Moving to SaaS (Software as a Service) for the Right Reasons
Software as a Service (SaaS) is not a new model; it first came into use in the early 90s. The idea then, as now, was that companies could pay much less to use software by basically renting the use of it, rather than buying the software, or rather buying licenses for each machine in their company. SaaS is not only still alive, but has taken on a new life with the move to cloud computing. Still, if you’re thinking about moving to SaaS, it’s important to think about why you’re moving and whether you’re moving for the right reasons.
Most importantly, you should know why you’re moving and what you’re going to get out of the move.
Following are five good reasons for moving to SaaS.
1. SaaS will save your company money. The most obvious source of savings here is the money you’re not spending on software licenses and supporting software you own. You will also spend less money on servers and server maintenance. Another bonus savings comes in the form of the energy you’re not using to power the servers you don’t have to maintain. Financial savings is the number one reason most people move to SaaS.
2. Collaboration is easier and faster in the cloud. Online document sharing allows team members to truly work together, rather than passing around marked-up documents and hoping everyone is literally on the same page, or rather the same document.
3. Anyone can work from anywhere. Whether you’re considering a telecommuting arrangement, have a large contingent of road warriors or just want people to be able to work where they are when they need to, SaaS lets you do that. All your employees need to work on your clou
d-based system is an Internet connection and a computer, tablet or smartphone.
4. SaaS means your software is always up to date, automatically. Software updates are the bane of many companies’ existence, requiring extra work by the IT department and murdering productivity as employees can’t access their computers to do their normal work because the server is tied up with updating software. SaaS means automatic updates and syncing with no downtime.
5. The cloud provides security for your data. If your data is stored locally and your offices are destroyed by fire, your data is almost certainly destroyed, as well. When you store data in the cloud, you have a backup in case of emergency and can easily get back up and running from any location.
To sum all of this up, you should move to the cloud, using SaaS, because you want to save money, maximize productivity and keep your data secure. When choosing SaaS technology, you’ll want to keep these purposes in mind and make sure that the solution you choose does what you need it to do.