Business Technology Roundtable

Human talent fuels the business model creativity and process execution that drives today's leading enterprise innovations -- the ones that every executive truly wants to emulate. That's why savvy managers will always choose to hire the best talent -- regardless of where those key people may reside. The common obstacle, of course, is finding both productive and cost effective ways to regularly bring together a geographically distributed talent pool. Online collaboration is one approach many business leaders will consider. The growth of globally disbursed teams demands that online collaboration tools are flexible, scalable and easy to deploy. Moreover, project-centric teams often can't predict the "when and where" they’ll need to reunite their subject matter experts for an impromptu task. IT managers are increasingly being told to move from a rigid just-in-case technology investment model to a much more agile just-in-time methodology. So, what's fueling that ne...

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...

Quick: Name the world's most successful software as a service (SaaS) companies. Most readers will likely mention Salesforce.com ... then perhaps NetSuite, two key players in on-demand CRM (customer relationship management) and accounting software, respectfully. Salesforce.com and NetSuite certainly have momentum in their markets. But consider this: Big service providers and broadband providers like Cablevision and Verizon Business may be the best-kept secrets in both the SaaS and managed services markets. With each passing day, I notice big service providers launching more and more SaaS and managed services offerings. Increasingly popular options include: Managed and hosted unified communications Hosted Microsoft Exchange and IBM Lotus Notes Managed routers, switches and network infrastructure Increasingly, big service providers provide both the pipe (broadband) and the applications flowing through the pipe (email, groupware, CRM, enterprise resource planning, and so on). When Big...

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...

Many companies find it expensive to keep up with new Business Technologies -- or simply prefer to devote their limited IT or Telecom resources to the core business, rather than routine ongoing network management. Managed network services can quickly enable your company to evolve , by giving business decision makers access to leading network technologies and management expertise -- without requiring high initial capital expenditures (CapEx), or ongoing investments in technology upgrades. Deploying a Managed Service Solution When a company subscribes to a managed service, a service provider manages the network equipment and applications on the customer premises according to the terms of a service-level agreement (SLA) established to meet the company's unique business needs. Some managed services are also hosted, meaning that the service provider hosts the equipment in its facility instead of the customer's, and delivers services to company employees over the Wide Area Network (WA...

It is time for IT and business decision-makers to get over their fears of 'out-tasking' various aspects of their daily operations to specialized service providers. Today's turbulent economic climate, intensifying competitive landscape and changing workplace requirements demand that organizations of all sizes re-think their business technology sourcing strategies. What I believe is still inhibiting many IT or business decision-makers from adopting Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) and managed services are a few common misconceptions and interrelated fears. Gain New Perspective, with Sharp Focus For instance, too many IT and business decision-makers continue to resist a growing assortment of SaaS and managed services which can address their business application and IT management needs because they are concerned about losing control, sacrificing performance and/or dealing with additional security risks. While all of these are legitimate concerns, THINKstrategies has found that th...

Somewhere between the economic panic and the managed services craze their resides a simple truth: Now is the time for all small businesses to carefully consider their IT strategies for 2009. I'm tired of reading wild statements that say managed services and Software as a Service (SaaS) are immune to the economic turmoil. It's far more accurate to say we've reached an inflection point of sorts, where small businesses need to review what they spent on IT in 2007 and 2008 to help their planning in 2009. Traditionally, many small businesses acquired IT assets -- PCs, servers, networks, applications and other infrastructure that they ran internally. But those acquisitions required big lump-sum capital investments. During the current economic turmoil, we're seeing a shift in the market. Smart small businesses increasingly depend on IT services. Much in the same way that they pay flat monthly fees for broadband and cellular services, small businesses are embracing managed ser...