Comments on: ROI for SaaS/Cloud offerings http://www.600days.com/2009/02/roi-for-saascloud-offerings/ Creating a web platform, and improving the world by generating profit for good causes Wed, 10 Mar 2010 23:43:18 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 hourly 1 By: Duane Jackson http://www.600days.com/2009/02/roi-for-saascloud-offerings/comment-page-1/#comment-1176 Duane Jackson Sat, 07 Feb 2009 22:13:22 +0000 http://www.600days.com/?p=142#comment-1176 SaaS seems to throw the whole concept of ROI out of the window as there is no I to get an R on. I think this is one of the reasons that SaaS adoption might be more prevalent than "official" statistics show it to be in the mid-market space. My company (KashFlow, leading UK SaaS accounting) works primarily with the tiny companies and startups. But I was talking to someone the other day who targets bigger firms with their SaaS CRM solution. He was saying a lot of his customers use his CRM at a departmental level. The higher-ups in the firm know nothing about it as the amount of money involved is so small that it doesn't need sign-off like it would for a larger capital expenditure to buy software outright. SaaS seems to throw the whole concept of ROI out of the window as there is no I to get an R on.

I think this is one of the reasons that SaaS adoption might be more prevalent than “official” statistics show it to be in the mid-market space.

My company (KashFlow, leading UK SaaS accounting) works primarily with the tiny companies and startups. But I was talking to someone the other day who targets bigger firms with their SaaS CRM solution.

He was saying a lot of his customers use his CRM at a departmental level. The higher-ups in the firm know nothing about it as the amount of money involved is so small that it doesn’t need sign-off like it would for a larger capital expenditure to buy software outright.

]]> By: Russ Casey http://www.600days.com/2009/02/roi-for-saascloud-offerings/comment-page-1/#comment-1175 Russ Casey Wed, 04 Feb 2009 20:41:05 +0000 http://www.600days.com/?p=142#comment-1175 There can be some FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt) over SaaS solutions, but I think we need a caveat or two here - we need to be talking about _good_ SaaS solutions in order to argue that they are always better. A SaaS solution that reduces my ability to reuse my data in new ways could ultimately have a high cost. A SaaS solution that puts my data at more risk than it is exposed to in my own data centre could also ultimately have a high cost. That said, the same concerns apply equally to locally installed systems. A locally installed solution could still lock my data in an arcane format that inhibits organisation-wide reporting (ever used MS-Exchange?). There can be some FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt) over SaaS solutions, but I think we need a caveat or two here – we need to be talking about _good_ SaaS solutions in order to argue that they are always better.

A SaaS solution that reduces my ability to reuse my data in new ways could ultimately have a high cost.

A SaaS solution that puts my data at more risk than it is exposed to in my own data centre could also ultimately have a high cost.

That said, the same concerns apply equally to locally installed systems. A locally installed solution could still lock my data in an arcane format that inhibits organisation-wide reporting (ever used MS-Exchange?).

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