Management Information Techniques: Software-As-A-Service Goes Mainstream - Case Study Example

Case Study for Management Information Techniques: Software-As-A-Service Goes Mainstream What Are The Advantages And Disadvantages Of The Software-As-A-Service Model? Software as a service is a cloud computing model that is basically the end user software applications for which users pay on a per use basis (Winkler, Vic 2011). The basic requirement of the software applications in this model is accessibility to internet connectivity and a browser, there is no installation required for the software. The software-as-a-service model enables users to purchase the use of software that can be accessed using any standard Web browser. Therefore, the software purchased does not have to be installed on every computer of the businesses using it, and subsequently, there are no any hardware requirements needed on the part of the users. The users also do not have to worry about maintaining the software applications as this is the responsibility of the cloud system provider (Winkler, Vic 2011). The software as a service (SAAS) cloud computing models has so many advantages to users. Among the advantages that stand out most include cost saving. The main focus of businesses is to save on their costs and increase their revenues. This is exactly what software as a service model does for businesses. With this model, a business user will not have to purchase any hardware related to the software, there are not maintenance costs on the user’s end, the software applications are user friendly and do not need highly trained IT staff to operate. This saves businesses the money that would have otherwise been spent on all these issues, had other software options such as the traditional software purchase been used (Winkler, 2011). With a SAAS model, a business can also save on time because the application can be accessed from anywhere at any time provided there is reliable internet connection. There are no limitations of space and time when it comes to work. This model also enables businesses to concentrate on their main business of offering their services to their clients as the software application is maintained by the vendor. Users of a SAAS have access to the latest version of the software application which is regularly updated by the vendor. The software as a service model also has its downside too. The model raises concerns about the security of the data in the system, just how much secure are the business data stored on the vendor’s server? There is also the question of availability. Users worry about the availability of the application when they need the most. Availability of the software can be interrupted when the vendor caries out major updates and maintenance operations to the software. This can disrupt business operations (Winkler, 2011). There is also the question of who is in control of the data stored in the application? Is it still in control of the users or the vendor? This can be a very tough legal question that may need a lot of consideration before subscribing to a SAAS. 2. What Are Some Of The Challenges Facing Salesforce As It Continues its Growth? How Well Will It Be Able To Meet Those Challenges? Salesforce.com has risen to be one of the biggest companies providing software as a service solution to its clients. The company is regarded as among the most innovative in the software industry in the past few years and has grown to 2, 600 employees and 43,000 corporate customers as well as over 1 million subscribers. The firm has also seen increased revenue which has made the company increase its operations by expanding to other regions and developing new applications. The company’s continued growth has however been under threat in the past few years due to a variety of factors. One of the biggest challenges that salesforce.com faces is of increased competition from both traditional software methods and new services from companies offering similar services to it. Traditional software vendors have been seeing increased revenues from their increasing client base due to marketing their services as more reliable as opposed to a SAAS model which raises a lot of concerns. This has been a threat to most companies offering SAAS applications, salesforce.com being one of them. There is also competition from new software companies based on a model like that of sales.com and have been gaining tremendous ground in the last few years. Companies such as Netsuite have been increasingly entrenching in to the market share originally controlled by salesforce.com (Armbrust et al, 2010). Other large companies such as Microsoft and IBM have also started offering SAAS services for their software applications. The increasing client base of all these competitors has led to concerns over the future of salesforce.com and its dominance in the software market. The other challenge faced by salesforce.com is expanding to other areas and markets dominated by its competitors or those that have increasingly been dominated by traditional software vendors. Salesfoece.com also faces the challenge of ensuring availability of its services and products to clients. Subscribers hope that by subscribing to the services, they would be able to access the applications 24/7. There have been outages in the past where the applications have been inaccessible for some time and the clients couldn’t use the services offered by salesforce.com. This led to some of its clients to rethink about their dependency and subscription to salesforce.com. It still remains uncertain whether salesforce.com will be able to overcome these challenges and remain as the market leader in the software market. The company has however taken significant steps towards fighting its challenges. The company has partnered with Google so as to expand its reach, as well as countering competition from other big companies such as Microsoft. The partnership with Google enables the firm to offer services such as Gmail, Google Docs, Google Talk and Google Calendar, which are cost effective and appealing to people. In order to fully overcome its challenges, salesforce.com has to become more innovative and implement new services that customers relate with as well as other beneficial CRM services and products that other companies do not offer (Armbrust et al, 2010) The company also needs to improve its offline services to enable clients to be able to access the applications when the system goes unavailable. This will help improve the confidence of its clients in its services. The company need to assure its clients about the availability of its services. This will help salesforce.com to maintain its client base as well as attracting more new clients and be able to withstand competition from other firms (Armbrust et al, 2010). 3. What Kinds Of Businesses Could Benefit From Switching To Salesforce And Why? There are very many businesses that can benefit from the services offered by salesforce.com. These businesses can come from different industries such as agricultural, manufacturing, construction, retail, real estate and information. The businesses that will benefit the most are the small and medium sized companies (Ferguson, Tim. 2009). These companies face a lot of challenges while growing and expanding. Among the challenges these companies face include lack of financial power to purchase IT equipment and sustain a fully fledged IT department to run their systems. These companies may also encounter challenges with time management as well as serving their customers efficiently. Such companies can benefit a great deal by switching to salesforce.com. Each of these business types will at some point in their operations require a method for keeping and marinating their records of sales and handling sales information. Salesforce.com can be a great platform for these companies to store all their sales information on sales.com. Subscribing to Salesforce.com will enable the companies to improve their services and save on costs. The businesses will be able to use technology to improve the efficacy of their services without necessarily having an IT department full of specialists. The businesses will also be able to put all their efforts in satisfying their customers and worry less about technology. Subscriptions on salesforce.com can be as low as $9. 4. What Factors Would You Take Into Account In Deciding Whether To Use Salesforce.Com For Your Business? Salesforce.com presents a lot of attractive services to businesses (Ferguson, 2009). As a business owner, I would be fascinated by the fact of subscribing to some of the services offered by salesforce.com. One reason why I would consider signing up to use salesforce.com is the fact that I would not want to purchase traditional software that will require a lot of hardware capital so as to be able to function effectively. Traditional software can also come with a lot of hidden costs such as maintenance costs, employee training among others. All these issues would make me be inclined to using salesforce.com. But before I subscribe to any of their services, I would have to take a lot of issues in to consideration. I would have to consider the availability of the services, whenever I need to use the application. I would also consider if the application is user friendly. References Arends, Brett. 2011. The Truth behind the Salesforce.com Hype, Wall Street Journal 25 Feb 2011. Armbrust, M., Fox, A., Griffith, R., Joseph, A., Katz, R., Konwinski, A., Lee, G., Patterson, D & Rabkin, A., Z. 2010. A view of cloud computing, Communication of the ACM 53 (4): 50–58. Ferguson, T. 2009. Salesforce.com Outage Hits Thousands of Businesses, CNet News 08 Jan 2009. Laudon, Kenneth C., and Jane Price Laudon.2009. Management Information Systems: Managing the Digital Firm. 11th. Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River, NJ. Winkler, V. 2011. Securing the Cloud: Cloud Computer Security Techniques and Tactics, Syngress, Waltham, MA USA. Read More