SaaS ITSM Software – Value without the overheads
by Stephen Brunsdon
After all, service management can’t exist in large organizations without some level of automation to manage the complexity.
Today, many organizations are finding themselves stuck with expensive, cumbersome, inflexible and over-customized on-premise ITSM solutions that have become part of the woodwork of IT and represent more of a risk than a benefit. In order to integrate IT with the business, IT leaders need to ‘turn the map’ and bring IT around to a more business-like way of thinking – a top-down view focusing on business outcomes, with the technology taking the role of enabler, not dictator.
Cloud computing and SaaS, as an application of the Cloud paradigm, is enabling this shift by allowing organizations to outsource the burden of managing infrastructure and technology to third party organizations, freeing them to focus on gaining value without the overheads – making organizations more agile and resource-efficient.
However, the legacy on-premise model for purchasing technology still has a strong cultural grip on the IT community. Organizations are starting to accept the idea that ownership of software has no intrinsic value (yet many disadvantages) and the SaaS delivery model can give them access to the technology they need without compromising agility, security and budget.
Naturally, organizations want to compare the value and costs of their current on-premise solution to SaaS solutions on the market – as objectively as possible.
Quantifying the costs of an incumbent toolset is more difficult than it seems, and calculating value objectively even more so. In all but the most mature organizations, it is difficult to
quantify value beyond direct cost saving; putting a finger on the value of improved productivity that has stemmed from a single application is a major challenge with many hidden factors.
The deep capital expenditure associated with
on-premise applications makes building a business case a necessity. As a large investment, the CEO and CFO must be satisfied that the investment will return value before budget can be signed off – presenting a barrier to accessing new technology in an environment where budgets are tight and the focus is firmly on cutting costs.
If your organization is desperately in need of new service management technology, time spent building a business case can seriously hold up your ITSM roadmap.
With 70% of CFOs stating that they do not see a definite return on investment from IT budget, getting capital funding is becoming increasingly difficult, and the answer is often ‘no’.
With SaaS, technology is rented on a pay-as-you-go basis - meaning the cost of technology can be absorbed by the operation budget, below the radar of the CFO and CEO. Acquiring technology via the SaaS model is an effective workaround to the ‘no budget’ problem. Of course, the cost of a SaaS solution may not always fall at a lower level than your existing toolset, but if your organization is in desperate need of new ITSM technology and your CFO won’t release budget, SaaS is a well-fitting option.
Find out more about how to quantify the cost and value of your on-premise solution in our whitepaper: SaaS ITSM Tools: Time to Switch?
Visit wwww.axiossystems.com
With IT shops under increasing pressure to align with and ultimately integrate into the business, IT needs practical technology to support their ITSM journey.