Dynamic Business

An end-to-end solution
He adds: “We then compared this with the cost of outsourcing the entire process. After conducting a full Request For Proposal (RFP) process to review and select a suitable end-to-end solution, Wavenet, an IntraPower Group (ASX: IPX) company, was selected as the best provider overall.

“IntraPower’s proposed SaaS strategy offered a phenomenal 60 percent saving on the cost of managing our IT internally. Their flexibility, understanding of what we wanted to achieve and competitive pricing made their solution compelling. In particular, IntraPower was able to manage the entire solution and implementation without outsourcing to an array of partners. This provided us with one point of contact, which ensured a smoother transition process.

“Overall the implementation was incredibly smooth. After signing contracts, we agreed on a timeline and work schedule which IntraPower adhered to during the entire implementation. The solution went live in December 2007.

“Apart from the undeniable cost benefit of SaaS, the greatest benefit is being able to outsource the maintenance, upgrades and data protection with full confidence. Our downtime is significantly reduced – with all maintenance and upgrading scheduled for off-peak times – which has also made a significant difference to our overall productivity.”

With all financial indicators forecasting a tough 12 months ahead in the Australian economy, businesses need to be conscious of ways they can decrease costs and ensure they are productive and ahead of the game. SaaS may just be what they need.

–Greg Kennish is group managing director of IntraPower (www.intrapower.com.au), an expert managed voice, data and applications service provider. Established in Brisbane in 1998, it has quickly become a leading player in the IP arena.

Case Study 1:
SaaS as part of a small business solution

One company that has picked up the SaaS ball and run with it is small business hosting company I.T. on Tap.

Founder Ken Wood explains that small businesses face some unique challenges in adopting SaaS: “SMEs have all the same issues as large companies around integrating SaaS with their existing software and business processes. The difference is that small companies need to achieve that on a much smaller budget and with limited IT expertise available.”

I.T. on Tap aims to meet the full range of SME software needs for a single monthly subscription, combining SaaS with traditional applications such as Microsoft Office, Exchange and Outlook.

“Small business owners are busy people, so having to deal with three or four service providers who each provide one piece of the solution is far too time-consuming. Our approach is all-in-one: we host and manage all their software, SaaS and non-SaaS together.

“Most small businesses also have at least one industry-specific software program – usually only for Windows – that their business needs to keep using. We host that software for them, along with the rest of their applications, to give them that single supplier with no finger pointing.”

I.T. on Tap’s range of software includes customer relationship management (CRM), website management, email marketing, intranet, accounting, design, project management and more.

For more information see www.itontap.com

Case study 2:
Hosted training online

Making waves at the moment is emerging New Zealand SaaS company. It’s an on-demand platform to deliver training online to a wider audience. Trainers simply build courses by uploading Powerpoint, video (100MB), PDF and any other existing training materials in to the Litmos system. A training framework is then wrapped around these files that converts them all in to a format that is viewable online through the web browser.

Alternatively, trainers can build new slide-based courses and upload additional reference documents like .doc, .PDF, .xls and image files to accompany courses. These courses are then assigned to trainees and progress is tracked via the reporting suite. Litmos also has an internal messaging system for increased communication between trainers and trainees, and an alerts system to keep trainers with their finger on the pulse of trainee and course progress.

As an online training delivery platform, it’s another example of a service traditionally installed on company servers that has now become a hosted solution. CEO and founder Richard Chetwynd says: “As a SaaS vendor you look for ways to offer a product platform for low cost. There are a couple of cloud-based services available now that allow SaaS applications to leverage off the back of a large infrastructure to deliver their service efficiently.” By using cloud-based services, Litmos has access to unlimited scalability and the ability to supply a high quality service for low cost to the end user.

For more information visit www.litmos.com