SaaS (Software as a Service) applications have caught on with businesses, and one of the reasons is that they’re regarded as being quick to implement. Nevertheless, any software implementation is only as good as the time, expertise and resources put into it, and SaaS is no different.
Keeping this in mind, here are some helpful best practices for implementing a SaaS solution, based on the real-world experiences of many enterprise IT organizations.
Great SaaS implementations begin before you even contact a SaaS vendor. They start with line-of-business and IT managers sitting down together to discuss which business processes (or systems) are strong candidates for outsourcing to SaaS — and if a decision is made to outsource, what the impact on the business will be.
Certainly, SaaS outsourcing alters an IT organization’s workload and can affect a number of business processes. But you also need to know how it affects staffing levels, and whether you will have to recruit IT staff with different types of expertise. Also, what financial impact will a SaaS solution have on the business? In the short term, since the enterprise can eliminate (or avoid buying) on-premise hardware and software, capital expenditures should be reduced. But over time, will a SaaS solution prove to be more expensive than internally hosted systems?
It’s vital to get answers to these questions before SaaS vendors get involved in the process. This way, the business is fully positioned to meet SaaS vendors with not only the knowledge of how SaaS will affect the business, but also with a firm set of expectations of the value that the SaaS solution must deliver.
Preparation is vital when the time comes to negotiate. The second stage of “best practice” implementation is end-to-end contract negotiation with the vendor that encompasses: the initial terms of agreements and SLAs (service level agreements); how the SaaS installation will be performed; who the primary project leads on both the business and the vendor sides of the project will be; and backend contract agreements that cover topics such as termination, migration, and data recover and ownership issues.
Installing a SaaS system is no different than installing any other system: it comes down to sound project management practices. To achieve these, a single project lead should be designated on both the company and the SaaS vendor sides of the project. These leads should work together as a team. Communicating on project status and task management should be done often and clearly. No one on the project should be left out of the loop. Lastly, when the project completes, the project team should sit down, review what went right and what went wrong, identify areas of improvement, and discuss next steps.
Finally, SaaS implementations (like other IT projects) are never really “over.” They move into maintenance and enhancement phases where the system is monitored and continuously improved. If you’re working with a SaaS provider, at the very least this means meeting on a quarterly basis to review how the system has been performing, discussing new enhancements you want to see, and going over the SaaS vendor’s performance record. This is also an opportunity to “fine tune” SLAs if business performance requirements have changed.
In the end, it is IT that usually assumes responsibility for managing the SaaS vendor — and it is ultimately IT that is held accountable for ensuring that the SaaS product delivers (and continues to deliver) value to the business. Best practices help to ensure this success, and we are now at a point with SaaS where we have enough empirical knowledge to start putting these practices to work.
 | 
|
