Improving productivity
Internal efficiency tools: software as a service
Software as a service (SaaS) refers to a model under which software is hosted on a service provider’s network rather than your organisation’s network and is made available to your organisation online as you need it. This is also called ‘software on demand’.
Some of the more commonly known SaaS solutions are online email accounts such as Gmail and Hotmail and online website hosting services. In each case, all the required software and storage reside on the supplier’s servers and are completely independent of the user’s computer.
However, it is possible to provide almost any software on a SaaS basis and you can find a whole range of solutions addressing tasks such as accounting, data back-up, payment, security and asset management, and even typical desktop tools such as word processing and spreadsheets. Many of these are highly customisable to suit your organisation’s particular requirements.
SaaS is typically licensed as a service or on demand, and pricing is usually related to required functionality and scale.
Some of the potential advantages offered by SaaS include:
- Easy to use: Your organisation does not have to spend time and money installing software on your own networks because it is installed and available by logging into the provider’s network. This also means that you can access the software from anywhere, at any time, from any computer, without any prior setup.
- Cost savings: SaaS can reduce the costs, resources and time your organisation spends in setting up and installing software and continuing to maintain and upgrade it.
- Financial incentives: Costed as a service, SaaS helps organisations convert fixed capital expenditures into variable operational expenses. Most solutions are also sold on ’pay as you go’ contracts.
- Security enhancement: SaaS solutions generally benefit from professional managed services including threat protection, redundancy and back up.
- Flexibility: SaaS solutions are easily scaled up or down, depending on an organisation’s size and requirements. SaaS offers seamless upgrades.
However, there are other considerations to take into account, including:
- Response time: The speed of the service can depend on the quality of your internet service and the location of the servers that your provider uses to host the software. If there is congestion on your internet service provider’s network, or if your SaaS provider’s servers are located overseas, this may impact the speed of your SaaS experience.
- Performance: Your ability to access the service depends on the performance of your SaaS service provider’s network. You may not have access to the software during maintenance periods or when there is a problem on the provider’s network. It is important to assess these issues in the product offering and legal agreements covering the service.
- Data security and privacy (ownership): Under the SaaS model, the service provider has physical control over the information that you put into the software. This may include legal documents, financial information and other commercially important material. This means that your organisation should consider the security measures the SaaS service provider has in place to protect your data. In addition, the contract with the service provider should protect your intellectual property, confidentiality and should comply with legal requirements such as the Privacy Act.
- Data access: The ability to access data and export it onto other platforms is an important consideration when choosing your SaaS provider. If your data is exportable, then your organisation will have the flexibility to change service providers or bring your software in-house if your business requirements change.
- Maintenance and updates: Using SaaS can give advantages in terms of ensuring that the software you are using is the most-up-to-date and gives your organisation to most benefit. However, you may not have access to the service during maintenance or upgrade periods. To ensure optimal performance for your organisation, it is useful to have an understanding of how and how often these interruptions will occur.
- Cost model and exit strategy: It is also useful for your organisation to understand the pricing structure (flat fee or per-use basis), when payments are due, and how you can exit the service relationship.
Below are some links to sites offering various SaaS solutions:
I want to increase productivity using online tools 