around for some time now it is only
in recent months that adoption has
started to accelerate.
“To date SaaS has largely been
driven by adoption of customer-
centric technology such as sales force
automation, however the appeal of
the delivery model is widening within
manufacturing companies as IT budget
outlooks start to look grim,” says Adam
Jura, Manufacturing Technology Senior
Analyst at Datamonitor and author of
their recent study “Delivering Software as
a Service to Manufacturing Companies”.
“As service providers shift away
from traditional application service
provider (ASP) models, the associated
cost savings of multi-tenancy solutions
can often be passed on to end-users. Colleen Smith Melinda Matthews
This makes investment in technology
delivered via SaaS an increasingly for SaaS with other areas such as midsize global companies coming to
attractive proposition.” manufacturing operations management the fore as well. The introduction of
Despite this enthusiasm, a significantly less so,” says Jura. their OneWorld solution has had a
surprising aspect of the primary “Ultimately, SaaS itself is only major part to play in this process.”
research conducted for the study a delivery model for technology “This customer profile change
was the high importance still being solutions. Vendo rs will need to be has impacted solution providers by
attributed to security concerns by able to offer their manufacturing increasing the scope of their service
manufacturing companies. clients a choice based on the unique offering. Mid-range global customers
Because SaaS solutions are typically circumstances of the engagement. tend to be more interested in solutions
delivered from an off-site location, What will be vital in attracting that give them a competitive edge by
key data is often out of the direct manufacturing companies to a SaaS addressing often complex processing
control of manufacturing companies. solution is taking such a delivery requirements rather than simply using
This information could be mission- model seriously. That means out of the box solutions. This has created
critical such as financials, customer developing significant configuration opportunities for the solution provider
lists and product data. Because of this, options, creating templates that allow in that there is now an opportunity for
manufacturers are worried about whether for regional or industry specificities, them to offer higher end services such as
their data will be kept fully secure. and providing appropriate service those related to integration and process
As much of the development using levels and security.” re-engineering projects, something
SOA has been aimed at the enterprise One of the early entrants into the lower end customers are generally not
market there has been some concern Saas space has been NetSuite who offer that interested in mainly due to budget
whether delivering the applications in an accounting solution via their partners. constraints.”
a SaaS model would be attractive to Jon Ryan of BlueBridge One Colleen Smith, vice president of
SMEs or just enterprises. Business Solutions Limited, a NetSuite Software-as-a-Service for Progress
“The SME and enterprise Solution Provider gives his experience, Software, believes that SaaS extends
manufacturing industries are “Over the years NetSuite has the client base both up and down
unsurprisingly rather different when progressed from initially being a small the scale, “SaaS is enabling smaller
it comes to current and potential single company accounting solution ISVs and solution providers to
adoption of SaaS technology solutions. to now being a global enterprise attack new markets whether that is
Within SME companies, the range of solution encompassing ERP, CRM and larger companies, in specialist niche
processes supported is significantly e-commerce. As it has progressed markets or even outside their country
higher as vendors like SAP bring more along this development path we have boundaries globally. However, it is
suite-oriented solutions to market. At witnessed a change in the typical also allowing software developers
the enterprise level, processes such as customer profile the product attracts. who have written for mid and large
customer interaction and human capital In the past small companies tended enterprises to offer their solutions into
management are more appealing to be the norm. Now we are seeing the SMB market.”
JUNE 2008 8020 EUROPA 41
40,41,42.indd 2 13/6/08 09:32:54
Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52  |  Page 53  |  Page 54  |  Page 55  |  Page 56  |  Page 57  |  Page 58  |  Page 59  |  Page 60  |  Page 61  |  Page 62  |  Page 63  |  Page 64  |  Page 65  |  Page 66  |  Page 67  |  Page 68