Organizations irrespective of their size need to use IT solutions to enhance efficiency and productivity, reduce cost, and improve customer satisfaction. Better use of Information Technology also helps some organizations to be more competitive compared to their peers. While there is consensus on the benefits of IT, there are major challenges faced by small and mid-sized firms in adoption of IT solutions. One or more of the below mentioned situations necessitate opting for a SaaS IT solution in small and mid-sized firms.
- Limited IT team
- Limited infrastructure
- Limited Management Bandwidth
- Limited Funds
- Cyclical business environment
The below mentioned needs can be best fulfilled by SaaS offerings.
- Standardization: SaaS offerings allow an organization to quickly migrate to standard business applications/infrastructure/technology.
- Quick realization of benefits: As the implementation timeframe is shorter compared to conventional deployment, there is quick realization of benefits.
- 24X7 availability: Globally integrated businesses require 24X7 availability of IT applications/infrastructure. This is provided by SaaS IT solutions.
- Secure transactions: The cost of security breach is enormous. SaaS IT solutions by virtue of the high investment in security infrastructure and audit processes provide secure execution of business processes.
- Accountability: A typical IT system involves multiple vendors/solution providers. By integrating all this under a service SaaS IT solutions pin accountability on a vendor.
- Avoidance of data loss: SaaS solution providers make huge investments in data back-up and disaster recovery processes. Thus, the risk of data loss is minimized.
SaaS makes sense also for organizations that already have hosted IT solutions. Most of the hosted IT solutions are based on a dedicated infrastructure for a particular client. Thus, there are challenges/issues related to application upgrades, patch management, accommodation of additional users, etc. SaaS solutions are meant for a large number of organizations and are designed inherently to address all the issues related to this requirement.
Contributed by Mr. R Sukumar, General Manager – Sales, Ramco OnDemand ERP
