THINK IT Services

Despite numerous market research forecasts predicting that small- and mid-size businesses (SMBs) would be in the vanguard of adopting today’s rapidly expanding array of Cloud-based services, the truth is that most mid-sized businesses have been slow to join the migration to these ‘on-demand’ alternatives.

In too many cases, it has been hesitancy or even overt resistance among IT decision-makers within mid-sized businesses which has let to these organizations staying away from Cloud services.

THINKstrategies believes there are 5 reasons why it’s time for CIOs in mid-sized businesses to move to the Cloud,

1. It’s Safe: Too many IT decision-makers in mid-sized businesses continue to be afraid of the perceived security, reliability and performance risks associated with the Cloud. The fact is that the leading Cloud service providers have more stringent security precautions in place and far higher uptime records than most mid-sized businesses can boast. 
2. Your Corporate Executives Want a Change: Today’s escalating business challenges are driving a growing number of corporate executives to seek more nimble and cost-effective alternatives to the legacy, on-premise systems and software which they believe have become obstacles to success. 
3. Your End-Users Are Already Making The Move: The consumerization of IT is real and far more pervasive than many IT organizations realize. It became increasingly commonplace for corporate end-users to acquire their own smartphones, tablets and laptops as more businesses adopted “Bring Your Own Device” (BYOD) policies to appease their employees’ demands. In many cases, these policies unintentionally opened the door to broad-based, albeit clandestine adoption of Cloud-based applications as well. In the same way Salesforce.com won over salespeople without corporate authorization, others throughout mid-sized businesses are being enticed by free, ‘try and buy’, Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) vendors.
4. SaaS/Cloud Solutions Work and Deliver Benefits Fast: Over the past three years, THINKstrategies has issued nearly 100 awards to SaaS and other Cloud vendors who offer solutions which are delivering measurable business benefits to their customers.  In many cases, these benefits are gained quickly and at a fraction of the cost of previous legacy systems and software. As a result, the return on investment (ROI) in the Cloud is proving to be considerably greater and quicker than was ever possible in the on-premise environment.
5. You Can Be a Hero: Every CIO I’ve talked to who has moved to the Cloud has told me that it has changed their image within their organization. Instead of being perceived as a bottleneck or obstacle to success, CIOs who embrace the Cloud and help their corporate executives and end-users leverage these third-party resources are viewed as enablers and facilitators who are helping to improve employee productivity and operational efficiencies. And the most open-minded of these CIOs are even seen as catalysts for change and incubators of innovation who are helping their businesses gain a competitive advantage in the market.

CIOs have historically been the targets of executive edicts and end-user demands which have made it impossible to succeed. As a result, CIOs have had short tenures in many organizations. However, the life-expectancy of CIOs has been going up in recent years as a growing number of them are leveraging more cost-effective and user-friendly Cloud solutions to support their corporate executives’ business objectives and end-users’ day-to-day needs.

Disclosure: This post was written as part of the IBM for Midsize Business program, which provides midsize businesses with the tools, expertise and solutions they need to become engines of a smarter planet.

THINKstrategies, Inc., the leading strategic consulting company focused on the business implications of the on-demand services market, announced today that FinancialForce.com has been named the latest winner of the Best of SaaS Showplace (BoSS) Awards program, which is aimed at promoting the measurable business benefits being delivered by today’s Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) solutions.

The BoSS Awards is an ongoing program of THINKstrategies’ new Cloud Computing Showplace which recognizes SaaS companies that are producing tangible business benefits for specific user organizations. These benefits can include increased sales, lower costs, higher customer satisfaction, faster operations and greater profitability.

For more information about the rules for applying for a BoSS Award, go to www.cloudshowplace.com/awardprograms/boss.html

Based on the success of the BoSS Awards program which focuses on SaaS solutions, THINKstrategies has launched the Cloud Computing Business Value (CCBV) Awards program to recognize companies which are delivering Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) and Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) solutions producing measurable business benefits for their customers. For more information regarding the CCBV Awards, see http://www.cloudshowplace.com/awardprograms/ccbv.php.

THINKstrategies, Inc.  announced today that TrackVia has been named the latest winner of THINKstrategies’ new Cloud Computing Business Value (CCBV) Awards program, which is aimed at promoting the measurable business benefits being delivered by today’s cloud computing solutions.

The CCBV Awards program was launched in 2010 to recognize Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) and Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) providers delivering tangible business benefits to specific user organizations. These benefits include lower costs, faster deployment times, greater profitability, etc.

