My talk on the SaaS environment and what it takes to get the right provider

1. DENNIS HOWLETT
SELECTING A SAAS PROVIDER
‣ 24th September, 2010
‣ ICAEW
AccMan

2. OBLIGATORY ADVERT
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3. 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)
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4. 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

5. 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
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6. 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

7. COMMERCIAL BUSINESS
‣ Consider SaaS for fast track subsidiary
operations
‣ Move capex to opex
‣ Collaboration environments
‣ Moving finance to the centre of operations
‣ Transformational change
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8. 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

9. 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

10. 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

11. 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

12. HOW TO SELECT?
‣ Determine your pain point
‣ Undertake needs analysis
‣ Match needs to solutions
‣ Due diligence
‣ Negotiate (where possible)
AccMAn

13. 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

14. 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

15. 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

16. 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

17. 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

18. 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

19. 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

20. AVAILABILITY - INTACCT
AccMAn

21. 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

22. 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

23. 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

24. 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

25. YOUR JOB
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26. BEWARE INCUMBENT FUD
AccMAn

27. BUT...
Do the math (honestly) for
yourself (or get help)
AccMAn

28. GOOD NEWS EXAMPLE
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29. 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

30. DENNIS HOWLETT
CONTACT
‣ email: dahowlett@gmail.com
‣ Twitter: http://twitter.com/dahowlett
‣ Skype/Facebook/LinkedIn: dahowlett
‣ te: +34 953 708 636/+34 607 482 739
AccMan

31. 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