SaaS has enabled companies to quickly put up solutions, features and functions. This is a far cry from having it done in-house. Sure, you IT department may be composed of top-notch programmers, but usually, most companies’ IT departments have their hand already full. Your new project might take months to get ready, and it might not be as you wanted it. You’d spend time fine-tuning, tweaking and basically ironing out all kinks before you’re confident that it would work the way you want it to. Contracting a SaaS company that has relevant expertise in your needs means that you are able to put up what you need in a matter of days, even hours. And you get technical expertise that you may not be able to find within your company.

It’s also cheaper than hiring new IT personnel, or buying new hardware and software. You really don’t need to upgrade your systems or add any kind of capital investment.

There are concerns that you lose IT control. Think of it this way: while it is not your program that’s doing your job, if you think about it and downsize your ego, the fact that you don’t have to worry about the program itself is a big advantage in this day and age. If something goes wrong, you don’t get bogged down trying to troubleshoot the program. All you have to do is to call your provider and they’d have teams of people working on it. In effect, you get other things done, while more brains work out the issue. Also since what you’re putting in the cloud is your proprietary information, you might want to negotiate control issues with your provider at the start.

The Downsides
I’d be honest. Anyone dealing with SaaS and saying that security is not an issue is not being very realistic. You are not storing your information in-house and you and your colleagues are doing a lot of transmissions online. There is a big chance that some of your connections are less than secure and is open to hacking. This is why it is important to choose a company that can guarantee the security of your database, information and everything you put out with them. A responsive company that quickly handles any threat is one to look out for.

Also, one might want to monitor which customer records goes out into the cloud. If you have some sensitive information or customer data (especially credit card information) then you might want to handle these from within your company’s system.

Another downside is vendor lock-in. If your provider goes out of business, or is acquired by another company, what would you do? As with anything else, you need to have regular backups of your data. Save your data in-house, and make sure that you get updated backups every so often. Again, choose your provider carefully.

The Perfect Plan
SaaS is a nifty alternative to time-consuming and very expensive in-house software development and maintenance. But think of it more as a tool to get more efficient and cost-effective. It is not the be-all and end-all of your IT needs. The power of in-house development is that you get more control not only in your data, information and everything else you put into the program, but you can also customize it to the way you want it to run. Customization is one key weakness of SaaS, precisely because it does not only cater to your company and your needs exclusively, but it also takes into consideration what its other customers need.

However, in this business environment you simply can not ignore SaaS. Doing so, would only give your competition an edge in terms of time, expertise and costs. SaaS is not only hype; it has crossed over as help. To counteract the inherent weakness and issues of SaaS, you would need a plan that combines the best of both SaaS and in-house software development. As noted above, put only specific information on the cloud, while keeping other more sensitive data in-house. If a certain function is unique to your business, or if it adds value to your business (like forecasting trends, or customer analysis, things that are not usually included in a typical off-the-shelf CRM application) keep that in-house as well.

When coming up with a plan, make provisions and allowances for the times when things go wrong. You need to anticipate problems and come up with appropriate solutions for them. You simply can not be blind to the possibility that the vendor would suddenly close, nor have its security systems compromised. Make sure you are working with a reputable and responsive provider.
As with any business undertaking, a well thought of plan that is executed perfectly is key to success.

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