CTRM in the Cloud
Special attention should be paid to the service level agreement. According to a Gartner report14, many people
in IT procurement are unhappy with service level agreement contract language, and specifically as it relates to
data security. The report finds that “contractually, very little security language appears in the body of SaaS
contracts,” and that “they (SaaS vendors) accept little or no financial responsibility for fulfillment of these vague
commitments....” Negotiating service level agreements as opposed to licensing and support and maintenance
agreements is likely an area where a company procuring a cloud-based CTRM product should obtain some
experienced and qualified outside advice.
Despite the issues and concerns previously discussed, SaaS and hosted-in-the-cloud delivery models will
continue to grow for CTRM and rightly so, as they do offer a number of substantial benefits. The decision to
acquire any enterprise software should, of course, be made only after a structured acquisition process, including
a through case-by-case vetting of the pros and cons of the various deployment methods. From that point
forward, it’s about project and contractual risks just like with any other implementation project - requiring due
care and attention to the planning and risk mitigation areas.
When SaaS Is Not SaaS
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