Chief information officers and IT managers have said software as a service has helped their businesses speed the take up of new technology.
But security and downtime concerns remained a genuine worry to them, they admitted, speaking at CIO magazine's Executive Forum, Saas and the CIO. The forum, sponsored by Oracle, was held in London yesterday and delegates heard users and vendors explore the benefits and challenges of SaaS.
A major advantage was that SaaS meant software could be more easily tested and set up for use because it only required web access, said David Bradshaw, principal analyst at Ovum.
He added: “The key for many businesses is quickly deploying ‘good enough’ software. Rather than getting 120% of what you need now in two years’ time, you can have 80% of what you need straight away. A lot of businesses prefer that.”
Experian, the credit checking agency that has almost doubled in size over five years through acquisitions, said SaaS had been crucial to it speedily deploying systems across its new businesses.
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“One of our key imperatives was to get the most from our acquisitions. We needed to move quickly and SaaS suited us,” explained Nigel Hodges, the company’s CRM strategy manager.
Hodges said with SaaS, the IT department only needed to set up and manage configuration, which saved time compared to a standard software implementation. But he warned that some divisions of his business, which had created their own software, were more “sensitive” to the idea of changing to standard software online.
In some institutions, SaaS configuration is controlled by the divisions using the software, and in others the IT department is responsible.
Glynis Morris, contact centre manager at Gloucestershire City Council, said: “As a division manager I have control over our SaaS, so it’s easier for me. I probably shouldn’t say it but it means things don’t take weeks to change like when I have to ring the IT department and have traditional IT implementations.”
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