Dennis Howlett SELECTING A SAAS PROVIDER 24th September, 2010 ICAEW

Dennis Howlett
SELECTING A SAAS PROVIDER
‣
24th September, 2010
‣
ICAEW
AccMan
obligAtory advert
AccMan
‣
MORE ADVERTS
Former partner in UK firm of CAs
‣
Contract negotiator and selection
consultant
‣
Industry analyst
‣
SAP Mentor (1/100 out of 2 million+
community)
‣
ZD Net contributor (enterprise
applications)
‣
AccMan (PSA innovation)
AccMan
SAAS APPS GROWTH
‣
“Every SaaS vendor in the
Software Insider Index® drove
14% to 26% growth despite the
pick up in on-premises license
sales.” (Ray Wang - Altimeter: 20th
Aug, 2010)
‣
Salesforce.com +24.8%
‣
NetSuite +16.9%
‣
SuccessFactors +26.7%
AccMan
SAAS APPS GROWTH
‣
‣
‣
‣
‣
Kashflow - 100% YoY growth 2009>2010,
same 2010>2011
Xero - near term expecting 100K
customers, 22K in 2010, may hit 40K 2011
IDC sees SaaS accounting as the no.3
growing apps space
AccMan tracking 10% month over month
growth in 2010 for major vendors in SME
space
Close to 70 apps plays available in the UK
of varying types
AccMan
PROFESSIONAL PRACTICES
‣
Consider SaaS as your way of getting
closer to clients
‣
Can SaaS open the door to value
add?
‣
Benchmarking?
‣
SaaS as a way to reduce operational
cost tor you and clients
‣
Should you be bundling services?
AccMan
COMMERCIAL
BUSINESS
‣
Consider SaaS for fast track subsidiary
operations
‣
Move capex to opex
‣
Collaboration environments
‣
Moving finance to the centre of
operations
‣
Transformational change
AccMan
BROAD CHARACTERISTICS
‣
Pay as you go billing
‣
SaaS vendors carry infrastructure cost and
lion’s share of risk
‣
Modest implementation cost c.f. on-premise
‣
Fast track innovation cycles - typically 4x
pa
‣
Richer user experience/productivity
AccMan
CONSEQUENCES
‣
On-prem vendors become
disintermediated
‣
Utility computing models inherent in
SaaS lead to more innovation
‣
Potential for unpleasant lock-in is real
‣
Things go wrong (gasp)
AccMAn
WHAT DOES SAAS LOOK
LIKE?
‣
Collaboration plays with
dashboards
‣
Process plays across verticals
‣
Co-mingling social apps with
finance
‣
Vertical market specific
‣
Extensible apps through APIs
AccMAn
STATE OF READINESS
‣
Most SME apps are in a relatively early stage of development
offering nuanced capabilities
‣
Twinfield most advanced for professionals
‣
NetSuite most mature in commercial arena
‣
SAP Business ByDesign will be a fast follower
‣
FinancialForce making the funky process play
‣
Workday hitting the large enterprises
AccMAn
HOW TO SELECT?
‣
Determine your pain point
‣
Undertake needs analysis
‣
Match needs to solutions
‣
Due diligence
‣
Negotiate (where possible)
AccMAn
PROFESSIONAL PRACTICE
‣
Be prepared to experiment - not all apps will suit all clients
(throw away apps/multiple apps?)
‣
Analyse portfolio for client readiness - might include
shoebox types
‣
For SME clients: think end user not accounting types - UX
matters !!
‣
For larger clients: think business process and collaboration
AccMAn
COMMERCIAL OPERATIONS
‣
Cost/benefit analysis is critical in replacement situations
‣
Potential investment write off/closing out data centre
contracts?
‣
Business reach - strategic thinking (Salesforce
environments?)
