Solutions
An analyst recently compared software to electricity. "Most firms don't own generators, they buy electricity from the grid" he pointed out. And this succinctly sums up one of the major reasons for the rise of the Software as a Service (SaaS) marketplace. Whatever sector your organisation operates in, you will find that SaaS will deliver measurable benefits.
The key, and most commonly cited, benefits of SaaS are usually listed as:
- Low cost of entry - pay as you go software
- Zero Infrastructure - Reduced Overheads
- Single Instance, Multi-Tenant Efficiency
- Cost-effective Infinite Scalability - buy as you need.
- Increased Accessibility and Productivity - share information instantly throughout the organisation. Geographically dispersed teams function better with better information availability.
- Easy to implement - worst case an end point client is required on every pc, but even in this scenario most SaaS offerings utilise web based deployment tools.
- Improved Security - automatic updates and patching. SaaS vendors invest heavily in state of the art secure and highly resilient data centers.
- Freedom of Choice - if a product does not suit your needs it is easy enough, and cost effective enough, to 'switch' out. No long term contracts and prohibitive legacy investment in hardware to be depreciated.
- Defined Predictable Costs - subscription model ensures accurate and manageable spend.
- System Independence
- SaaS based solutions are hosted centrally with the service provider.
- Focus internal management controls via the line rather than relying on IT to be the guardians of business technology
Whilst by no means exhaustive, we have selected the key benefits of the SaaS model for the following market sectors:
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