Business Technology Roundtable

As industry analyst forecasts mount predicting the rapid growth of managed services, an increasing proportion of IT and business decision-makers are taking a closer look at how these alternatives can impact their operations. The challenge is effectively measuring the costs and benefits of these options. Gartner kicked off 2008 predicting, "By 2011, early technology adopters will forgo capital expenditures and instead purchase 40 per cent of their IT infrastructure as a service." And with today's unprecedented economy crisis, THINKstrategies believes the shift to managed services will be faster and more pronounced than predicted. As a consequence, every responsible IT and business decision-maker is obligated to carefully reassess their current operations and thoroughly evaluate all of the available alternatives to better manage their IT environments so they can better support their business objectives. Substantive Cost Comparisons However, many of the current methods...

Our prior commentary on SaaS and Managed Services: Big Service Providers Plug In does a good job pointing out how various service providers are attempting to deliver a widening array of Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) solutions and managed services. This trend is being driven by two major forces. First, the commodization of traditional transport services. Second, the shift in customer attitudes regarding IT management. Service providers can no longer differentiate themselves based on the quality of their transport services. As a consequence, service pricing, customer loyalty and profitability of this mainstay business continue to decline. To compensate for this erosion of their traditional transport business, service providers are seeking to deliver a new generation of value-added services which can give them greater 'stickiness' with their customers. It's a Win-Win Scenario At the same time, customers are seeking to offload, or out-task, a broader assortment of IT managemen...

THINKstrategies recently unveiled the initial findings of its fourth annual Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) customer survey , in conjunction with Cutter Consortium , which revealed that 63% of the responding organizations are using a SaaS solution -- almost double the 32% who were using SaaS solutions in 2007. Over the past four years, we have seen tremendous growth of the SaaS market spurred along by rising frustration with the challenges of deploying traditional software products and the hassles of keeping enterprise applications up and running. Our surveys were the first to find widespread interest and substantial adoption of SaaS in 2005. Changing workplace requirements have led to more workers needing to access applications and corporate data remotely, which has also led many organizations to adopt web-based SaaS solutions. The Shift Away from CAPEX But, the most important consideration has been the financial savings generated by shifting from upfront capital investments in perpetu...

Businesses of all sizes are facing unprecedented competitive and economic challenges as they attempt to satisfy their customers’ rapidly changing needs and support their employees’ rapidly changing work requirements. Globalization and eCommerce have dramatically changed the competitive landscape for companies of all sizes, including small- and mid-size businesses (SMBs). Escalating fuel costs and tightening credit markets have also severely impacted the business operations of companies. Companies must achieve greater customer intimacy in order to win and retain customer satisfaction and loyalty. Companies must also support increasingly dispersed and mobile workers in order to ensure employee productivity. These challenges demand new forms of communications and collaboration, along with greater reliability and reporting to meet rising regulatory and compliance requirements. These trends are also forcing companies to adopt new technologies and new methods of managing these technologies i...