5 Things Enterprises Must Consider before Buying SaaS Products – APPWRK IT Solutions

Introduction

In today’s progressively competitive, technology-driven business world, all organizations looking to enhance their activity and productivity are grasping the benefits offered by the world of software. Whether it may be the enhanced cloud computing capabilities, artificial Intelligence-based automation tools, or merchant processing options, the software market is very diversified, with products that can serve almost every possible business need.
Software as a service in its short form is written as “SaaS”. SaaS is a software licensing and delivery model in which software is licensed on a subscription basis and is center arranged.
The SaaS business model continues to gain more traction across the globe. Companies of all sizes are now enfolding SaaS as the next best substitute to on-premise hardware and software development. According to the Computer Economics report, around 60% of all companies have now consolidated at least some percentage of SaaS solutions into their business, with nearly 36% aiming to increase their investment in the months to come.
Choosing the right kind of software is essential for your organization’s success when buying a SaaS product, there are many points you need to evaluate. SaaS makes sense for business managers, who are looking for the latest capabilities at lower cost and without the worry of future business needs.

Some of the examples of SaaS are

1) Shopify- Shopify is an example of a SaaS eCommerce platform. It provides complete shopping cart software, as well as hosting infrastructure to the user, allowing businesses to create an online shop within minutes.

2) Google Apps- Google Play, is a digital distribution service operated and developed by Google. It acts as the official app store for the Android operating system, allowing users to browse and download applications.

3) Dropbox- Dropbox is a file hosting service, that offers cloud storage, file synchronization, personal cloud, and client software. Dropbox has been rated as one of the most valuable startups in the US and the world.

4) MailChimp- MailChimp is an American marketing automation platform and an email marketing service. MailChimp first began as a paid service and added a freemium option in 2009 and within a year its user base grew from 85,000 to 450,000.

Benefits of SaaS

Following are some of the benefits of SaaS:

1) Reduced Application Cost

Every business needs fewer application costs. It can even have a great impact on individual business units and as a result the entire business process. This is one of the most important advantages of SaaS. IT infrastructure costs and maintenance costs are always on the higher side. SaaS solutions can reduce significantly these costs, so you can invest your capital in other areas while having a safe and flexible business system. SaaS business models are usually subscription-based and allow adaptability and customized software solutions for your specific needs. A very negligible initial investment makes SaaS more popular among business units.

2) Latest Features

A SaaS business solution allows your business to receive updates, software upgrades, and new functionalities as soon as they are rolled out. This will enhance efficiency and will give you the latest business insights. SaaS solutions automatically update to make your data safer and useable. It naturally fixes all the bugs and makes the system smooth and flawless. You can also start using the new features straight away. SaaS solutions allow you to have a vertical and horizontal look at your entire business processes helping to find the right solutions to business problems.

3) Adaptability both for your Business & Users

Flexibility is one of the most important aspects for any business to compete in a higher-level market. Businesses that are adaptable with their strategy, culture & business model always have a competitive advantage. The viewpoint toward new applications, adding features, upgrading systems, and adding users defines a business’s flexibility. SaaS applications rank easily in both business and user perspectives. It is designed to fuse many users to work together. SaaS makes it easy to add new services and solutions without forcing any software.

4) Collaboration

SaaS apps enable multiple users to work together at the same time under the same software suite. SaaS authorizes power to more than one user to work on the same document or a piece of the module. SaaS is intelligent and allows users to save data smartly without leaving any chance to lose data, there is no need for emailing documents for review, systematic folders, and master documents. All that you need centralized location. Think about Dropbox, one of the smartest cloud storage based on the SaaS model.

5 Things That Every Enterprise Must Examine Before Signing a SaaS Purchase Agreement

Following are the 5 things that every enterprise must examine before signing a SaaS purchase agreement:

1) An Extensive Study of the Problem

The first and foremost thing to do when purchasing a SaaS solution is to ask whether or not the SaaS product solves the problem that your business, team, etc. are facing. To do this, it is imperative that enterprises begin with a comprehensive study of the business requirements and identify the problems that require a SaaS solution. Once the problem is well-defined, it becomes easier for enterprises to find the solution that best fits the operational, security, and compliance needs of the enterprise.

2) Try First and Buy Later

While everything may look great on paper, you still can’t ignore the management challenges that may come during solution deployment. By paying a minimal fee for implementation alone, enterprises can first test the solution and then decide on making a complete purchase, you can get a fair deal of information about a host of important service delivery factors, Or the best practice to manage such problems is to ask the vendor for a list of clients who are already using the same or similar solution.

3) An Effective Service-Level Agreement (SLA)

Service level agreements are a must for a robust vendor-client relationship. It creates trust and ensures that the vendor will do everything within its capacity to meet performance levels. The SLA should be business-oriented and promise incremental value to the business. It must clearly state each and every agreed performance indicator, must ensure accountability of the vendor during downtime or performance drops, and must clearly state compensation policies in case of failure to meet performance goals.

4) Flexibility and Exit Strategy

Business workflows, processes, and needs evolve with time. In the 21st century, business is all about agility. As a business grows and turns global, it must align with different IT governance practices and policies. Every enterprise must look for a SaaS solution that offers the flexibility to accommodate changes in the long term. Also, they must take into account the costs that these changes will incur.
Discussing the key service discontinuity points, minimum notice time before exit, data ownership agreement, etc is equally important.

5) Make A Final Analysis

Don’t make the mistake of deciding on price alone, always incorporate other factors like reputation, stability, R&D, and references into the decision-making process. If you want, one can always request a final demo of the product, as the version may have changed since you last experienced it. The vendor’s technology expertise, ease of doing business, and customer service practices are some of the important aspects which should be considered while making the final decision.

Wind-Up

Companies using Cloud-based apps with the SaaS business model are increasing in number, the reason being, that it is based on the subscription model and has numerous benefits. The ability of fast placement with lower investment risk has made business owners choose SaaS solutions over other alternative choices.

We at APPWRK IT SOLUTIONS, understand the growing importance of SaaS among businesses, providing our clients with custom-tailored features according to their needs and requirements, our expert team of developers will provide a superior and secure end-to-end software solution for your business,
if you still have some queries or want to discuss the development process, Contact APPWRK or reach us via our mail address or call us directly!  

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