ECM on Demand Six Things to Consider about Software as a Service
2 ECM on Demand: Six Things to Consider about Software as a Service Some adventure seekers are do-it-yourselfers. For them, the best route to the high seas and tropical ports is buying a yacht, taking sailing lessons, poring over nautical maps and gathering supplies before setting sail. For others, the better choice is an all-inclusive chartered cruise: Pack a bag, hop on board, and let an experienced captain and crew take you where you want to go. Enterprise software buyers now have similar alternatives when deploying enterprise content management (ECM) systems. The advantages of ECM are readily available under a traditional perpetual software license. Deploying applications at your site, on your hardware and network, gives you hands-on control of (and responsibility for) the entire system s configuration, protection, costs and maintenance. But this traditional model of buying software (and the hardware it runs on) is not necessarily the best choice for everyone. Companies of all sizes are increasingly considering the option known as Software as a Service (SaaS) to speed system deployment, conserve capital, reduce internal tech support costs, support geographically dispersed work sites, enhance data security, and generally focus on running their business. How does SaaS deliver such benefits? Simply put, SaaS fulfills your software needs through an application that is delivered and supported like a utility, configured to your organization s needs, and paid for not by an up-front investment but a recurring subscription fee or instance-usage payments. Exotic? Not really. Millions of people already trust their tax preparation to SaaS providers, and participate in SaaS-based online social networking and career networking applications through a web browser. And, according to technology analyst firm IDC 1, by 2012 around two-thirds of new offerings from established vendors will be sold as SaaS. Information technology research firm Gartner, Inc. says that SaaS applications are no longer seen as a new technology by our survey base. With almost half of those surveyed (46%) affirming to using SaaS applications in their business for more than three years. This is a significant sign of the technology s acceptance, because the first three years of SaaS usage are years normally characterized by piloting, testing, and user acceptance. 2 There are a number of factors that every potential ECM software buyer should consider when evaluating whether or not an onpremises deployment is the best option. 1 InfoWorld: IDC: SaaS momentum skyrocketing, July 26, 2010 (http://www.infoworld.com/d/cloud-computing/idc-saas-momentumskyrocketing-774?source=rss_infoworld_news) 2 Gartner, Inc., User Survey Analysis: Software as a Service, Enterprise Application Markets, Worldwide, 2010, Publication G00175549, 2010
1 2 Cost SaaS can reduce up-front deployment costs and make monthly software and support costs more predictable. For many businesses, purchases of enterpriselevel hardware and software represent capital outlays that aren t in the budget or have already been committed to something else. Sometimes, access to credit for significant business purchases is an issue, or strategic investment in other areas of the business makes more sense. Whatever the case, the ability to reduce up-front IT costs and pay a fixed amount at regular intervals for profit- and efficiency-boosting technology is a powerful tool in your financial management arsenal. It s obvious that renting physical space eliminates the long-term risks of owning real estate. Similarly, accessing and paying for software and its associated infrastructure on a subscription basis provides the functionality you need without the long-term commitment of licensing software, buying hardware and hiring dedicated support personnel. According to independent research firm Forrester Research, Inc., companies are finding SaaS leads to lower total cost of ownership (TCO) compared with on-premise software deployment: Firms don t just see lower upfront costs with SaaS purchases but lower overall costs as well. Considering factors like hardware, developers, help desk, and upgrades, firms often see cost savings for SaaS over on-premise that go out five years, 10 years, or more. 1 Of course, every deployment methodology has tradeoffs, and each company should critically evaluate factors such as unique integration requirements, technical infrastructure, personnel resources, IT budget, training needs, and anticipated growth before switching applications to SaaS based on cost. Implementation Time SaaS can reduce ECM implementation time by minimizing the acquisition, installation and maintenance of in-house application infrastructure. Training, building process steps, testing and solution integration are essential parts of any ECM implementation whether conventional or SaaS. But because SaaS delivers full application functionality to you over the internet, there s no need to buy or upgrade servers, buy and configure new data storage systems, modify your facility, or hire additional IT personnel. Of course, every company has its own unique technology environment, and in some cases, existing hardware and personnel are primed to handle an on-premises deployment of ECM making a good case for traditional licensed deployment. However, organizations with more limited technical resources have found that a wellmanaged SaaS implementation by an experienced ECM vendor can translate into a faster route from signing the papers to getting work done. California Institute of Technology chose to deploy their Perceptive Software solution in a hosted environment. This allows them to mitigate the challenges they have around security, time and IT resource constraints. Choosing the hosted deployment option allowed Caltech to implement ImageNow quickly without overburdening their technical staff. With limited usage of Caltech s resources, the customer s even quicker ROI was greater and realized more quickly than normal. The hosted environment enables Caltech to entrust their system to data security experts, which is a skill set they lacked at the time of deployment. CASE STUDY 3 ECM on Demand: Six Things to Consider about Software as a Service 1 SaaS Adoption 2010: Buyers See More Options But Must Balance TCO, Security, And Integration, Forrester Research, Inc., May 19, 2010.
