Businessmodel of Totango

Customer Segments

Totango has a niche market business model, with a specialized customer segment. The company targets its offerings at recurring revenue (subscription) businesses. Its clients are mostly SaaS firms.

Value Proposition

Totango offers four primary value propositions: convenience, performance, risk reduction, and brand/status.

The company offers convenience by making its solution simple to use. It connects all relevant sources of customer data within an enterprise so that clients can easily understand and manage the customer lifecycle. Further, it optimizes the business technology stack for reactive customer support.

The company has demonstrated strong performance through tangible results. High-profile examples of positive outcomes for its clients include the following:

• Sysomos used Totango’s solution to more effectively engage customers, resulting in a reduction in churn rate by 25% in just one year
• Wiredirve used Totango’s solution to automate several processes, saving an average of 4 hours/month in data analysis and 25 hours per week in outreach
• Central Desktop used Totango’s solution to implement predictive and proactive processes, resulting in a decrease of 10 percentage points in its overall churn rate
• Jobvite used Totango’s solution to establish a data-driven approach, resulting in the gathering of customer engagement data across its entire customer base within weeks
• Cotap used Totango’s solution to help prioritize sales efforts, resulting in an improvement in lead freemium conversions by 150% The company reduces risk through high standards. It maintains ISO 27001 and TRUSTe certifications, both highly-regarded signs that it can be trusted with data privacy.

The company has established a strong brand due to its performance. It has a number of prominent customers, such as Autodesk. It has also won a number of honors, including the following:

• A Stevie Award for New Product/Service of the Year, Relationship Management Category (2015)
• An SIIA CODiE Award for Best Customer Relationship Management Solution (2015)
• An SIIA NextGen Award for Most Disruptive Mobile Solution (2015)
• A CRM Watchlist Award from ZDNet (2015)
• Recognition as one of the 10 Hottest Cloud Apps of 2014 by Skyhigh Networks
• A CloudBeat Innovation Award from VentureBeat (2013)
• A Best of SaaS Showplace Award from THINKStrategies (2012) ### Channels

Totango’s main channel is its direct sales team. The company promotes its offering through its website, social media pages, an e-mail newsletter, webinars, and participation in conferences.

It hosts an annual two-day conference called “Customer Success Summit” that highlights trends and best practices in its industry.

Customer Relationships

Totango’s customer relationship is primarily of a self-service, automated nature. Customers utilize the service through the main platform while having limited interaction with employees.

The company’s website features a “Customer Success Resources” section that includes self-help tools such as articles, white papers, research reports, infographics, presentations, and flipbooks.  The site also has a support section called “Totango Academy” that includes answers to frequently asked questions, solution guides, technical documentation, and on-demand training content.

Despite this orientation, there is a personal assistance component in the form of phone and e-mail support.

Key Activities

Totango’s business model entails maintaining and updating its SaaS platform for customers.

Key Partners

Totango does not maintain a formal partnership program. No information was found regarding its current partnerships.

Key Resources

Totango’s main resource is its proprietary software platform.

It depends on human resources in the form of engineering employees to maintain the platform, sales employees to promote it, and customer service staff to provide support.

As a relatively new startup it has relied heavily on funding from outside parties, raising $26.3 million from four investors as of May 2015.

Cost Structure

Totango has a cost-driven structure, aiming to minimize expenses through significant automation.

Its biggest cost driver is likely sales/marketing, a fixed expense. Other major drivers are in the areas of customer support/operations and administration, both fixed costs.

Revenue Streams

Totango has one revenue stream: the subscription fees it charges for access to its software-as-a-service platform. Sales staff must be contacted directly for pricing information.