SaaS, a delivery method for software programmes to users over the Internet, has now reached a turning point and is prepared for a strong takeoff. Around 30% of new licence purchases, excluding Japan, in APAC, according to Gartner, are expected to be made as Saas by 2010. According to a recent poll of 1,017 IT decision-makers, SaaS usage in large businesses is now at 16% globally, up from 12% the year before. Enterprise resource planning (ERP) using a SaaS approach is entering the picture. It is quickly emerging as the next big thing in enterprise software and provides businesses of all sizes with a workable, scalable, and adaptable approach that will advance their technological capabilities. For more details, please click here SaaS directory
Why choose an ERP SaaS model?
Pay for what you use: The Saas model provides just the “correct” functionality because software makes up 80% of functionality, which 80% of consumers don’t require. Second, unlike perpetual licencing, there is less of a culture of large discounts based on large upfront payments with Saas, which also reduces the motivation to purchase more than you require and end up with shelf ware. Third, the Saas supplier has real-time access to your usage data. The primary methods on-premise providers use to verify compliance, long and frequently painful on-premise audits, are not necessary despite the fact that charging occurs immediately. accelerated implementations Because all SaaS solutions are fully platform agnostic, firms do not need to worry about setting up supporting infrastructure, which is one of the main reasons for quicker adoption. Frequently, application data is configured through a browser. Integration of applications is made easier: The integration of SaaS apps is significantly simpler than the integration of proprietary applications because it is built on open standards and Web services standards. Even while on-premise to on-demand integration is still difficult, Saas significantly lessens the overall integration burden.
Reduced spending in infrastructure
Traditionally, purchasing software has resulted in the need to purchase new infrastructure (hardware, middleware, networks, etc.) to support it. A large portion of this investment can be reduced by using a Saas approach.
Reduced need for operational management: Saas might be a blessing for businesses with limited resources that lack the personnel, like database administrators, to operate an on-premise application.
Lower prices for upgrades
Compared to on-premise charges, the Saas model significantly lowers the cost of upgrading from one version of the software to another. The model’s multi-tenant architecture means that several clients must split the cost of the software, infrastructure, and expertise.
Reduced switching expenses
The Saas model allows the consumer the flexibility to quickly switch between different solution providers. The ability to quickly leave a provider serves as a drive to add greater features and guarantees top performance. A large sum of money would have been spent by many clients on implementation, integration, customisation, testing, training, maintenance, and updates (sometimes five to seven times othe amount of money spent on licenses). The on-premise ERP will continue to exist despite the setup issues as a necessary evil, and the challenge comes up when the customer wants to examine any new vendors.
Increased Productivity and Accessibility:
Web-based applications allow users the ability to instantly access information from anywhere in the world.
Reasons for Ramco On Demand ERP
The first complete ERP serving the needs of expanding businesses is Ramco OnDemand ERP. It is a world-class piece of software that is offered as a service and aids in the integration and streamlining of corporate processes. It is just as simple to use as email, needs little training, and is accessible from anywhere. Ramco handles all infrastructure, upkeep, and support requirements for a fair membership fee. Less than a week is normally required for the deployment of Ramco OnDemand ERP, which is set up to match the business requirements. The system can be expanded as the firm expands to support several locations, currencies, and business divisions. It combines several systems and functions into a single offering that provides complete operation visibility and control. It aids in the process to concentrate on business expansion.
This article examines the software-as-a-service (SAAS) alternative for startups and medium-sized businesses wishing to cut back on initial technology investments as well as management hassles.
Investments in technology account up a considerable portion of any organization’s budget, regardless of size. According to commentators, if you don’t invest in technology, you’ll die. And if you pay attention to those who have gone before you, headaches from even a straightforward setup can leave you with a similar sensation. Due of this, a lot of small and medium-sized organisations avoid making technological investments or commit excessive amounts of time, money, and effort in the area. We now consider hosted, managed apps as a way out of being caught between the devil and the deep sea since web technology and bandwidth availability have advanced to the point where they can be used.
How does it function?
