One of MarketCapture’s clients, Ex Libris has been a leading provider of high-performance applications for libraries for over twenty years.  Recently, the company has introduced a new product (SFX®) to the library market.  Helping libraries link their diverse and growing set of electronic resources, the product solves a very clear problem and is easy to understand and install.  It is priced significantly lower than Ex Libris flagship product, but has a subscription component that yields recurring revenues.

Three years since its introduction, the number of customers using the new product is almost half of the number of customers using the flagship product, which has been around for over twenty years. Over fifty percent are new customers, propelling the company to expand its market reach beyond the traditional high-end customer base. Following the success of SFX, Ex Libris launched additional products at the same price range.

The introduction of the new set of products had a very positive impact on the predictability of Ex Libris sales. “Our new products represent over 30% of our current revenue stream,” says Dan Trajman, Ex Libris President. “These revenues come from a larger number of deals, so we do not depend on the closing of a few deals each quarter. As a result, we now have much greater confidence in our sales forecast.”

Ex Libris keeps pushing in this direction. The number of libraries opting to use its hosted delivery model keeps growing, and efforts are underway to further reduce training time, so customers can get up and running in a matter of days. “Our customers like the simplicity of SFX, and we want to make it even easier for them to buy and implement so they can quickly derive value from the product and continue to use it,” says Trajman.