SaaS Implementations: No Assembly Required, Batteries Included

I’m sure we’ve all experienced this: You hear about the hottest new toy and bring it home, only to discover upon opening the box that: A.) It looks nothing like the picture on the box (all the cool thingamabobs in the picture are sold separately), B.) Batteries are not included, and C.) “Some assembly required” is a HUGE understatement. By the time you find the right batteries, buy all the extra thingamabobs, and finally figure out how to assemble the darn thing, several days will have passed and the toy still won’t look like the picture on the box.

Sounds familiar? It sounds a lot like some of the on-premise software implementations I’ve been a part of. On-premise software implementations often have long, complicated deployments due to scenarios similar to these. Components are missing. Additional software or hardware is unexpectedly required. Features that are hard-coded can’t actually be easily configured. The overall implementation takes much longer than expected. And in the end, the customer still isn’t sure the deployed solution meets their original requirements.

Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) avoids many of these issues. Let’s take a look at how, as well as a few other benefits that come with SaaS implementations:

• No Assembly Required; Batteries Included

In a traditional on-premise implementation, there’s typically a lengthy development phase where companies need to procure and configure hardware to specifications, purchase licenses for dependent software, then install (and test) everything on application servers, web servers, and desktop clients. This is obviously a great expenditure and takes a good portion of the implementation time. With SaaS, it’s literally plug-and-play. The entire infrastructure has already been taken care of by the SaaS provider. As long as users have a web browser and internet connection, they can start using the application from Day 1 – not several months after the project has started. This significantly reduces the implementation timeframe, because no assembly is required.

• It Matches the Picture on the Box

There’s no bait-and-switch with SaaS. Remember, real SaaS is multitenant – meaning everyone is using the same version of the software. While one company may be in the process of evaluating the application and another is in the middle of implementing it, there’s a multitude of other companies who are actually using the exact same application in production. Application functionality, therefore, must support those real-world user requirements. The very same features being advertised “on the box” are being used in real-time by live customers.

• Configuration is Easy and Can Be Quickly Changed; Fewer Surprises in Testing

As mentioned previously, all customers use the same version of the SaaS application. But, each customer will also have slightly different needs. How do SaaS providers ensure their diverse customer base can all use the same version of the application? SaaS applications must be flexible and should have powerful configuration tools built-in so each customer can configure the application to support their processes without having to touch a single line of code. As a result, implementations of SaaS applications are inherently agile, as implementation teams can quickly adapt configurations to evolving customer requests without software development, and customers can quickly see the results of those changes to make informed decisions. When User Acceptance Testing comes, there are fewer surprises because the customer has been intimately involved in the design, configuration, and review of the system throughout the iterative process — the testing period also ends up shorter. The end result is a rapid implementation with much higher fidelity to the customer’s requirements.

The goal of any implementation – on-premise or SaaS – is to deploy a system that meets the users’ needs. But, there are some stark differences between the two. With on-premise implementations, companies often end up spending significant energy trying to figure out how to get the system to work and why it’s not working. In contrast, SaaS implementations enable companies to remove these distractions, implement faster, and focus their efforts on empowering their users to focus on their true business of innovation.

So, imagine if this happened instead: You hear about this wonderful new ‘toy’ and bring it home. You open the box and take it out, packaged beautifully with great care. It looks just like the picture. You turn it on… and it just works. All you have to do is tweak a few settings so it’s personalized for you. Who wouldn’t want that?

 Howie Hsueh is Sr. Consultant for Veeva Vault.