The Grand Illusion … to get the most benefit from Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), it actually has to be SaaS

Can any software be offered as SaaS? Absolutely, but can it offer the true promise of SaaS in terms of easy access, improved cost predictability, and ease of use? That’s another story. That’s why software users considering a move to SaaS must be informed shoppers and understand what to look for when evaluating SaaS options.

In the last article, we looked at one of the key benefits delivered by leveraging Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) that’s sometimes overlooked. SaaS can transform a business and operation if the adopter maximizes prebuilt capabilities instead of customizing legacy platforms.

SaaS and “as a service” offerings are buzzwords across the industry. Plug “SaaS” into any browser and over 90 million results appear in less than one second. For all the media attention, the idea of SaaS is somewhat misunderstood. Before adopting SaaS, a business must recognize real SaaS from the grand illusion to gain the full benefits. Some claim to offer SaaS when in fact, they do not. It’s an illusion to offer a virtualized application running in a public cloud or dedicated data center, managed service, a new cloud native application, a payment method through subscription, or some form of any or all of these and call it SaaS. None of these options alone provide an offering that lives up to the promise of a true SaaS application.

How to tell the pretenders from the real thing: what to look for

Easy access

Can you access software with the click of a button? Can you scale up or scale down your use of the software when you need to without long delays to your business needs? Is the software upgraded seamlessly in the background with limited or zero disruption to your business? Can you access the software anywhere, anytime? Can you get quick access to new features and capabilities? These are just some of the questions to ask so you understand whether a SaaS offering is easy to access.

Most applications built under cloud native principles and offered via the cloud will likely be able to answer “yes” all of the questions above. Unfortunately, simply putting an application built for the on-premise world onto a public cloud does not necessarily give you the answers you are looking for when it comes to access. That’s why an informed shopper should be skeptical if the answers to these questions involves timeframes of weeks and months versus hours and days.

Improved cost predictablity

A historical, common frustration for companies implementing software are the cost overruns, not to mention paying for software licenses upfront before any benefits are realized. These overruns stem from many different elements including scope creep, unanticipated customization, complex integration to other systems, hardware under-sizing, and other unexpected costs.

True SaaS offers the benefit of an improved cost model and predictability versus the traditional software model. The typical SaaS commercial model is the subscription, an “all-in” price that includes the software license, compute, storage, connectivity, support, application management, and upgrades.?If you use Microsoft Office 365, you pay the subscription fee without worrying about hardware, or people to manage the operation of the application, or anything else included in the subscription. While there is usually an initial “set up” fee to get started on the platform, it covers basic needs to get you up and running. Understanding what you get for the SaaS subscription price is a key question anyone should ask.

Not typically included in the subscription are any integrations to your current systems, or any customizations around the SaaS offering. Integration and customization become the main area for cost containment and any remaining “unpredictability”.?The first article in this series, “The Times Are A-Changin’ … and should, with SaaS” discussed maximizing the use of out-of-the-box capabilities of a SaaS offering. Doing so reduces or eliminates many of the costly customizations and leverages the subscription payment to the maximum.

Ease of Use

Many SaaS pretenders are exposed when it comes to living up to the promise of ease of use. Why? Ease of use requires a significantly different approach to design the experience. It’s different than the approach used for most legacy and on-premise software. Typically overlooked, creating true ease of use forces the need to design the user experience from the ground up, simplifying and putting maximum control in hands of a SaaS customer without the requirement to be a software engineer.

The user experience must be simple and intuitive, abstracting the elaborate underlying technology and architecture elements that make up the service. Customers don’t know or care about what is below the surface. They pay a subscription fee to avoid caring about the inner workings of a SaaS product. They simply want a service that works.

Not so fast! SaaS customers want and need control of their experience. Making it easy to manage users and “personalizing” their experience through prebuilt workflows and capabilities that are configurable in a no code environment is table stakes for a true SaaS product. It means having the proper APIs available to integrate the SaaS experience into their other systems. When changes are made, the capability to test changes before production is also required.

Customer-centric design is foundational to ease of use. What does this mean? How does it help SaaS vendors create “ease of use” to meet the promise of SaaS???More on this topic in the next article.

Author: Brian McCann

Brian is currently an Advisor to the Board of MATRIXX Software, a leader in providing next-generation, cloud native digital commerce solutions that transform how companies do business.?He previously held roles as Chief Product Officer and CTO at Nokia Software, VP of Products at Oracle Communications, and various other roles in his 30+ years in the software industry.?

Brian is based in Austin, TX.