Subscription pricing. The market has enthusiastically embraced the pay-as-you-go utilization model over the pay-and-pray procurement model. The subscription pricing model also provides a recognized and forecasted future payment schedule while eliminating the all too common financial overruns associated with on-premise CRM software implementations.
Hosted delivery. Most SaaS solutions guarantee anytime, anywhere access backed with a Service Level Agreement (SLA) and financial penalties for non-conformance. Ubiquitous CRM application access via a browser is particularly valuable to decentralized organizations who have staff accessing the CRM system from multiple offices, home offices or while on the road. Hosted software delivery also permits scaling on-demand as the business grows and thereby removes the need to procure additional hardware and bandwidth just in case it may be needed.
Outsourced expertise. Delegating the IT management of CRM and similar business applications to dedicated experts frees internal IT resources to focus on core competencies, higher priority activities and strategic projects. CRM hosting companies also provide a level of data center and equipment redundancy seldom matched by companies not in the hosting business. These hosting providers also generally retain dedicated specialists with deep skills such as global operations delivery, disaster recovery, business continuity, and information security.
Faster software implementations. Without the elapsed time and technical issues associated with the installation and configuration of data center appliances, hardware servers, platform software (such as relational databases, operating systems, backup tools, security applications, etc.) and related hardware, CRM software implementation generally achieve a jump-start and reduced implementation period.
Reduced implementation risk. Removing the hardware and platform software components and reducing the overall implementation time reduces project delays and implementation failure risk.
Reduced TCO (Total Cost of Ownership). While some traditional on-premise software manufacturers have concocted pricing models which show SaaS CRM solutions costing more over a longer haul, the most credible TCO schedules prepared by Forrester, Aberdeen and other recognized analyst firms, clearly show a reduced TCO with SaaS CRM solutions over a five year life for most business scenarios.
