By Neelesh Kripalani, Chief Technology Officer, Clover Infotech
Enterprise SaaS is being adopted by an increasing number of businesses. Such apps provide an exciting alternative to conventional business software installation that requires building the server, installing the program, and configuring it. For a great number of enterprises, SaaS solutions offer the best means of cutting costs and increasing the likelihood of projects’ success. This is mainly why several enterprises across the globe prefer to manage the mission-critical business processes in an on-demand environment. Let’s have a look at some of the key benefits and challenges of enterprise SaaS.
Key benefits of enterprise SaaS include:
- Lower Costs: SaaS providers charge monthly, which eliminates large upfront investments. Maintenance expenses are also lower since the SaaS provider maintains the environment and distributes it to all clients.
- Scalability and Accessibility: SaaS solutions reside in cloud environments that are scalable and have integrations with other SaaS offerings. Additionally, you get the flexibility to be able to scale your SaaS use up and down based on specific needs.
- Guaranteed Levels of Service: Unlike traditional software, SaaS gives the user a guarantee on how well the service will work. In addition, SaaS supports automated backups without user intervention, thus ensuring data integrity.
- High Adoptability: SaaS solutions are delivered through the web and required minimum learning for the employees, resulting in rapid adoption by the workforce.
- Faster Updates: The costs and effort associated with upgrades and new releases are lower than the traditional model wherein you are pushed to buy an upgrade package and install it.
Despite the several benefits that the Enterprise SaaS offer, the path to results has been paved with a few challenges. Here are some of the challenges to consider…
- Limited Visibility: One of the biggest challenges is the lack of understanding of what each app is capable of and how exactly it’s being used. For instance- A large organization often has endless amounts of SaaS tools within its tech stack. So, two teams may be using two different expense management or project management SaaS applications with similar functionality. Meaning your organization is paying for the same features twice.
- Complex Planning and Budgeting: Organizations may be spending more on their SaaS applications than they need to due to redundancies and abandoned tools that are auto-renewed. There needs to be thorough planning and budgeting in order to make the most of your SaaS investment.
- Security: The attack surface of enterprise networks has grown with remote work. The SaaS model gives many users the freedom to access apps at any time within the organization. The SaaS tools house a ton of information, especially financial data. So, the ease of sending company data into the cloud can be a potential data security issue. Clear policies need to be in place in order to ensure security of sensitive data.
- Compatibility Issues with Existing Apps: If you’re working on integrating your existing CRM system with Salesforce for the ease of access to the information across different departments, there will some challenges along the way because both tools were designed independently. This requires you to spend some time to troubleshoot the issues.
Overall, the rewards associated with SaaS are numerous. Features like easy upgrades, lower costs, and better scalability are some of the top reasons why SaaS apps are being adopted by an increasing number of businesses in some form or the other. As the options continue to expand, this adoption is set to further increase in 2022 and beyond.
