Ingeniera Industrial

A division of Ziff Davis, Inc.

SaaS versus on-premise ERP
A Ziff Davis W hite Paper

Jonathan Gross
6/1/2012

Executive Summary ................................................................................................................................... 2
Tale of the Tape: SaaS versus On-Premise ERP .................................................................................2
Software as a Service (SaaS) .............................................................................................................. 3
On-Premise ............................................................................................................................................. 4
Breaking Down Some of the KeyDifferences........................................................................................ 4
Deciding which one is right for your business........................................................................................ 5
Functionality ............................................................................................................................................ 6
Total Cost of Ownership........................................................................................................................ 6
IT Administration..................................................................................................................................... 7
Informational Access and Control ........................................................................................................ 8
Security.................................................................................................................................................... 8
Ease of Implementation......................................................................................................................... 9
Scalability................................................................................................................................................ 9
Ease of Software Update and Upgrade ............................................................................................ 10
Conclusion ................................................................................................................................................. 10
About the Expert....................................................................................................................................... 11

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SaaS versus on-premise ERP 2012
Executive Summary
Should your business acquire traditional on-premise enterprise resource planning (ERP)solutions? Or should it invest in emerging software-as-a-service (SaaS) based ERP
solutions?
Both options have benefits and both have risks. W ith on-premise, your business is far
more likely to find a solution capable of meeting its broad collection of needs. The onpremise market segment is unquestionably more mature and well-developed. However,
it’s on the decline. Forrester Research, Inc. hasprojected on-premise ERP license
sales to decline by 2.5% from the period of 2011 to 2015.1
In contrast, Forrester projects the SaaS ERP market to grow by a 22% compound
average growth rate over that same period.2 One reason why businesses are choosing
SaaS is because of scalability benefits. They can more easily adjust their ERP spend -and computing capacity -- in response to business...