Managed software services, software as a service (SaaS), cloud computing, or the more traditional term, application service provider, are some of the numerous names for them (ASP), But the core of the business strategy is the same. With SaaS, the vendor manages everything in his data centre; you don’t need to purchase, install, or run the application yourself. There is no installation, thus there is also no need to purchase any gear. You pay in advance, typically once a month, on a per-use basis (times the quantity of users, messages, documents, etc.). Depending on the service, a setup and configuration cost can apply. Customization is another option for some services, and it occasionally may cost more than the annual subscription. Most of the time, signing up is as easy as visiting their website. You configure the service yourself, pay with a credit card, and are then prepared to travel. Additionally, you typically have a free trial period that you should take advantage of in order to see what can be done and, more significantly, what cannot be done.
What is the benefit?
SaaS converts your initial investments, which can typically be rather large, into smaller monthly payouts that are simpler to arrange and manage. Your use slab and rewards can be changed, usually instantly, as your firm expands up (or, God forbid, down). Both the lead time for purchasing and installing new systems and the accompanying capital expenses are nonexistent. Finally, you are free to focus on your business rather than how to make certain software or hardware function, so you only need to keep a thinner crew (less lots of IT people)
Budgeting:
Are you one of those people who is over using spreadsheets for budgeting? where the annoyance level only rises with complexity? where everyone eventually carries a separate set of numbers, and you lose track of versions? Most likely, Adaptive Planning has the solution for you.
Spreadsheets’ paradigm is extended by the programme, which also offers SBU-level freedom to incorporate particular budget heads as needed. Along with other things, it performs modelling, sales planning, and workflow (Enterprise Edition). Express (free), Corporate, and Enterprise are the three available versions. Depending on factors like user numbers and types, support levels, training requirements, and so forth, pricing models might be relatively more complex. So it would be preferable to get in touch with them or their partners.
Reduced switching expenses
The Saas model allows the consumer the flexibility to quickly switch between different solution providers. The ability to quickly leave a provider serves as a drive to add greater features and guarantees top performance. A large sum of money would have been spent by many clients on implementation, integration, customisation, testing, training, maintenance, and updates (sometimes five to seven times othe amount of money spent on licenses). The on-premise ERP will continue to exist despite the setup issues as a necessary evil, and the challenge comes up when the customer wants to examine any new vendors.
Increased Productivity and Accessibility:
Web-based applications allow users the ability to instantly access information from anywhere in the world.
Reasons for Ramco On Demand ERP
The first complete ERP serving the needs of expanding businesses is Ramco OnDemand ERP. It is a world-class piece of software that is offered as a service and aids in the integration and streamlining of corporate processes. It is just as simple to use as email, needs little training, and is accessible from anywhere. Ramco handles all infrastructure, upkeep, and support requirements for a fair membership fee. Less than a week is normally required for the deployment of Ramco OnDemand ERP, which is set up to match the business requirements. The system can be expanded as the firm expands to support several locations, currencies, and business divisions. It combines several systems and functions into a single offering that provides complete operation visibility and control. It aids in the process to concentrate on business expansion.
Meetings, conferences, and collaborations
Web-based conferences significantly contribute to getting your budget back in shape in these times of rising travel (and other) expenditures. What if you could discuss your engineering drawings with a prospective client without having to fly out and show him the designs in person? What if a brief sales conference could be held without requiring the presence of the entire sales team in one location? What if your team is spread out across several cities and you want to experiment with an idea? All of these are available in the managed services world of today, and for less than the price of a round-trip ticket from Delhi to Chennai!
Webex offers voice conferencing, desktop sharing, web meetings, and a few additional services on a pay-per-use basis. Therefore, if you need to deliver a sales presentation to a client in another city, you can do so by sending the presentation to them online. Alternatively, you may have a lively staff meeting without requiring anyone to travel. Pricing is dependent on a lot of factors and combinations, and normally after entering your information on the website, someone will get in touch with you.
An online mind-mapping tool is called MindMeister. A mind map? A mind map is a diagram that shows concepts, actions, or cognitive processes. A mind map enables you to visually describe (and modify) the logical relationships and sequencing between events, ideas, and anything else. For US$49.9 a year, Mindmeister offers three different plans: a free basic plan with six mind maps, a premium plan, and a team plan with a team administration interface, pre-populated friend lists, and a custom sub-domain. For five users, the team plan begins at US$ 235 annually.
