Over the past several years, we have seen an uptick in the number and variety of services-based software solutions across enterprise computing.
Saas can be especially appealing for small and mid-sized companies that don’t want to invest in servers and centralized IT resources. Saas approaches can help companies reduce capital expenditures while expanding their capabilities.Consider the other following points about Saas:
– Another key point about Saas solutions is that they’re typically kept up to date with the current release of software, so that organizations using Saas know that they’re getting the latest and greatest versions of applications, supported by experts who know and understand the software.
– For traditional software vendors, Saas approaches are turning into another marketing and sales avenue, as well as a potentially lucrative new market.
– One of the main selling points is budgetary, with a sole department being able to sign off on using the service under the IT radar. Among the services that Upside Research has reviewed in the past year, the average monthly fees range from $500 to $2000 per month depending on the number of users.
– Another selling point is speed of deployment, because many business-focused applications can get bogged down in implementation cycles within the enterprise. With services-based software, many customers can get up and running literally in hours, once they have signed the papers and worked out billing arrangements.
– In most cases, the solution is hosted at a central location by the solution provider, and for a monthly fee (based on transaction rates or number of end users) the customer has use of the software, and access to any upgrades or improvements that occur, all with minimal or no interruption in service. This is extremely appealing for efficiency-driven organizations that want to feel the business benefits of a software solution as quickly as possible without the IT burden of having to configure, manage, support, maintain, and upgrade a software application.
– In many cases, the total cost of ownership with a services-based solution is five to ten times less than traditional installed software.
– With companies focused on ROI more than ever, a services-based approach enables a project to become profitable more quickly.
