Tasos Christidis

In this post I shall continue with the “anti-SaaS” arguments. In the previous post, we saw some arguments that are usually thrown to the table, from the first 5 minutes of discussion. If you get past these critical 5 minutes, then the discussion goes into more specific issues, such as the following: What happens if Internet fails? Assuming that SaaS is a synonym to Internet Technology, this is the among the first (and funniest!) arguments that I have heard. Some people (say that they) recognize all positive aspects of SaaS but they are afraid of what’s going to happen if Internet fails. My usual answer is that “internet DOES NOT fail”. It is more probable that the electricity in your neighborhood is going to fail, than the Internet lines. And what do you do when electricity fails? You just stop working because your PCs are not working; the elevators in your building have stopped etc. Or, if you MUST work then you switch to manual: You issue invoices from your hand-written statement bl...

In my efforts to sell SaaS I have been presented with a number of “anti-SaaS” arguments. Some of them are just irritating but some of them require a professional and comprehensive response. In this post I will try and enumerate these arguments and also provide a convincing response. You see, I believe that adopting SaaS is also an issue of people (customers) training. They still do not understand the benefits of SaaS but they clearly see its drawbacks, from the first minute of discussion. A few days ago, an accounting professional responded to me like this: My personal mentality drives me to always own what I am using. That’s why I don’t embrace the idea of SaaS. This person clearly understood the economic benefits of SaaS, but he still resists to adopting it. Where is my data? People tend to think of data as something “sacred” – and it probably is. Enterprise data is the enterprise’s asset. They have worked long and hard to create this clientele (i.e. customer file) and those economi...