Sales management and customer relationship management (CRM): You need to make sure the tiny sales staff is making the necessary amount of calls because you have them out there. Finally, when one of them leaves, you need the replacement to be able to step in swiftly and smoothly and continue where the other one left off. To do this, you need a handle on each caller’s state. You require a sales management application, to put it briefly.
This category includes the most well-known and possibly most profitable of all managed apps, which is offered at. To make the application more suited to your individual requirements, you can enhance Salesforce Partner. Be careful that customising costs a lot of money. To expand or enhance functionality, Appexchange provides extra applications that you may purchase (some are free) and install on your Salesforce instance. SageCRM is another SaaS programme in the similar category.
Management of documents.
You need document management services if your company relies heavily on papers and you need to control and monitor the production and usage of documents.
Knowledge Tree offers a free basic option with 1GB of storage and three users as well as a premium option with 10GB of storage per user for $15 per month per user.
Management of Email
Every firm has catch-all email addresses, like or, and you need to provide many employees access to these addresses so they can respond to emails sent to them. Employees also need to be aware of the emails that have been replied to as well as the past correspondence from a certain sender.
That is exactly what Sproutit’s Mailroom service aims to accomplish. The “simple email helpdesk” that Sproutit bills itself as is still very much a “work in progress” and has a lot of flaws. It occasionally provides incorrect tracking information and lacks the tools to print or make a local backup. Nevertheless, the starting price of US$ 9 per month for three users and 500 messages (free for 100 messages, with an ad included in every mailout) makes it worthwhile to put up with it.
surveys for market research.
The survey is one of the most expensive (and time-consuming) parts of a market research project. It costs time and money to communicate with every respondent. Online surveys have a role in this. You set up the survey online and encourage participants to fill it out there. You can set it up as a closed survey that only those who receive an invitation from you can complete, or as an open survey that anybody can answer.
You can set up and manage online surveys using the service Survey Monkey.
Three plans are available through SurveyMonkey: a free basic plan, a monthly plan priced at $19.95, and an annual subscription priced at $200. The amount of replies you can receive each month and the quantity of survey questions are the two main differences between the plans.
There are fifteen different question kinds and questionnaire templates offered by Survey Monkey. Additionally, the commercial versions permit you to download your results to a spreadsheet (or database).
The free Zoomerang Basic survey tool has a cap of 30 questions, 100 responses, and a 10-day response window. If not, you have goals for nonprofit organisations and professional education. Zoomerang offers cross-tabs, filters, and customisable charts as part of its Professional package, which costs US$ 599 annually (US$ 799 with mobile, including 100 mobile credits).
Network Observation
Someone has the additional burden of making sure that everything is up and running, that everyone’s mail is synchronising, and that everything from printer toner to bandwidth is available if your business uses a small to medium network. Good network monitoring tools are hard to come by and expensive; they are far too expensive for a medium-sized organisation, let alone many large ones, to adopt them as soon as possible.
Let’s welcome Spiceworks now. Spiceworks is an all-in-one IT asset management system, network monitoring tool, and support ticketing system. On a PC, you must first download and install a little piece of software before you can launch it from your browser. According to the Spiceworks website, it performs well with up to 250 devices but becomes less responsive with more. The fact that it works with Windows, Linux, and Mac is a plus! Spiceworks is ad-supported and free. There is a $20 monthly fee if you don’t want the adverts. As for me, I like the advertisements!
Management of Newsletters and Email Lists
You must send a lot of emails if you have a habit of staying in touch with your audience—clients, future consumers, and well-wishers. Do you know how many of the recipients who are indented on the message have read it? Or how many people clicked on a particular link? or even how many email addresses are currently inactive? You can do all of this using newsletter managers. They give you access to open and click data as well as the ability to control bounces and address lists.
Based on the size of your contact list, Constant Contact assesses monthly fees. You are free to email these contacts as often as you like. Plans for 500 contacts start at US$ 15 per month.
Starting with just US$ 19 for a 500 database, Aweber Communications offers signup forms for your website, autoresponders, and analytics of recipient answers.
Project Administration
Startups and other businesses that have to manage feature lists, timelines, and impending milestones have a particularly pressing need for project management. However, due to cost reasons, they frequently have to employ spreadsheets in place of quality project management software.
There are two versions of Dream Team available from DreamFactory: Pro and Enterprise. Pricing is not always clear-cut. In addition to individual prices for storage, data movement in, out, and various requests, there is a monthly subscription fee. The DreamFactory player must also be installed.
