually standardized to meet the needs of multi-tenants but do not support in-depth customized development. Considering the advantages and disadvantages of the two channels, the vendor is faced with the dilemma of channel selection. On the other hand, in order to better meet the personalized needs of users, the vendor and retailer can provide customized development for retail channel users to enhance their purchase intention. Although this kind of activity can help the vendor or the retailer benefit from higher product pricing (price increase effect), and at the same time they also need to bear the relevant customization development cost (cost constraint effect), which reduces their motivation for customization.
Based on the above background, we divide the market according to users' preferences for customization, discuss the choice of software vendor among retail, SaaS and mixed channel strategies in three situations (no customization development, customization development by the vendor or by the retailer), and focus on the influence of customization development on vendor's optimal channel strategy. In addition, we also discuss the choice of channel strategy when the vendor has the advantage of customized development cost. The main purpose of this study is to provide a basis for vendors to choose channel strategies in practice and help vendors and retailers make reasonable customized development decisions.
The results show that: Firstly, pure retail channel may become the optimal channel strategy only when the retailer makes customized development, otherwise the vendor always chooses pure SaaS channel or mixed channel according to the tradeoff between the cost constraint effect and price increase effect. Specifically, when customized by the vendor, if the infrastructure cost faced by users is relatively low (high), the mixed channel (pure SaaS channel) is optimal. When customized by the retailer, the pure SaaS channel is optimal if the infrastructure cost is high. If the infrastructure cost is low, the vendor chooses retail SaaS or mixed channel according to the proportion of users with high customization preferences and their sensitivity to customization. It should be noted that with a decrease in the proportion of users with high customization preference and their sensitivity to customization, the optimal area of pure retail channel strategy is transformed into pure SaaS channel strategy. Secondly, customized development activities cannot always improve the profit of the vendor. When the infrastructure cost faced by users in the retail channel is relatively low, with an increase in users' acceptance of SaaS channel, the decision of customized development changes from retailer customization to vendor customization, and finally is without customized development. This is because the competition between retail channel and SaaS channel is gradually intensifying, and the price increase effect brought by providing customized development is relatively weak, and the cost constraint effect is dominant, which gradually makes customized development unprofitable. Last but not least, a counterintuitive conclusion is that the customized development activities carried out in the retail channel actually promote the vendor to transform from the mixed channel strategy to the pure SaaS channel strategy. When the retailer makes customized development, it has the strongest motivation to choose to provide pure SaaS channel strategy.
Our research also has some limitations. For example, we only consider the case where the software vendor or the retailer undertakes the customization development cost, and the model that the vendor and retailer jointly invest in customization can be further analyzed in the future. In addition, the channel strategy of vendor is considered in this study under the monopoly environment, and the competitive market environment is not considered yet. However, with the maturity and development of cloud computing, the competition between the cloud vendor and traditional vendor is becoming fiercer and fiercer, which can be further expanded and analyzed in future research.

Key words: enterprise software, channel strategy, product customization, software as a service (SaaS)