3Reliability, Safety and Security 4 Few companies have the in-house resources to match the reliability, safety and data protection that SaaS brings to your enterprise. Experienced SaaS providers host their applications in state-of-the-art data centers designed for both high performance and exceptional reliability. The data centers of well-qualified SaaS providers bring together a combination of industry-standard network, architecture and security features that would be cost-prohibitive to replicate in-house. The best SaaS data centers are characterized by multiple, overlapping and redundant layers of protection, starting with the physical buildings (often comprised of multi-site facilities) and extending to advanced hardware protection, access restrictions, and personnel policies. Network and physical hardware redundancy are SaaS data center mainstays, along with environmental monitoring and control, backup power, fire suppression and backups performed and stored in off-site underground facilities. hosting human resources information in a SaaS deployment provides greater protection from employee snooping than having the same information on an internally deployed system that is difficult to completely lock down. With SaaS, ECM application users get reliability, high availability, security and performance consistency month after month, year after year. Following Hurricane Katrina, Ocean Springs School District wanted to ensure the safety and security of its unstructured information in the event of another natural disaster. To address those concerns, the district chose to deploy Perceptive Software s SaaS option for ECM, offering a low up-front investment and the reassurance of a qualified provider to host, manage and operate their central application environment and its associated infrastructure. Implementing Perceptive Software solutions with the SaaS option also enables the district to focus its resources on day-today business processes, minimizing the technical resources required by the district. CASE STUDY The facility and network that host SaaS applications are monitored 24 x 7, one of the many factors that independent auditors look at to grant the SAS 70 Type II-compliance certification that every SaaS data center you consider should have. Without a large capital investment, SaaS customers benefit from an infrastructure that performs with the consistency their business processes require, backed by the superior technical support of solution and industry experts. In some situations, the security benefits of SaaS can even help serve a company s internal data confidentiality goals. For example,
4Allocation of Resources SaaS lets companies concentrate on the tasks that move their organization forward not on maintaining an ECM system. Some companies have a strong case for deploying in-house IT resources to implement ECM on site. For others, it s a distraction from the high-value daily activities that represent their organization s core competencies. The SaaS delivery model frees up crucial resources the time and talent required to maintain administrative applications so your organization can focus on things like business processes, customer needs and strategic planning. In addition to the peace of mind that comes from the physical and network security SaaS offers, you can set aside concerns about network planning, maintenance and software upgrades knowing all these aspects of enterprise-level ECM are included in the standard subscription price. Plus, the continuous incremental upgrading included with many SaaS plans means far less disruption of everyday business processes and user routines than the often larger and less-frequent upgrades typically made to on-premise software. At the same time, SaaS ECM promises the exact level of application administrative control each customer requires. Typical SaaS contracts provide the advantages of a hosted-platform environment without forcing customers into a standardized model for administrative management and configuration of the ECM application itself. Administrative functions like user account setup and configuration, document security and access, workflow administration and minor script modifications, remote setup and configuration of scanners and other capture methods, and database administration all remain under your control. However, comprehensive SaaS providers offer options for customers who prefer to out-source such daily administrative functions to a provider who carries out their requests on an ongoing basis. For companies that really want to keep their focus on the business, such remote assistance is the ultimate in hands-off ECM administration. SaaS isn t the only option for gaining the advantages of subscription-based software usage. Some organizations have a very robust in-house IT infrastructure and the human resources required to host and manage an ECM environment. However, they may not be prepared to make a capital expenditure to purchase the software licenses needed to support their ECM vision. Fortunately, software companies with a flexible delivery model, such as Perceptive Software, provide an option to deploy the software at the client site while transforming the otherwise up-front software license cost (plus service and maintenance fees) into a single, predictable, recurring expenditure. This not only allows the customer to expense their software costs (confirm with your tax advisor), but to leverage excess IT capacity by deploying and managing the ECM within their existing infrastructure. SAAS ALTERNATIVES 5 ECM on Demand: Six Things to Consider about Software as a Service
