I recently caught up with Tony Knopp, CEO and Co-founder of SpotlightTMS, and new member to SIIA. I had a chance to ask Tony some questions and gain some insight into the company he co-founded in 2007. Read my interview with Tony below.

Rhianna: Welcome to SIIA! Tell me about SpotlightTMS and why is it important to enterprises?

Tony: SpotlightTMS is the first SaaS allowing companies to track and manage the business impact of their sports and entertainment tickets while staying compliant. Companies globally purchase 124 million tickets annually representing a $16 Billion spend. 40% of those tickets go unused while billions are spent on ad hoc tickets through a decentralized market. Companies currently attempt to address this pain with Excel spreadsheets and ineffective home built software. Spotlight is Salesforce.com for tickets allowing customers to track and manage the buying, selling, and utilization of tickets in a centralized solution.

Rhianna: How is the Cloud and SaaS helping to grow your business?

Tony: Prior to the cloud, ticket management was primarily enterprise software sitting behind a firewall. The price point for enterprise software along with the endless customizations for multiple workflows and regulations made adoption of ticket management software impossible and cost prohibitive.

The Spotlight Cloud allows our customers access to their ticket inventory and data from anywhere, in real time, in a secure and user friendly manner at an investment that pays for itself. With the Ticket Cloud, our customers have access to their company inventory as well as tickets from all major providers (Ticketmaster, StubHub, Tickets.com, etc) in one easy-to-use web portal. The SaaS application allows customers to configure workflow and business processes to their specific needs instantly.

Rhianna: How is integration with other business solutions like salesforce.com important to you and your customers?

Tony: Spotlight aims to allow our customers to interact with the Ticket Cloud in the applications they “live” in every day. Whether it is within their Salesforce.com instance, Microsoft Dynamics, Microsoft Outlook, or through a mobile app, Spotlight connects business professionals to the tickets they need. At Spotlight “your tickets find you” by personalizing our end user instances using relevant information within the CRM’s and other solutions. Spotlight identifies opportunities for our customer firms to better match their current tickets and inventory with the appropriate business use. The end user can leverage Spotlight’s ability to match tickets to their top opportunities and proactively plan their asset utilization.

Rhianna: You have a rather unique channel strategy with major sports teams. Why is this important and how do you see it growing over time?

Tony: The team channel allows Spotlight to address market pain for both our professional team partners and our customers. As the economy remains mired in stagnant growth, sports teams and venue operators are quickly finding their luxury offerings on the chopping block at Fortune 1000’s and local businesses looking to cut costs.

In a subpar economy, companies are looking to tighten up spending and the first items cut are those that cannot justify an immediate and tangible ROI. Many teams in each major league have seen this trend and responded accordingly: by partnering with Spotlight to assure their customers are achieving their business goals with tangible results. Teams like the San Antonio Spurs, Miami HEAT, Chicago Bears, Detroit Red Wings, and Houston Texans have been great partners over the years and are seeing a positive effect on business.

There will be a number of lasting business shifts from the Great Recession of 2008 and we believe the focus on accountability through tangible numbers and transparent, efficient software is one of those changes to the status quo. Sports teams and venues will need to evolve to address this shift. Teams and leagues will continue to partner with Spotlight to encourage and assure long term success in their customer partnerships.

These days it is not enough to simply answer the phone, sell a suite to a business, and leave the business to try and use the asset. Companies are looking for a partner that is invested in the success of their purchase and Spotlight is the platform that allows our customers to partner with the teams.

Rhianna: Do you see an ecosystem of other SaaS players growing up around Spotlight, enhancing your value and competitive positioning as well as theirs?

Tony: Absolutely, just as Salesforce.com has spawned a industry of add-on and complementary services, we envision a similar ecosystem growing up around Spotlight. I can see Spotlight interacting with a number of CRM systems in addition to Salesforce.com with which we currently work. Other potential ecosystem partners include Cloud based ticket vendors, records compliance management systems, HR systems (tickets are often also used by HR), financial and SOX reporting systems, social networking services and even Cloud based billing systems.

Rhianna: Is the accelerating growth of mobile business changing or expanding your business strategy? If yes, how?

Tony: Mobile has been and remains a very high priority for Spotlight. Spotlight meets our customers where they live and that becomes more and more mobile everyday. When our users are out with their customers they need access to their tickets and those they can purchase. Mobile allows our customers to request tickets, buy tickets, track who is actually attending the event, and stay proactive in their asset utilization and will be a major part of our success in the future.

Rhianna Collier is VP for the Software Division at SIIA.