If ‘as-a-service’ is the answer, what is the question?
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Date: May 2022
By: Anton Herbst, CEO, Tarsus On Demand
Ownership is so yesterday. The sharing economy has revolutionised business models everywhere. It’s shaking up our existing socioeconomic model – for consumers and companies in all industries.
It’s an economy that can best be described as an economic model in which goods and resources are shared by individuals and groups in a collaborative way so that physical assets become services. Its growth has been facilitated through advances in big data and online platforms.
Without owning a single vehicle, or employing a single driver, Uber became the largest taxi company in the world. It revolutionised transport services by connecting two people — the self-employed driver and the consumer — through a digital platform.
Why own when you can simply use as needed?
In the B2B technology market, the concept of software as a service (SaaS) is closely related to the leasing and renting mindset – particularly in the way that it includes maintenance and upkeep of the service being supplied.
SaaS is a method of software delivery that allows data to be accessed from any device with an Internet connection and a Web browser. The servers, databases and applications are hosted by the vendor. Also known as cloud-based software, SaaS is now mainstream — and for good reason. Taking advantage of the enabling nature of the cloud allows people and organisations to earn profits from underutilised resources. It also answers the question of how companies can future-proof themselves in the face of the unpredictability of digital change.
Business applications delivered via a Web browser frees SMBs from painful, costly installations, onerous contracts, and perpetual licence fees. It means that SMBs can outsource most of their software and infrastructure requirements, without the need for extensive in-house IT skills and large IT budgets.
The subscription model makes the arrangement more flexible and affordable enough for any budget. Because cloud services are scalable, businesses can increase or decrease the amount of computing power they lease as needed. In addition, Web-based software is flexible enough to be modified for specific business requirements, and for individual users.
The vendor is responsible for support, updates, and security, and provides service guarantees, such as level of uptime. Reputable vendors use highly secure public cloud services to deploy and store their software and data and are able to provide optimal data security for companies, not only reducing their IT security spend, but generally reducing risk, too.
Both for growing and for established businesses, the “as-a-service” approach provides significant savings, eliminates implementation and maintenance time, and is scalable and accessible from anywhere. With so much to offer, the only question is: why are SMBs still waiting to make the migration?