5Scalability 6 A properly configured SaaS deployment is inherently scalable, to keep pace with the constantly changing needs of your business. Running in sophisticated data centers with hardware optimized for high-performance computing, SaaS can easily support more users as your business grows and your needs change. The network bandwidth and processing capacity you need is already in place, and ready to access for additional users after a single phone call or e-mail to your SaaS provider. SaaS provides unmatched flexibility to rapidly expand your user base in one location or around the world. Depending on the application, new employees can often access SaaS with nothing more than a PC and a broadband connection, bringing that dream of branch offices around the world one step closer. SaaS delivers advantages not just for technically enabling growth of the user base, but for improving user application acceptance through intuitive browser-based interfaces and integrated, constantly updated user help systems. Plus, some SaaS configurations offer comprehensive system usage reporting, giving administrators a powerful tool for assessing rates of user acceptance. And what if your business software needs actually decline? Unlike perpetual software licenses, which stick you with a fixed number of seats no matter how many users end up using an application, SaaS contracts can be negotiated to allow reductions in seats and their attendant costs at the end of predetermined contract intervals. And if you ever decide SaaS isn t for you, SaaS providers can make your data available for transfer to a new application environment, just like any in-house data transition.
6 Sector-specific Solutions Jump-start your ECM deployment with preconfigured solutions based on your SaaS vendor s industry and process experience. If an ECM software vendor has already gained experience in a specific industry, and streamlined a document-intensive process, it should be able offer you the same insider knowledge and efficiencies even more quickly and cost-effectively via SaaS. SaaS allows almost infinite customization to your organization s unique industry requirements, roles, document types and workflow. But the uniformity of steps in certain business processes holds out the potential for faster deployment and more rapid return on investment. Pre-configured SaaS-based ECM solutions such as accounts payable invoice processing, contracts management and HR electronic personnel files represent quick and efficient ways to deploy fully functional workprocessing systems that leverage your vendor s industry expertise and knowledge of best practices. Such solutions are built on a framework of products and components enhanced by application configuration and settings that may require only a little modification from a customer or consultant, decreasing the cost of custom services and the time needed for implementation. When executives at Miami Jewish Health Systems (MJHS), one of the largest healthcare facilities in southeast Florida, turned their attention to developing a technology roadmap to support the organization s business goals, Chief Information Officer Shubho Chatterjee, Ph.D PE, realized that enterprise content management (ECM) was a component that would allow MJHS to streamline and automate processes throughout the organization. A thorough analysis of business processes gave the team information and ideas to reengineer processes to improve efficiency, accuracy and productivity. And teaming with Perceptive Software gave MJHS the resources to automate those processes using ImageNow document management, imaging and workflow. ImageNow integrates seamlessly with MJHS MEDITECH system and works throughout the enterprise to deliver instant document access, automate workflow and eliminate paper waste or delays. Deploying ImageNow as a Software as a Service (SaaS) solution freed MJHS IT resources to concentrate on core duties, while also reducing up-front costs and ensuring data security. SaaS: Best for You? There are many possible reasons to consider SaaS: up-front cost savings, rapid deployment, reliability, safety, security, scalability, better resource allocation, and pre-configured solution readiness. Ultimately, though, a qualified ECM vendor who has experience in your industry and offers both traditional licensing and Software as a Service is your best source of information to determine whether SaaS is the right approach for meeting your ECM needs. CASE STUDY 7 ECM on Demand: Six Things to Consider about Software as a Service
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