Smartsheet is a dynamic workspace that empowers teams to manage projects, automate workflows, and rapidly build new solutions—using no-code tools they love and backed by the security IT needs Discussion Assignement Competitiveness Review of Smartsheet – APP Vinod Balchandani S0957416 Spring 2022, Niagara University Provide a short overview of this company and/or the app and what you use it for and how often you use it. Company / Application : smartsheet Smartsheet is a dynamic workspace that empowers teams to manage projects, automate workflows, and rapidly build new solutions—using no-code tools they love and backed by the security IT needs. Smartsheet is a cloud-based platform for work management; their foremost premise is to help businesses move off Excel and collaborate better within teams. It offers ways for customers to plan and manage their work using grids, projects, cards, and calendars. Smartsheet is a spreadsheet-like platform with high enterprise customer penetration that enables WFH by serving as a connector, integrator, and API for other mission-critical business applications that will see little growth disruption and continued high net retention. With strong customer penetration already, SMAR is a bet on increased network effects within an organization for further penetration among existing customers. Software is eating the world and data is increasingly complex and structured on spreadsheets. Background: I work in the Manufacturing sector, We often work on programs and projects where we have 500 to 800 individual structural parts and assemblies to be manufactured within tight timelines, each of these parts has its drawings, technical configurations, conditions of supply and manufacturing methods technics which have to be individually managed. Before using smart sheets the team relied on email communication and managing information on excel sheets which was inefficient and stressful. since multiple stakeholders were updating the information the team struggled with real-time updates and managing multiple versions of the files. We used MS Projects for planning and managing projects however it was limited to using within the company, outside collaboration and security concerns and information control were some of the key issues. We needed a dynamic cloud-based application capable of interfacing with our ERP system and having the capability to collaborate with internal teams and with the customer to manage information in real-time. After evaluating a few different apps we selected Smartsheet in 2018. Today we have over 250 collaborators ( internal team members, Subject Matter Experts; Suppliers and Customers) on smartsheet working with us on over 40 different projects currently underway at Trinity Aerospace. What revenue model does this company/application use? (How do they make money?) Smartsheet has currently had 3.6 million customers. That includes 90 companies in the Fortune 100, and two-thirds of the companies in the Fortune 500. Clients include Starbucks, Cisco and MOD Pizza. The company makes the bulk of its money from subscriptions, which involves individuals or enterprise customers paying annual fees to access the service. "Subscription revenue primarily consists of fees from customers for access to our cloud-based platform. Subscription revenue is driven primarily by the number of domain-based customers and changes in their subscription levels, and, to a lesser extent, subscriptions to cloud-based premium solutions," the company wrote in the filing. It currently offers four plans: • The Individual plan is $14 per user per month when billed annually. It comes with 10 sheets. • The Team plan, which is $15 per user per month, when billed annually. It comes with 50 sheets peruse and requires at least three users. • The Business plan is $25 per user per month when billed annually. It comes with 100 sheets peruse and requires at least three users. • The Enterprise plan has customized pricing. It comes with unlimited sheets. In the year ending January 31 of this year, Smartsheet made $100.4 million from this revenue stream or 90 percent of its $111.3 million in total revenue. Revenue from subscriptions jumped 60 percent from the year before. The other 10 percent or so of Smartsheet's revenue comes from professional services, which are fees for consulting and training services. Deeply entrenched among enterprises: SMAR - (Smart-sheet) has 84,000 domain-based customers, 75% of ARR comes from enterprise customers ($5000+/year). 9079 customers pay $5k or more per year, 961 pay $50k or more per year, and 350 pay $100k or more per year. These customer segments grew yoy by 47%, 116% and 138% respectively, and now represent approximately 75%, 38% and 25% of total ACV. ACV listed in their 10k filing Why do you use this company/app and not a competitor? In other words, what gives this company a competitive advantage from your point of view? Smartsheet is very similar to MS Projects, MS Excel and MS Access and MS Outlook put together, it is very easy to use, powerful, flexible and efficient. Before closing on Smart Sheet our team reviewed and evaluated similar applications such as Mavericks by Google; Monday and other similar apps available in the market. what stood out was the ease to use smart sheet app, as everyone was already comfortable using MS Office, the Dashboards and approval processes run efficiently on all platforms, desktops and mobile / tablet versions. The app interfaces with our ERP at set intervals and updates the data in real time it uses both pull and push systems to work efficiently and flawlessly. another major reason for going with Smart sheet was its capability to customize an individual's level of access to information and the security aspect. Does the company/app compete in the red or blue ocean? why? Red Ocean, Over the last decade the information technology advances and development have led to saturation of the market with similar apps which have led to serious competition in the Project management s/w apps flooding in the market-leading to price decline/price war driving the costs down. which is beneficial to small and medium-size industries. time and again we have reviewed other applications however due to customization and the amount of information and Investments in the app and cost of training, changeover etc we have refrained from moving away from smartsheet. Also, Smart-sheet has kept up with the industry by constantly updating and keeping up with the changes in the last couple of years offering and adding capabilities without increasing the price structure. Is the success of this application dependent on network effects? YES, Smartsheet has over the last few years tied up and collaborated with various other apps and ERP systems to expand its market and benefit from it. Has the company/app changed due to the Coronavirus? Extracted from Article https://medium.com/@albertwang23/smartsheet-smar-unexciting-butresilient-growth-96b85cb955bc Little change due to COVID-19: many customers say that SMAR’s platform enables them to work from anywhere and remain engaged during this disruption to normal work patterns. To date, they have not experienced any material change to their pipeline due to COVID-19 (March 17, 2020). Strong billings growth that outpaces revenue: billings growth accelerated to 58% in FY20 Q4, while revenue grew 51%, primarily driven by continued strong expansion within larger customers. 92% of billings were annual contracts, 7% monthly, 1% quarterly & multi-year. If you could change the app to be more competitive, what would you change? Data analytics is becoming increasingly complex and collaborative: “If a team uses spreadsheets for the collaborative working of any kind, Smartsheet is the much better tool to go for. Excel has some special spreadsheet features which Smartsheet does not have like Advanced Power Pivot, but 99% of the Excel users usually do not need this.” But something good to have in the coming years. Bibliography • www.smartsheet.com • https://medium.com/@albertwang23/smartsheet-smar-unexciting-but-resilient-growth96b85cb955bc • https://www.smartsheet.com/strategic-planning-models • https://vator.tv/news/2018-03-30-how-does-smartsheet-make-money
