We're living in the year of the Monkey 2016, and during the last 15 years of this millennia have been a parade of technology, and especially technologies as services. Think CRM’s, Production, work order and customer service software tools.
But why is it that software solutions thrive when bought and sold as services?
There are obviously many reasons and here are the 9 most important reasons, in my biased order of importance.
1. Fast implementation
Implementing SaaS solutions boil down to getting everybody credentials and properly informing and training the team. There’s no need to order, install and configure new hardware, determine backup capacity or ensure that capacity exists. And more often than not, the onboarding can be done with videos and email courses.
2. Flexibility to grow
SaaS solutions are flexible. You can start small and increase usage as your company grows. Many are priced by the volume of usage and are fairly linearly scalable.
3. High-quality service
When you have a service provider that is focused delivering excellence in the niche they have picked, you won’t need to have your IT department generalists as your only backup.
If you buy a software that is delivered as a bespoke project, chances are that after the project is over, the provider moves on and works with other companies, leaving the maintenance and customer service responsibilities with your internal IT department. When software is maintained by the people who created it, you get high-quality service and the expertise and support they can provide on an ongoing basis.
4. Benefit from the latest technological developments
Forget costly updates. When you’re paying for a service, you’ll be guaranteed the latest tech under your bonnet at all times. This eliminates the trouble of having to make difficult purchasing and prioritising decisions.
5. Business continuity
If it all goes pear-shaped, SaaS providers will have your (and your customers) data and information safely secured and backed up. Most providers use a range of uptime protection systems that protect business continuity. These include a high availability physical infrastructure and system architecture, proactive server monitoring, multiple backup layers and a disaster recovery configurations.
6. Better security
Having a SaaS solution means it’s hosted on a cloud, which in turn means that the data will be in several locations simultaneously. The data security of SaaS solutions is enforced with changing encryptions and bank level firewalls.
7. Reduced upfront costs
As most SaaS solutions are subscription or usage-based, there’s no need to buy hardware or software when you first implement the systems. Also, there are hardly ever are expensive (and unpredictable) project implementation costs.
8. Lower cost of ownership
Compared to an on-premise implementation which will involve you operating your own infrastructure, servers and security programmes, SaaS solutions offer lower ongoing costs and, therefore, better overall value. Also, switching vendor is really cheap and easy.
9. 24/7 Access
I think this goes without saying, but there’s also, no need to be physically present at your office desk, which means you can work easily from the office, in traffic or on a site. You can even work from home if the tubes are on strike.
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