Inside Small Business | Small Business & Home Business Marketing

Software as a Service (SAAS)

How does IT in a box sound?

That’s the vision of the latest trend in software development - called Software as a Service (SAAS). For small business owners - this model for technical support is very appealing - if you’re willing to accept the risk.

Software as a Service can be best described as outsourcing an entire business function. Typical SAAS functions are Payroll (Paychex.com), HR (Workday.com), Accounting (Quickbooks.com), Sales (Salesforce.com), and Customer Relationship Management (RightNow.com)

These vendors are part of a growing trend of software providers that allow you to subscribe to the service (typically about $100/month/user - but options vary greatly here). This allows you to run your business with some significant advantage. 1. You don’t have to develop these sorts of applications in-house. 2. You don’t have to have an IT staff to support you. 3. You don’t have to buy a bunch of computer hardware (SAAS vendors have the computers at their site - you just log in via the internet). 4. You don’t have to be an expert in these areas - the SAAS vendors support hundreds of small businesses - and their business model will typically work for you too.

The cost of these applications is typically very reasonable. The drawback is that you give up some of the control that comes with having your own in-house operations. In addition - you have to get over the fact that your Payroll/CRM/Sales/Accounting, information is hosted outside of your business - on your vendor’s website. To counter this concern - I would tell you that the worst thing for a SAAS vendor to have happen is a security breach - and I find that their security infrastructure is better than ANY fortune 500 company I’ve worked with. Security shouldn’t be an issue (although you should question the vendor to make sure you’re comfortable).

One other drawback in having your applications scattered across various vendor websites - is that they aren’t integrated. If you want a Sales order to feed your CRM system - typically you’ll have to re-type the information from Sales into the CRM application. However, web service technology is available to hook all these applications together…and for a bit more investment in some integration services (from great companies like ProCore Resource Group ), you can provide a seamless business process that is automated as well.

In short - if you’re considering some investment in technology to help your business grow - look at SAAS options. It provides state-of-the-market solutions for common business functions at a fraction of the cost it would take if you build it yourself.

Posted on Wednesday, June 25th, 2008 at 8:46 am and is filed under ProCore Resources. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.