Better Business Through Technology

In the traditional packaged software world, people select software based on the needs they have today, including product functionality, product support and compatibility with others in their eco-system. You buy packaged software expecting it will meet your initial needs and hoping it will grow with you if and when your needs change.

You buy Software as a Service (SAAS) because it meets your needs today, but with a higher expectation that the products will be reliable, the publisher will support it well, and that any new features are added quickly, because every month (or whatever your SAAS subscription period is), you get to affirm or reject your decision to continue to use that solution.

This is a huge change in perspective that forces the SAAS providers to continually and rapidly improve their solution to ensure that their service is meeting end-user’s needs. It is akin to hiring a salesperson on commission versus paying them a fixed salary.

SAAS is a pay-for-performance model, which aligns the interests of the software provider with the interests of the end-user. This is significantly more reflective of the reality of end-user’s computing experience than traditional packaged software, and ultimately will lead to much higher satisfaction among end-users.

Since the mid-90s, the complexity of business server systems has increased geometrically as security threats, burgeoning permutations of technology and the need for system integrations have all grown.

IT professionals have evolved to service these needs, and commonly spend an enormous amount of time on system research and selection, hardware roll-outs, upgrades, security patches, and similar things. Understandably, many IT professionals are not able to focus on ensuring that business applications are effectively serving business users’ needs.

The real value of technology in business is realized when applications are tightly targeted around end-user needs, and professionals have training in how to use the tools effectively. Naturally, as businesses evolve, applications and end-user training needs to be updated to keep up. If this is not done, technology systems quickly slow the speed of business, rather than act as an accelerator.

Since one of the key benefits of SAAS is that it allows IT to greatly reduce the time and expense put into maintaining back-end systems. In turn, this demands that IT professionals must adapt by refocusing on the end-user. They still need to have a strong passion for technology, but that passion must be directed at the end-user experience, not at server configurations, performance and the latest hardware.

When looking to hire an IT/SAAS focused professional, the right candidate is a mixture of IT person, helpdesk, consultant, business process analyst and entrepreneur.

Rather than being compensated for deploying server systems, select, measure and qualify SAAS IT professionals on the following items:

• The quality of end-user’s computing experience, as measured and reported by them.
• The speed and efficiency with which IT service requests are handled.
• The cost savings and efficiency of our IT infrastructure, compared to other similar companies in our space.
• The degree to which technology systems make a positive contribution to our culture.

For the new generation of professionals joining the workforce, Hotmail/Gmail, Facebook have already raised their expectation of how technology can work – it’s now time for the business world to adapt.

Please feel free to leave a comment with your thoughts, or click here to learn more about what we do at Logic20/20.