SAAS – Selling clouds

The current tendency is that customers want services and products faster, more secure, rigid, lighter, and of course, simple to run and maintain. One of the platforms that holds all those requirements is the digital one. And as we know, in order to start a digital business, you have to spend time with your product and IT team, making sure everybody understands the product that you are selling and the methodologies to follow. Also, you have to have money to build it and as we know, it is not a cheap initiative. Nowadays, It is incredibly hard to start or launch a digital business following that path given the current speed of innovation in the market. Without forgetting the maintenance part, licensing and upgrade. From there, it came a solution to all those problems: cloud computer services and Saas.

What is Cloud Computer Services?

C.C.S is the mixed of three different models of cloud computing that put all together creating what we know by the clouds. It enables businesses to use software located in the vendor´s cloud instead of having their own infrastructure and the mantaninance from it.

It is a paradigm that allow on-demand network access to shared computing resources. A model for managing, storing and process data online via the internet.

The main characteristics of this services are:

It is a On-demand service

Network access (internet is the medium)

Shared resources (they are pooled together and used by clients or users)

Scalable service ( it is an elastic resource)

3 different models

Out of those three different models that are described in the graphic, we are going to stick with the first one of them, Saas or Software As A Service.

 

Saas

It is the application of computer resources on-demand. It means that the customers get what they asked for, sounds obvious, but many times the providers give more services than they were asked for. And that can cost money, time and resources to the business.

Given the independency of the platform, means that there is no need to install anything from the business side. As mentioned before, they only have to subscribe, and log in. This services are mainly given by services like CRM accounts, Accounting, Inventory…

However even though being one of the buzzwords this year, it is not still implemented in many of the business. And I should say that it has a lot of benefits but cons as well.

Pros and Cons of Software as a Service

Pros:

Being a platform in the clouds, it is easily accessible and universally from any platform. The only requirement is that you have to be registered by the server and to have full access to the data inside.

Related with that first benefit, being upthere gives you the benefit of access it from any platform which translates in working from anywhere. Your only requirements is a laptop with Internet access.

It is an excellent working tool for collaboration. Anyone with access can get inside and modify the content at the same time. (Multi tenancy)

Clear idea of the costs. Much more accurate budgeting, savings on human capital, physical space, electricity, and support.

Saas is a great tool for data analytics, besides the fact that many people can work in only one folder at the same time, it allows collection of metadata and metering. That can become an excellent weapon for the customer insights.

Risks:

If not well controlled and with the proper architecture that allows to be flexible and scalable, the system can give you problems of portability and browser.

And the main tricky fact, if you do not have access to internet, there is no service.

Time-spent, since each consumer/client has to make sure that the company providing that service (vendor) has the controls and systems that you require.

Certain data may be a little sensitive to store in specific countries or regions. Where the data is located  standards can restrict transfer, govern storage, or expand customer rights. – lexology.com

One of the main inconvenience with this companies is that they relay a lot on the internet servers, a drop on the servers being used, speed of it, or even a simple electricity problem will dictate your overall performance.

 

As you can observe in this graphic from People, the main costs of Saas are the subscriptions and the access to the cloud. There a little amount of money invested afterwards in the training of your teamforce to be able to understand how it runs and customise it. However keeps being wide few investment compared with all the stack of different cost that you will receive when creating your own IT and Digital site.

Examples of most popular Saas products/services

Google Cloud concept

This is probably the most known Saas service, however most of the people do not actually know that the name of what Google is providing is (besides Google Cloud) Software as a service. It is a mix of cloud services that works the same way that Googles´structure internally. It provides to its end-users data storage, data analytics and machine learning.

Microsoft Office 365

The same style of service, such productivity software and related services

with a different provider. It refers to subscription plans that include access to Office applications plus other productivity services that are enabled over the Internet (cloud services) – Microsoft office  

SalesForce.com

This is a platform that allows business to manage their relationship with the clients in terms of Sales, Services, Marketing and Data Analytics. Salesforce credits its tools for boosting customer sales an average of 37 percent as well as driving increased client loyalty and satisfaction.

Amazon Web Services

Amazon has expanded their services beyond the e-commerce marketplace to transit towards on-demand cloud based resources. Currently encompasses more than 70 services in all, including computing, storage, networking, database, analytics, deployment, management and tools for the Internet of Things.

Dropbox

With this platform, you are able to share thousand of files around many people and all of your devices. Once you have stored all your documents and structured them, you just have to invite your teammates and give them access to the files.

 

 

Cloud computing offers major benefits such as reduced costs, minimal downtime, and easy management. But at the same time, you also need to consider the drawbacks mentioned… and craft effective strategies to overcome them. – findmyshift.com

 

 

 

Written by David Ayza Enero, Marketing Manager at Apiumhub, software development company specialized in software architecture and web & app development. Passion for new technologies, sports with the hobby of writing articles and share knowledge about new technologies, methodologies in the industry and its diverse applications