‣
Speed to value (the Facebook effect)
‣
Data cleansing (all too often under estimated)
AccMAn
REMEMBER
IMPLEMENTATION
‣
Salesforce: the Facebook for enterprise? (Chatter and
Seesmic integration)
‣
Xero/FreeAgent obsessive about cust experience, zero
training
‣
NetSuite/SAP BYD require implementation services. Look
for 1:1/1.5 cost
AccMAn
DEALING WITH VENDORS
‣
“You don’t get a pass cuz yer SaaS” - Frank Scavo
‣
In most situations, this will be an IT style project like most
others
‣
Fake SaaS v ‘real’ SaaS - the multi-tenancy issue
‣
Examine contracts carefully, embody demos in contracts
‣
Do vendors embody the SaaS Bill of Rights?
AccMAn
DEALING WITH VENDORS
‣
Undertake TCO analysis in the buy cycle
‣
Independently source customer references (Google
vendors)
‣
Reserve the right to include 3rd party advisors
‣
In large scale deployments ensure you include all moving
parts
‣
Data management?
AccMAn
ISSUES TO CONSIDER
‣
Security should not be an issue - c.f. on-premise
‣
Availability should be superior to on-prem
‣
Data centre location is NOT an issue
‣
BUT - you must run detailed checks on these issues
‣
Due diligence on the vendor is vitally important
AccMAn
ISSUES TO CONSIDER
‣
Security should not be an issue - c.f. on-premise
‣
Availability should be superior to on-prem
‣
Data centre location is NOT an issue
‣
BUT - you must run detailed checks on these issues
‣
Due diligence on the vendor is vitally important
AccMAn
AVAILABILITY - INTACCT
AccMAn
WHEN IT GOES WRONG
‣
ClearBooks outtage w/e 29th August is a
classic case of not understanding the
underpinnings required for SaaS/cloud
‣
3 days data lost
‣
No user communication except on
GetSatisfaction
‣
No user data download
‣
Audit should not be overlooked
AccMAn
BEWARE INCUMBENT FUD
‣
It’s not Sage/Microsoft/MYOB etc
‣
It’s not
secure/available/customizable etc
etc
‣
Hybrid is better (if you must)
‣
It doesn’t do Excel
AccMAn
DUE DILIGENCE AND FUD
‣
Claim: “NetSuite has never
made money in its 10 year
history.” Untrue.
‣
SaaS vendors can make
incumbents look incredibly
foolish very easily.
AccMAn
SAFEGUARDS
‣
There are NO standards - CIF but
beware
‣
Customer Bill of Rights
‣
Data location - DPA is NOT as rigorous
as it sounds
‣
Data retrieval - your rights?
AccMAn
YOUR JOB
AccMan
BEWARE INCUMBENT FUD
AccMAn
BUT...
Do the math (honestly) for
yourself (or get help)
AccMAn
GOOD NEWS EXAMPLE
QuickTime™ and a
decompressor
are needed to see this picture.
AccMan
Dennis Howlett
Q&A - RESOURCES
‣
AccMan - http://accmanpro.com
‣
Irregular Enterprise - http://blogs.zdnet.com/Howlett
‣
DealArchitect: http://typepad.dealarchitect.com
‣
Software Insider: http://blog.softwareinsider.org
‣
Software as Services: blogs.zdnet.com/SAAS
‣
Enterprise Systems Spectator: http://fscavo.blogspot.com/
Certification 5
Dennis Howlett
CONTACT
‣
email: [email protected]
‣
Twitter: http://twitter.com/dahowlett
‣
Skype/Facebook/LinkedIn: dahowlett
‣
te: +34 953 708 636/+34 607 482 739
AccMan
Dennis Howlett
THANKS & CREDITS
‣
‣
Thanks for your attention
Thanks to Hugh MacLeod: http://www.gapingvoid.com for use of
his art
‣
Thanks to iCanHasCheezBurger.com for humor additions
‣
Thanks to colleagues at EIs/EAs
‣
Thanks to Compfight for providing CCC Flickr images
AccMan