Cloud

White Paper CIO & Enterprise Architect’s Guide To Using SaaS To Cut IT Costs
Implications & Best Pratices For the Security & Integration Challenges of Embracing the Cloud

Symplified Best Practices Guide | Using SaaS To Cut IT Costs

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Economic Challenges Focus on Cost Savings & Efficiency
Tough economies don’t last, but companies with good planning and execution do. The game planfor surviving challenging economic times gets a fresh look with each downturn, and yet two fundamentals underlie all financial survival plans − conserving cash and maximizing financial flexibility. Conserving cash is an obvious step to buffer against current and future economic uncertainties. Steps taken to conserve cash often include cutting non-essential programs and new systems. A cash bufferalso boosts financial flexibility, helping businesses to better position themselves for post-recession opportunities. Enterprises have long turned to IT as a way to streamline and automate processes and improve efficiency, thereby saving the company money. It is critical that organizations act quickly with these cost cutting measures. The saying, ‘a stitch in time saves nine’, has never been truerthan in today’s climate. The financial return of immediate corrective action grows the sooner said action is taken. This is driving enterprises to embrace the cloud at every level in a company, giving a significant advantage to those that have already moved to incorporate software-as-a-service (SaaS). IT analysts at IDC1, Forrester2 and Gartner3 are citing the financial and operational benefits ofSaaS as primary drivers in the double-digit growth forecasted in the SaaS market. The analysts’ consensus is that SaaS adoption is now mainstream and actively cuts costs and conserves cash while at the same time providing a flexible tool to drive new efficiencies. Below are examples of these very benefits:

Shrinking Capital Spending

The opening act of an economic downturn is spending cuts,and these usually start with a hard look at capital budgets. Capital spending is the most inflexible cost type, requiring large initial outlays with lengthy financial encumbrances spanning the capital asset’s lifecycle. All capital assets require ongoing resource commitments for deployment, operations, upgrades, depreciation and obsolescence.

Optimized Operational Expenses

Prime targets forreductions or elimination are inflexible operational expenses tied to outdated software. Other types of operational expenses are actually desirable in that they increase organizational flexibility. This includes spending to avoid lengthy and immobile capital projects such as expensive investments to overhaul or extend existing software systems. As company headcounts freeze or even decrease,additional pressure is placed on IT decision makers to get more done with fewer resources.

Increased Business Agility

The strategic end goal in challenging times is business agility. The flexibility to profit from changing business conditions can enhance the ability to compete in the next economic growth cycle. Business agility can mean mergers, acquisitions or alliances to enter new markets ordivestitures and layoffs to exit shrinking ones. It demands flexibility to quickly absorb new infrastructure and processes, preferably with operational expenses that minimize lengthy commitments.

Symplified Best Practices Guide | Using SaaS To Cut IT Costs

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Cost Savings Today Means Adopting SaaS, The Cloud, & Out-Tasking
Information technology has been revolutionized by SaaS andcloud computing. SaaS has become a key component of mainstream IT strategy as companies of all sizes and industries seek greater agility and efficiencies with the savings offered by cloud-based business models. Gartner estimates that SaaS global revenues will grow 20% in 2011 to $12 billion, with the main drivers behind growing adoption rates of cloud-based solutions being increasing familiarity...