Tasos Christidis

The advantages of the cloud and specifically Software as a Service (SaaS) are very well known. Everybody’s talking about them all over the net, at forums and in the pre-sales calls of the cloud companies. People are talking about financial benefits that SaaS brings in their P&L, several cost saving factors, security, portability and access etc. One more advantage that is less frequently discussed is this of the agility that SaaS brings in the entire I.T. function, structure and governance. In this post I’d like to focus on this exact point, thinking that maybe it is usually understated.

In this post I’d like to approach the issue of whether and how Software as a Service (delivered of course through cloud technology – don’t let them tell you otherwise!) can assist an organization implement an IT chargeback / showback strategy. For those that haven’t heard the terms before, IT chargeback is the methodology or strategy that applies/allocates Information Technology costs on the business unit that is actually using an I.T. resource (be it software, hardware, professional IT services etc.) Chargeback can go as far as internal expense management where the business unit actually experiences cash outflow (or budget consumption) in order to implement an IT function. In other cases, there is no actual cash movement; all calculations are done on reporting level only in order to have a clear image of the costs incurred by each business unit to the organization, for planning and budgeting purposes. This is called “IT showback” where numbers are “shown” but are not actually “c...

So, you’ve decided to move some of your apps to the cloud. The next question that you need to answer is “public or private?”. Each direction has its pros and cons and you’d better look at all possible Performance Indicators before you decide where to lean. Every problem has its solution and every solution has its cost. The term “cost” is usually translated in monetary terms but this is not the whole truth. The “cost” can be compromises that you are willing (or not) to make in terms of security, availability, scalability etc. The “cost” can also be the downside of what today seems inexpensive (for example, the cost of a SaaS application that is quite low to begin with, but requires extensive customization on your existing software to integrate).

Through this channel I have been talking about the advantages of cloud and SaaS products for a long time. In this post I’d like to focus on a more specific area. An area that contains a large pool of potential customers, who at the same time are still facing basic problems in their journey towards a “computerized enterprise”. That of small business ERP and especially the Financial ERP . By the term “Financial ERP” we define the software that performs the basic functions of book-keeping, sales and purchases, stock keeping customer/vendor order management and perhaps some more like basic workflows and some kind of business intelligence. These are requirements that small and medium-sized businesses are seeking to approach first, or they have already done so with not much success. Also, they are the kind of requirement that start-ups are trying to cover, since they touch the back-bone of the business function.

There are many advantages in the adoption of a SaaS application for the enterprise. A lot of people have talked about cost benefits, ease of deployment and maintenance, out-of-the-box remote access, mobility etc. In this post I will focus on a new opportunity that SaaS is presenting to its customers. This is the potential ability to invite their cooperators (customers, vendors, business partners etc.) to join a common workspace and complete business transactions or share information and knowledge.