By Dipali Nishad for Indigo Olive Software
What is SaaS?
Software as a Service (SaaS) refers to software licensing and delivery models. Hubspot, Email, Calendaring and Shopify are a few examples of SaaS. It allows users to access programs via the internet. Hence no need of installing complex software and maintaining hardware. SaaS customers pay a subscription fee to access the application. The organizations are deploying SaaS applications to enhance IT service delivery efficiency and encourage the scalability of business solutions. Despite its growing popularity, several large enterprises are still hesitant to replace their legacy software with a SaaS solution. The biggest reason is the existence of myths which need to be debunked. Some of them are listed below:
Myth 1: SaaS applications aren’t secure
Although few technical budding issues are informed by the leading providers, the number of such instances are too low. SaaS in cloud services is highly secured. The precautionary measures for the escalated technology growth are as high as the industrial standards. High security ensures that users don’t face risk of data loss, misuse or privacy violation.
Myth 2: Only Small business can benefit from SaaS
The reduced Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) of Software as a Subscription benefits SMBs greatly; business adoption is also quite strong for the same reason. In reality, enterprise customers account for the majority of SaaS income. The primary drivers of SaaS adoption among all the users are minimum effort, convenience of use, low set-up and maintenance costs. Many users and industry professionals agree that SaaS eliminates the day-to-day inconvenient nature of traditional software. “I don’t need a hard disk in my computer if I can get to the server faster,” the late Steve Jobs stated.
Myth 3: SaaS Applications are unreliable
With the speedy upgradation and innovations in technology, do you still feel SaaS is less than on-premise solutions?
You are mistaken! SaaS is actually proven to be more reliable than on-premise solutions. The SaaS vendors are offering 99.5% uptime for the services they provide. Crashing of an on-premise software, need of update or virus contract will bring a downtime. The once in a while occurring service interruptions in large cloud providers such as Google Apps or Salesforce.com are widely known. Furthermore, organizational outages cost both the valuable time and huge expense. A lot of IT resources are consumed in order to get the system backups and working. In addition, the cloud infrastructure is backed with 24*7 authentic customer support and load-balancing features.
Myth 4: SaaS does not provide access to all user data
In SaaS contracts, it is clearly mentioned that a customer either owns or has the right to all user data. Through an admin dashboard SaaS vendors give access to rich data and analytics. In case, organizations and customers terminate an agreement, they can effortlessly export and use all user data as per their requirement. The cloud stored SaaS solutions give flexible reporting and web service integration which makes it accessible through any place with a browser and internet connection.
Organizations need to understand the facts behind baseless myths of SaaS. Adopting SaaS results in higher and sustainable revenues. It helps companies to make the most out of a limited IT budget by giving access to cutting -edge technology and professional assistance.
