When people think about software as a service (SaaS) the company
that often comes to mind is Salesforce.com, with its customer
relationship management product, sold by monthly subscription.
But while businesses such as British Gas use SaaS to provide
customer relationship management (CRM), there are many more
application areas including e-mail security, remote access and
desktop software that are available. In this article we highlight
some of the ways companies are using software as a service.
Jump directly to a particular SaaS case
study:
SaaS provider: Citrix
Online
Application: support desk
Report by: Jessica Twentyman
For many home PC users, getting help when things go wrong can be
a confusing and frustrating experience. The average manufacturer's
warranty, for example, will typically provide them with assistance
in cases of PC hardware failure and some operating system support -
but not much help with more complex issues, and certainly not where
technical hiccups involve equipment from other manufacturers.
With that in mind, DSG International (DSGi), owner of PC World,
Currys and Dixons.co.uk, launched its 'TechFriend' support service
last year, offering customers round-the-clock access to a team of
technical specialists equipped to deal with a vast range of home
computing problems. The service costs £89.99 a year for unlimited
helpdesk calls and isn't tied to any particular brand of equipment.
It complements the other services offered by DSGi's 'TechGuys'
support arm, which include basic telephone support, in-store tech
clinics and home visits.
According to Jason Smith, head of services development at
TechGuys, TechFriend has been a great success, growing in
popularity since its launch last year. "But at the same time, it
generates a huge volume of calls, and the staff manning the service
need to deal with a huge range of problems and different levels of
complexity," he says.
That means the pressure is on for TechFriend staff to fix
problems as swiftly and efficiently as possible - and, in some
cases, that means taking control remotely of the end-user's PC or
laptop to instantly fix technical issues on their behalf. This is
accomplished using GoToAssist, an online remote assistance
application hosted on DSGi's behalf by provider Citrix Online.
Using
GoToAssist,
TechFriend customers can get help from the service via e-mail or
phone and within seconds, grant permission for one of the TechGuys
to access their PCs over the internet, and identify and fix
problems remotely and securely.
From DSGi's perspective, the GoToAssist service includes
reporting tools and an instant customer satisfaction survey that
enables DSGi to measure its successes and highlight areas for
potential improvement. This enables DSGi to track and deliver
valuable feedback so that managers can take immediate action to
ensure their service and quality goals are on target.
"Because GoToAssist is a hosted service, we have the flexibility
to scale up and down in terms of subscriptions, according to
customer demand. Speed of set-up was crucial to us, and because
we're not involved in the maintenance of the system, we're free to
concentrate on the customer experience," says Smith. "Remote
assistance was a real priority for us in order to position
TechFriend as a premium service and ensure its future growth, and
using a hosted service has helped us achieve that."
Saas provider:
Webroot
Application: e-mail filtering
Report by: Jessica Twentyman
As computer services manager at South Yorkshire Housing
Association (SYHA), Russell Wright is acutely aware that his role
involves "an overarching responsibility to achieve value for
money".
After all, he argues, the not-for-profit SYHA is in the business
of providing local families and individuals with affordable
housing, not amassing expensive IT equipment. For that reason,
Wright is a firm proponent of SaaS as a means for SYHA to access
the latest application functionality without a lot of unnecessary
in-house effort.
Most recently, he has signed up for SaaS security provider
Webroot's e-mail filtering service, which is now up and running at
SYHA. Previously, the organisation had used a hosted system from
Blackspider Technologies, but had quickly become disillusioned with
the amount of manual effort involved in using that service. "We
still had to perform a range of tasks ourselves, which was
time-consuming and expensive - it was really starting to eat into
the working week," he says.
Now, Webroot is used not only to filter incoming and outgoing
e-mails for viruses and to block spam, but also to ensure that SYHA
employees do not breach the organisation's strict 'acceptable usage
policies' (AUPs) when it comes to their e-mail communications. And
in addition to scanning e-mails for pornographic content, Webroot's
e-mail security services also include protection from Distributed
Denial of Service (DDoS) and directory harvest attacks.
"E-mail is essential to us as an organisation - but that doesn't
mean me and my team of seven should be spending a disproportionate
amount of our time struggling to keep e-mail systems clean and
secure," says Wright. "Using Webroot, we've found that around 86%
of the e-mail SYHA receives can be categorised as spam, and keeping
tabs on that ourselves would involve a lot of wasted effort."
"I'm definitely interested in trialling other SaaS applications
in future, because I'm finding that they free me and my team to
concentrate on more strategic issues," he says.