TrackVia is a provider of an application development platform designed to make it easier for business users to build their own database-driven applications and avoid the backlogs which typically plague IT and traditional inhouse software development organizations.

Click here to read about the measurable business benefits which earned TrackVia THINKstrategies’ latest CCBV Award.

Click here to learn more about THINKstrategies’ CCBV Award program or to apply for an Award.

The CCBV Award program builds on the success of THINKstrategies’ Best of SaaS Showplace (BoSS) Awards program which was initiated in 2009. Click here to read more about the BoSS Awards or to apply for an Award.

Salesforce.com unveiled a series of important enhancements to its Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) service-desk management capabilities this week aimed at helping businesses more effectively track and respond to the escalating volume of data feeds from Facebook and Twitter.

The company’s Service Cloud 3.0 announcement coincided with its CloudForce 2011 event at the Javits Center in NYC, in the backyard of ‘Corporate America’, the financial services sector and the traditional media world to maximize its attention.

The new round of enhancements were primarily focused on enabling users of Salesforce.com’s service-desk management platform to better monitor Facebook and Twitter feeds, and track their response to comments, complaints and other service requests via these increasingly important social networks.

Salesforce.com made sure to brand each feature as a separate offer to ensure it gained as much attention as possible, including Salesforce.com for Facebook and Salesforce.com for Twitter.

The new monitoring capabilities are actually enabled by a third-party company, called Radian6, which is now selling its solution on Salesforce.com’s AppExchange as well. By coincidence, people I know at SAP also use Radian6 to track Facebook and Twitter data feeds. So, don’t be surprised to see Radian6 acquired quickly by one of the two companies if Google, Microsoft or another suitor doesn’t swoop in sooner.

Despite the fact that most of the enhancements unveiled by Salesforce.com this week won’t be available for another quarter or two, its announcement overshadowed SAP’s own attempt to assert itself in the SaaS and social networking arena by previewing a new portfolio of on-demand business applications at CeBit aimed at responding to Salesforce.com’s growing success and the overall acceptance of SaaS/Cloud-based alternatives to legacy, on-premise applications.

I had an opportunity to get a private briefing re: SAP’s new offerings before this past week’s announcement (as I did for Salesforce.com’s Service Cloud 3.0 announcement) and was impressed with their functional and social networking capabilities, as well as the company’s intensifying efforts to deliver cost-effective SaaS solutions. However, it still has a long way to go to convince customers and the broader marketplace that it can succeed in the SaaS marketplace after numerous false-starts.

Meanwhile, Salesforce.com isn’t taking its foot off the gas pedal as it extends its lead as an innovator, and market/mindshare leader.

Disclosure: Salesforce.com and SAP are THINKstrategies clients.

Sometimes I feel guilty that I’m neglecting this blog because I’ve been invited to publish my perspectives on the Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) and Cloud Computing movement in so many other online venues. Anyone who isn’t following my writings in these additional outlets may have missed my most recent views since the start of 2011. So, here’s a quick list for your reading pleasure,

E-Commerce Times: Pushing the Cloud From Madison Avenue to Main Street, 02/11/11

Datamation:Capitalizing on Cloud Computing: Not If, But When, 02/08/11 

E-Commerce Times: Clouds Go Vertical, 01/14/11 

You can also click here to find my most recent blogposts regarding the latest M&A activity, conference dynamics and end-user focus in the SaaS and Cloud arena on TechWeb’s Internet Evolution microsite.

THINKstrategies  announced today that myGengo has been named the latest winner of the Best of SaaS Showplace (BoSS) Awards program, which is aimed at promoting the measurable business benefits being delivered by today’s Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) solutions.

Pureprofile is an online marketing services company which has seen an increase in monthly registrations from 8,000 to over 50,000, with 90% of these registrations coming from non-English speaking countries since launch the myGengo service in July, 2010. The myGengo translation service helped Pureprofile translate the text on its site and achieve the international penetration of its online marketing service. In the six months since launching its new site using myGengo in July 2010, Pureprofile has generated over 300,000 new registrations worldwide. Pureprofile’s new multi-lingual capabilities has also enabled the company to compete for international projects ten times the size that it previously pursued.
 

“We are very pleased to receive this industry recognition from THINKstrategies’ SaaS Showplace which is shared by so many other great companies,” said Ray Solnik, U.S. General Manager of myGengo. “myGengo is leading the way for the future of the language services industry.  The company makes human translation services available through a web standards application programming interface (API) and makes translation available ondemand at a very affordable cost due to the company’s crowdsourcing business model and technology platform.”

