Economic Uncertainty - What’s Yet to Come

Welcome to The Margin, a newsletter designed to keep you on the leading edge of monetization.

In business, the difference between being ahead of the curve or a late adopter is anything but marginal. The Margin aims to be the most useful, timely, and incisive ping that hits your inbox every week. It includes critical research and analyst insights to inform short and long-term decision making.

Here’s what you need to know:

Research spotlight | Of all the research published in the past six months, perhaps none is more noteworthy than our “Introduction to Service-as-a-Business.”

SaaB is a reference model akin to ERP, CRM, or AMP – this note is seminal reading and will shape the services economy for years to come.

A story you can’t afford to miss | Economic Uncertainty – What’s Yet to Come

Soaring inflation and slow GDP growth have everyone on edge, but forecasts of a typical recession may not mean what you think.
Predicting the future is a fool’s errand. But assigning probabilities to likely scenarios is sound management. We outline six scenarios to provide way points for managing your business.

On the horizon | MGI 360 Ratings™ in Agile Billing

The agile billing market grows more complex by the day with new challengers, defensive mega-vendors, and increasing hype around usage billing.
In April, we’ll be issuing new 360 Ratings on 40+ vendors.

Now let’s dive a bit deeper.

Research Spotlight

Introduction to Service-as-a-Business

Services organizations differ from product-led business. They involve different processes, manage people differently, and serve different objectives. Yet, most service operations are using homegrown, heavily customized, poorly integrated tools. It’s time to re-think services as a differentiator.

The SaaB reference model connects and defines 21 distinct capabilities specifically for services management.

Zoom out | We estimate the “service economy” represented nearly 50% of global GDP last year – and it is growing faster than product companies. However, services organizations aren’t typically catered to as a distinct buyer.

The intrigue | By embracing SaaB, services can transform from marginal contributors to essential differentiators and profit centers.

On the Horizon

A sunset with the text MGI 360 Ratings in Agile Billing

MGI 360 Ratings™ are comprehensive vendor evaluations that assess tech vendors on their abilities to bring value and innovation to customers.

These quantitative ratings score suppliers in five key dimensions on a scale of 1-100. The MGI team is in the midst of analyzing over 30 leading agile billing vendors, and the upcoming reports will cover more than 50 suppliers in total.

Early insights | A surprising amount of funding and innovation has gone into the space – yet many basic customer challenges persist.

Reporting is a common frustration.
Support, particularly offshore, is poor compared to other business application categories.
Too many vendors are chasing the same spaces with too little differentiation. Subscription billing is commoditizing.

Who should be excited | Finance, business, and IT execs seeking modern monetization tools will have an independent resource to find the right solution. Suppliers looking for benchmarks and future directions.

Publication is slated for April.

In the meantime, check out:

A Story You Can't Afford to Miss

A graph with GDP Growth on the x-axis and Inflation on the y-axis

Economic Uncertainty – What’s Yet to Come

Fear, uncertainty, and doubt abound as the world emerges from the pandemic era to face a painful combination of soaring inflation and slow-growing GDP.

We seem to have gotten a handle on COVID-19, and related supply chain disruptions are decreasing, if still prevalent
However, the market is haunted by high interest rates, high energy prices, high cost of labor, and red-hot geopolitical tensions.

The speed at which the US Fed hiked interest rates in 2022 caused capital markets to retreat, valuations to drop, and tech companies to initiate mass layoffs.

Taken together, many fear another global recession is looming on the horizon.
However, unemployment rates remain at a record lows.
Similarly, costs of goods are not falling at recessionary rates, signaling to some that we could be headed for 70’s-style stagflation.

The bottom line | The current economic maelstrom does not represent a typical recession.

Our most recent research note, Not a Typical Recession: Making Sense of the Global Economy, models six likely 12-month economic trajectories and recommends strategies for buyers to take advantage of unprecedented conditions.