Small business and SaaS \ S + S

In my experience with SaaS \ S + S (software as a service), I have identified several questions that people who usually make purchasing decisions in small businesses usually ask. I will try to answer them and hope to dispel some of the fears and prejudices.

So the first question.

- How will I give my data to strangers uncles? What if they disappear? What if someone will use my customer base?

Here you should ask a counter question.
- Do you have mail on mail.ru, yandex, google, on your site? And how often do you send bills, important files through it? And who ensures her safety?
This is where it turns out that we already use the services of third-party companies, store personal and confidential data and do not receive ANY guarantees of safety and reliability of storage, if something happens, no one is responsible for anything.

But what about SaaS providers? Everything is strict here! Between the provider and the user, agreements are concluded on the quality of the service and non-disclosure of confidential data, which legally consolidate the relationship between the two parties and impose on the provider, including financial responsibility for the client’s information.

The second question.

- And how long will it all be installed and implemented? How much money will I spend on this?

Due to the fact that all software is leased, the implementation process is reduced to registration and a short software setup, i.e. there is no need to spend time and money for a long period of installation and implementation, deploy your own servers and infrastructure.

Question Three

- And how reliable is all this? Where are the performance guarantees? How securely is my data stored?

Security. It is in this matter that the consumer receives the greatest gain in comparison with the implementation of the “at home” software. In most small companies, the system administrator does everything! From setting up and repairing printers to configuring complex business software, it is almost impossible to find such a specialist, and even if he is, he is not always able to cover everything and areas equally. I will give a comparison of the provider and the system administrator in the company.

Parameter
- Administrator (incoming) (A)
- Service provider (C)

Responsibility
A: Liable to the company only as an individual, i.e. if something happens, no one will return you the data lost in the event of, for example, server failure.
C: As a legal entity, it bears full responsibility with the parameters and metrics clearly defined in the Service Level Agreement (SLA) and is responsible for the safety of your information.

Experience
A: It is limited only by the knowledge of himself, perhaps his acquaintances.
S: A team works for the provider! certified specialists

Quality of service
A: Monitoring, timely backup, efficiency? Unfortunately, this is not possible for small companies to provide one person, in the event of a failure it is far from the fact that you will restore your data and that the backup was made on time and in general there is.
S: Here we refer to the same SLA, it clearly states that the provider is obliged to make backup copies of the data, and is responsible for operability and recovery from failures.

Expertise
A: not every system administrator has experience in supporting, and even more so, deploying complex ERP, CRM business software ... and in case of problems, you will most likely have to contact a third-party company for consultations.
C: The provider has extensive experience in servicing and deploying complex systems, they have close contact with the developers of the proposed software and, accordingly, to their entire expertise.

Question Four and Most Important

- Price! How much will it cost me?
Everything is pretty transparent here, the cost of implementing any solution consists of several factors: the cost of software licenses, additional staff or training for the existing one, the cost of implementation services, the cost of infrastructure necessary for the software to work.
In the case of SaaS, all these huge one-time investments for a small business come down to small monthly payments only for REALLY used software , for that period and the number of users that the company now needs.

Thus, choosing SaaS, a small business can use the software available, for large companies, for little money, there is no need for large capital investments, software updates are quiet and do not affect its cost.

I hope I convinced some skeptics that there are pluses in using SaaS \ S + S software and this technology allows small companies to automate their business without huge one-time capital costs, receive support and do not worry about the safety of their data.

several related links:
List of service providers on Microsoft website