TL;DR

IKEA revolutionized the furniture industry by introducing flat-pack furniture, cutting costs and making stylish home furnishings affordable for the masses. Similarly, Sharlic aims to streamline the clunky license renewal process for resellers and system integrators, making it as effortless as IKEA’s flat-pack experience—automated, efficient, and hassle-free.

IKEA’s game-changing innovation

IKEA was founded in Sweden and revolutionized the furniture market with the introduction of flat packages in the mid-1900s. Until then furniture was a clunky business. All assembly was done in the factory, the products were clunky in shape and costly to handle and ship.

With flat packaging the final assembly was moved to the end customers, saving a lot of labor costs in production and enabled highly efficient transportation with great cost reductions. These cost savings was a key enabler for IKEA’s mission to bring beautiful furniture into people’s homes at prices affordable by the masses. By doing so, IKEA conquered the world and is one of the most respected success stories coming from Sweden.

The clunky world of license renewals

Why is this story relevant coming from a company like Sharlic, focusing on subscription management and license renewals for channel sales? Well, the fact is that the license renewal process today, like the old way of selling furniture, is a very clunky business. In the past, complementing software was sold as a one-off perpetual license to go together with hardware and delivered with the rest of the project. Basically, all the furniture you need loaded into a truck and delivered at the same time. Then off to the next project.

But, with the ongoing transition toward time-based licenses, cloud and services, software is no longer a one-time sale. Instead, every month you have to spend time and resources in keeping track of what licenses your customers have active, what needs to be renewed, checking the agreements you have with the customer, order new licenses from your suppliers, deliver that to the customer and bill it. A lot of work to sell something with a dollar value only a fraction of the initial project.

Sharlic’s flat-pack solution for license renewals

This is exactly the problem Sharlic wants to solve for resellers and system integrators working in a channel model. We keep track on all license and services you have delivered to customers. Optimally, we renew licenses automatically without any need for your attention. But at the very least we make the license renewal process a “flat package experience” by reducing the manual work you have to put in to having your customers system solutions run smoothly and consistently.

We want you to focus on your core business and the success of your company, while still enjoy the perks of recurring revenues from software and services. Hassle free recurring revenue comes in a flat package!