Perpetual Licence to Subscription for a B2B Software Company

This reflects the type of challenge our consultants are built to solve, drawn from real industry experience. Revenue was lumpy, AMC renewals were informal handshake agreements, and 3 of the previous year's 9 new customers had simply not paid their annual maintenance. The founders wanted to move to subscription but had watched two competitors attempt the same transition and stumble through 18 months of declining revenue before recovering. The board wouldn't approve without seeing the cash flow curve first.

A transition financial model with three scenarios, high, mid, and low existing-customer conversion rates, showing the revenue recognition dip in each. Under the mid scenario, the dip was ₹2.8 Cr in months 4–8. The board approved with a ₹3 Cr bridge from existing investors. New customers from month 1: subscription only. Existing customers: offered a 15% rate lock for 24 months in exchange for conversion. The 15% incentive existed because it was real value, not because the company couldn't hold firm, the modelling had made that clear.