“Globalization has made it imperative for companies to localize their solutions to satisfy the multinational needs of their target customers,” stated Jeffrey M. Kaplan, the founder of the SaaS Showplace which now a part of the new Cloud Computing Showplace and Managing Director of THINKstrategies, the strategic consulting firm which conceived and administers the Showplace. “myGengo’s SaaS-based human translation services is cost-effectively addressing this escalating requirement.”

For more information about the rules for applying for a BoSS Award or to find a list of previous winners of the BoSS Awards, go to http://www.cloudshowplace.com/awardprograms/boss.html.

Based on the success of the BoSS Awards program which focuses on SaaS solutions, THINKstrategies has launched the Cloud Computing Business Value (CCBV) Awards program to recognize companies which are delivering Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) and Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) solutions producing measurable business benefits for their customers. For more information regarding the CCBV Awards, see http://www.cloudshowplace.com/awardprograms/ccbv.php .

I’ve published two commentaries recently in leading industry publications which describe how the next wave of Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) solutions will target ineffecient business processes.

The first was in Sandhill.com discussing how the line of demarcation between software, business and information services is blurring.

The second was in E-Commerce Times examining how Cloud services are going vertical to address industry-specific requirements.

I hope you find these perspectives helpful and worthwhile.

Organizations of all sizes across nearly every industry are putting aside their legacy, on-premise applications in favor of a new generation of Web-based, on-demand, Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) and Cloud Computing alternatives.
 
This escalating trend is attracting a new breed of software providers and forcing established independent software vendors (ISVs), as well as in-house software developers, to re-think how they design, develop and deliver business applications.
 
THINKstrategies has published a whitepaper, on behalf of SoftServe, which examines how Cloud-based, SaaS applications differ from traditional on-premise software products, and how specialized software development firms can help ISVs and in-house developers meet users’ changing expectations and achieve their business objectives.
 
Click here to obtain a copy of THINKstrategies’ whitepaper. I hope you find it helpful.

Despite the growing examples of organizations gaining tangible and measurable business benefits from Cloud-based, Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) solutions which THINKstrategies profiled in its recent report entitled, “Measuring the Business Benefits of Today’s Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) Solutions”, many corporate decision-makers remain apprehensive about adopting these Cloud-based services because of data privacy and security concerns.

Companies outside the U.S. are particularly concerned about using services delivered by U.S.-based providers because of the ominous language contained in the Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act, commonly referred to as the U.S.A. Patriot Act.

This regulation appears to permit U.S. law enforcement agencies to unilaterally access private customer records stored on corporate servers worldwide if they are suspected of holding data which could pertain to terrorist threats or other criminal activity. These fears have made organizations especially hesitant to consider SaaS-based Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software and services offered by U.S.-based SaaS vendors.

THINKstrategies believes these risks have been overly exaggerated and raise unfair questions about doing business with U.S.-based companies. Ironically, we believe companies who avoid contracting with leading U.S. SaaS providers may be at greater risk of data privacy breaches by continuing to rely on traditional, on-premise software applications and locally hosted servers.

We have published a whitepaper which examines the myths and realities of SaaS/Cloud Computing, the U.S.A. Patriot Act, and data privacy, with a focus on the CRM arena.

Click here to download a copy of this whitepaper. I hope you find it useful and worthwhile.

THINKstrategies announced today that SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence (BI) OnDemand solution has been named the latest winner of the Best of SaaS Showplace (BoSS) Awards program, which is aimed at promoting the measurable business benefits being delivered by today’s Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) solutions.

The BoSS Awards is an ongoing program which recognizes SaaS companies that are producing tangible business benefits for specific user organizations. These benefits can include increased sales, lower costs, higher customer satisfaction, faster operations and greater profitability.

SAP BusinessObjects BI OnDemand is an intuitive, turnkey business intelligence solution that allows business people with no prior experience to explore, report and share information inside or outside the company.  Because it’s on demand, SAP BusinessObjects BI OnDemand can be acquired and setup in minutes, without a long technology project.  It’s available standalone or can integrate with existing on-premise or on-demand investments, delivering improved productivity and greater insight for more informed decision-making.

Click here to read about the measurable business benefits which earned SAP BusinessObjects BI OnDemand the latest BoSS Award winner.

Click here to learn more about the BoSS Award program and to apply for an Award.

Based on the success of the BoSS Awards program which focuses on SaaS solutions, THINKstrategies has launched the Cloud Computing Business Value (CCBV) Awards program to recognize companies which are delivering Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) and Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) solutions producing measurable business benefits for their customers. For more information regarding the CCBV Awards, go to http://www.thinkstrategies.com/cloudcomputingawards.html.