Three project members and 2 GB of storage are free with Liquid Planner. Users four and up must pay US$35 per month or US$300 annually. Storage space is 50 GB for paid accounts. There are three versions of Basecamp. Basic, Plus, and Max (all for $24 per month). A free alternative with one project and no file sharing is also available. Basecamp provides milestone lists, tie tracking, group chat boards, to-do lists, and file sharing.
Collective To-Do Lists.
Keeping track of shared or delegated to-do lists is difficult if you operate in a team. Additionally, it gets even worse if the team is dispersed. Shareable to-do lists are a smart approach to get around this inconvenience. Using the service Remember The Milk, you can share your to-do lists with others and have them completed for you. The application itself allows you to view the location of your task on Google maps.
Anyone who has access to your Milk Account email address can send you tasks as emails or add them to your calendar. The pro account is $25 per year, while the basic plan is free.
Google Analytics
Many websites utilise Google Analytics, which is free and simple to set up. You can literally be using Google Analytics in minutes after setting it up. The service provides you with a summary of the site visitors, and you can dig deeper to learn more about them, including where they came from, what brought them there, what browser they were using, what screen resolution they had, and other information. Additionally, it provides a drill-down map that reveals the origin of your visitors.
Google Analytics keeps track of pages individually. You need something more if you want to be even more specific, say, with where visitors are paying attention on a page. This is where ClickDensity enters the picture. ClickDensity produces hover, heat, and clickmaps. Each of these enables you to see where users are clicking on a page. With ClickDensity, you may choose from plans starting at $5 up to a premium pack costing $400. The amount of clicks required to build the maps and the number of sites being tracked are what distinguish the various plans from one another.
Web server surveillance
It is crucial that you are informed when any of your online servers or websites go down or otherwise become unreachable from anywhere in the world if you are administering them yourself. Exactly this is done by server monitoring services at predetermined intervals from various places across the world, and they notify you via SMS, email, and other services when issues develop.
Along with monitoring, Pingdom provides a number of reports, such as uptime and response time. Pingdom has nine distinct tests, including HTTP, TCP, Ping, DNS, UDP, SMTP, POP3, and IMAP tests. You may set up various tests to warn various users. Both when a service goes down and when it comes back online, you might receive alerts. The check interval can be set to change from one minute to sixty minutes. Mumbai serves as a checkpoint for them as well. The two options that Pingdom offers are Basic and Business, priced at US$ 9.95 and US$ 39.95 monthly, respectively.
We monitor all of our servers and services using Pingdom, and I must admit that occasionally a false positive has caused us to wake up and connect in the middle of the night.
Host Tracker has many more plans, more monitoring points, and is less expensive, but it only provides the most fundamental HTTP checks.
Inventory Control
If you need to keep track of any inventory, such as IT infrastructure, multi-restaurant consumables, or field service parts. When numerous locations are involved, SeeControl is a good option to consider.
The See Control website lacks a sign-up form and any price or plan lists, in contrast to other SaaS companies. They can be reached by filling out a form on their website, and they will respond.
Manage Human Resources
The field of human resources is subdivided into several niches, each with its own set of participants. So you have e-learning services and services that conduct online assessments for profiling. Payroll services and, of course, recruitment websites are further options. Here, the availability of fundamental HR functions such as payroll, employee information (HRIS), and appraisals in one location is our main concern.
HRMS, application tracking, employee self-service (leave tracking, HR help desk, employee handbook, personal data update), employee portal, and appraisals are all included in the managed package of Empxtrack from Saigun. In order to begin started, you must contact them because pricing is based on slabs of the number of employees. The HR package from Polaris’ Adrenalin also comes in a hosted version.
ERP
Many vendors also offer managed solutions for ERP, the granddaddy of business systems. Here, the products often have a process- or industry-specific focus.
Ramco, for instance, focuses particularly on specific verticals like auto components, chemicals discrete manufacturing, distilleries, electronics, engineering, etc. and provides process-centric solutions (vendor management, customer management, storage and distribution, accounting, planning, and stock management).
Sandbox hosting (the assessment stage), development hosting, and production hosting are all services that Delantt Consulting provides for hosted SAP BASIS. Pricing is determined by the hosting type and the quantity of user IDs. Business ByDesign, SAP’s own hosted solution, is available at
In Order to Decide
There are a few things to consider before selecting a supplier that will guarantee a better experience moving forward.
