Five More SaaS Sourcing Strategies to Consider

Liz Herbert of Forrester Research provides five quick insights for SaaS strategic sourcing in CIO.com.

There's only so much a person can include in a brief article. Here's some additional thoughts from a fan of Forrester, Gartner and other thought leaders as well as a ten-year veteran of HRIT SaaS and administration sales.

1. Except in the smallest of companies, one would be hard-pressed to find any "vanilla SFA and HR" SaaS implementations. Everyone wants to buy "customized." Given the option- go "configurable" whenever possible. It reduces, among other things, potential issues with maintenance, upgrades, training and integration with other applications.

2. Define "fast implementation." Fast is a relative term that can only be determined when compared to the sourcing company's capabilities and resources. It may be better to think about the primary SaaS implementation benefit as being driven by and held accountable to a target live date.


3. Concern about security and disaster recovery is not something "new" in SaaS. In fact it was and continues to be a critical selling point and benefit. Even ten years the first salesperson to bring up and address the subject had, in my opinion, shifted the buying decision in his company's favor by a considerable percentage. And today? Gosh. Can you open up the paper or your home page without reading the word "leak" or "hacked" or "pirated?" The good news is that everyone needs to address the concern when it comes to SaaS.


4. TCO can only be managed well if the sourcing company understands and builds into the budget (and if possible the contract) incidental or as-needed costs of service and if possible a rate card for services. A lot of that depends on what the sourcing company is capable of doing themselves once the solution is deployed, and whether they are willing or have the time and resources to do it. Of course, there are things that only the SaaS provider can manage on the sourcing company's behalf. Both parties need to be clear where the lines are drawn and where the incremental costs start creeping in.
 
5. The biggest implementation consideration missing is change management, transition management, and a communication plan. This has a huge impact on the success of any project. Having a business process strategy is great- especially when a company is using the SaaS implementation as a change agent for process improvement. But it doesn't do anyone any good, and in fact creates a terrific amount of damage when there is no change and transition management plan, training and follow-through in place.
 
You can read Ms. Herbert's full article on CIO.com here:  http://bit.ly/gRdnlL.


Be the hero,
Mark