SaaS Provider:
Atlanta
Technologies
Application: Hosted disaster recovery
Report by: Jessica Twentyman
At innovative television production company 2waytraffic, the
emphasis is on creating great viewing experiences - from Who Wants
to be a Millionaire? to You Are What You Eat - rather than worrying
about disaster recovery (DR).
Instead, the company entrusts that responsibility to Atlanta
Technologies, a specialist in providing remote and hosted services
to small and mediumsized enterprises, so that its clients can focus
on core business issues.
"Making the decision to use Atlanta's hosted DR service was
primarily an issue of recovery time and costs," says Stuart
Skilton, who provides IT support at 2waytraffic. Using Atlanta's
hosted DR service, he explains, the team at 2waytraffic can be sure
that, if the core business systems that run its financial
accounting systems and sales databases go down, access to data will
be restored within a guaranteed 60-minute period.
"That's a vast improvement from the previous situation where DR
was handled in-house using tape back-ups," says Skilton. "When
something went wrong, it sometimes took a day or so for full
service to be restored."
With Atlanta's DR service, data is replicated from the client
site to a third-party data centre at volume level, so that, when
notice of invocation is received from the customer, Atlanta
Technologies can rapidly mount the most recent data volume as a
virtual server and make it accessible via a secure connection from
any internet-connected device.
And already the strength of that service has been tested to its
limit by 2waytraffic - albeit inadvertently - when an
uninterruptible power supply recently failed at its offices, taking
out the company's storage area network. "We were up and running
again in under an hour - just as Atlanta promised in its service
level agreement," says Skilton.
SaaS Provider:
Intercept
Application: desktop software
Report by: Nick Booth
Legal services firm NetworkLaw has shunned a traditional
structure of equity partners, associates and support staff and
built a network of experienced solicitors linked together. From its
inception in 2006, NetworkLaw adopted online software, delivered as
a web service, to run its operation.
The rationale is flexibility for its lawyers, along with high
cost savings which can be passed on to its clients as reduced fees.
Today NetworkLaw keeps up to 80% of its recovered billings, a
figure it claims is impossible in traditional law firms.
The IT system that suited its needs, without requiring it to
manage, support and maintain its own IT infrastructure, was
OnlineDesktop from Intercept. This 'pay-as-you-go' outsourced model
delivers all applications and data over the web, but is hosted
centrally from its servers based in two secure data centres.
ICT is a political issue in any big company, argues NetworkLaw
managing director, Marcus J O'Leary. Outsourced IT keep him in
control of the company. "One thing was clear. Any solution had to
meet our expectation, while keeping a tight rein on costs."
The web service model, concluded O'Leary, is the future of work.
In newer companies, the IT manager is in the political
wilderness!
SaaS provider:
Salesforce.com
Application: CRM
Report by: Stuart Lauchlan
British Gas Services, part of the Centrica group, is the leading
domestic central heating and gas appliance installation company in
the UK With no centralised CRM system, its Central Heating
Installations (CHI) business wanted to overcome the inefficiencies
of each rep maintaining his or her own lead lists - some
handwritten on paper. The business also wanted to improve on the
manual, paper-based customer support processes that made tracking,
accountability, and the ability to capture institutional knowledge
difficult.
"I became intrigued about SaaS having read Nick Carr's book
The Big
Switch, recalls Bill Sexton, CIO at British Gas Services.
"Particular food for thought came from his historical analogy that
computer utilities will replace in-house computer facilities as
electrical utilities replace in-house generators. It's an
interesting argument he puts forward and one that I find hard to
disagree with - the only question really is 'when?'"
BGS CHI implemented Salesforce.com and has seen considerable
benefits. "Automated workflows route leads to appropriate
individuals and provide preset responses to web-captured leads,"
says Sexton. "Salesforce.com can be managed to a large degree by
the business team using it with support by Salesforce.com,
therefore minimising the IS team support normally required for
traditional CRM solutions.
"In addition, 'speed to market' is critical for us and
therefore, as there is no infrastructure to "stand up", the
solution can be ready to switch on in four months rather than six
to 12 months for traditional solutions. Finally, cost profiling
looks different as there is no large capital outlay as with a
normal licence purchase over time. However, where SaaS cost is
consistent an on-premise solution will become cheaper.
"We will now be able to systematically track sales leads and
customer interaction, not possible with the former paper-based,
disconnected support system. Sales and support benefit from new
visibility into each other's respective activities with customers
sharing one common view of customer issues allows for better
customer service and more insight into up-sell and cross-sell
opportunities."