Run The Test
You can typically get a free trial of thirty days or a small number of users from almost all SaaS companies. In fact, several, including sproutit and 01.com, have a required 30-day free trial period during which you may cancel your account without incurring any fees. Utilizing the trial is a smart option in order to evaluate the service’s functionality and identify any gaps. Ask whether a service provider has a free trial offer available up front. You’ll probably get one.
Select the Proper Strategy
When you sign up for one of the various slabs that are offered, the seller will impose an overuse fee, which is typically buried in the fine language. Charges for consuming more will typically be multiplied by several. Therefore, if you choose a hosted server, you can sign up for a server with 1000 GB of data transfer per month. There is an additional fee per GB for consumption over 1000 GB in a month, which varies according on the service provider.
Let’s use the shared mailroom service Sproutit as an example. It costs US$ 0.05 for each message sent or received that exceeds the plan limit. As a result, you would pay US$ 29 instead of US$ 19 with the next higher plan, which covers 1000 messages, if you sign up for their personal plan ($9 for 500 messages in and out) and accidentally send 900 messages instead. Therefore, it’s crucial to pick the appropriate plan, keep track of your usage as you go, and alter plans as necessary when signing up for any SaaS.
Service Level Contracts (SLA)
An SLA outlines the amount of service availability that is guaranteed as well as the remedies you are entitled to should the promised service level not be fulfilled. Yawn! Who would like to read dry legalese? You’ll be surprised, though. I’ll give you an example from recently. I was negotiating email management with a top regional data centre. The SLA was tucked away in the midst of the proposal and had a few nuggets. What about “There shall be no more than twelve hours of scheduled downtime in a calendar month” or “Intermittent downtime for a period of less than ten minutes will not be counted towards any downtime periods”? I need a break. Up to 12 hours of planned downtime per month for an email service? And will it be okay if the mail is unavailable for nine minutes every two minutes? Wait. Not only that.” Burnouts are not included and will be charged on an actual basis.” I’m sorry. You wish to charge the customers for burning your equipment for any reason? This service provider’s SLA requirements clearly need some severe revision. Before you sign on, give it one more look. The known devil is at least preferable than the unidentified angel.
BEWARE OF “OTHER CHARGES”
Sign-on-and-start operations are a common model for SaaS services. However, many, such as email services, include set up costs. However, you also encounter certain, shall we say, unforeseen costs. Consider the document management service LuitDox. They must be paid in advance, either for a period of six months or a year. It might be alright. But there is a $35 processing charge for each purchase you make!
To fulfil your precise needs, Salesforce.com will ask their partners to customise the website. However, the majority of customising quotes I’ve seen have been on par with or even higher than the yearly fee for a small business. (Such modification fees are obviously negotiable.)
INTEGRATION PROBLEMS: One of the drawbacks of selecting several SaaS providers is the absence of vendor integration. Your users will need unique user identities and passphrases to sign in to each service independently. Additionally, you would have to add, remove, and manage users for each service separately. Until that time, we are forced to manage a new user name and password at each vendor, which would have been good if all services could have accepted logins using something like OpenID or and LDAP- based directory service like the Windows Active Directory Services (ADS).
WHEN YOU LEAVE: Obtain proof from the provider of the service you have been using (and paid for) that your account has been terminated and that you will no longer be charged. If not, you risk the annoying situation of having your credit card charged even though you are no longer utilising the service.
ARE YOU ABLE TO TRANSFORM YOUR VENDOR TO A SaaS MODEL?
Can you force your chosen vendor to give a pay-as-you-use model if you are unable to find a hosted option? We were debating the adoption of a new human resources system. We also asked the last vendor on our short list if, in lieu of an upfront payment plus annual maintenance fees, he would implement it at a data centre of his choosing and maintain it for us in exchange for monthly payments. Incredulity was the initial feeling. However, it took a month of bribing them to accept the offer with the promise of a three-year contract and a year’s salary in advance checks. We were able to convert a sizable one-time payment into more manageable monthly payouts without having to worry about the backend. The interesting thing is that they now market a hosted model based on what we persuaded them to create just for us, and I don’t get paid for the concept!
