Scheduling Chronicles

Understanding Your Mobile Workforce Through Business Intelligence Will Increase Your Organization’s Bottom Line

In data pulled from the census, the number of people working from home or involved in some form of flex work environment in the U.S. could be anywhere from 2.8 million to 44.4 million people.

The trouble in using this data is that the range is far too wide, and nobody is tracking how frequently employees are using alternative workspace as a way to stay productive when heading into the office. If organizations had this data they would be able to better utilize their office space, and cut their real estate costs by selling off, or deciding not to renew a lease on underutilized space.

With Workplace Business Intelligence, organizations can track and better manage their resources. By tracking actual space utilization and understanding what their business may or may not need, they will be improving upon their energy efficiency, cutting real estate costs, and working smarter, all contributing to the bottom line.

Organizations To Expand Use of SaaS in 2010, Try it For Free With Resource Scheduler

In 2010 the use of SaaS is expected to continue to grow.

In a recent survey by Gartner,  95% of the companies currently using SaaS said they will continue or expand their use this year. The reasoning behind their decision is cost effectiveness, and that SaaS providers are always improving upon their capabilities.

Of the companies planning for an increase in their use, 53% plan to make a slight increase while 19% will make a significant increase.

If your company hasn’t made the switch to SaaS, PeopleCube allows you try Resource Scheduler for 30 days, free of charge.

Resource Scheduler will allow you to maximize utilization of alternative workspace, schedule organizational resources, and manage services.

The trial is fully customizable and is a great opportunity for your organization to see how SaaS can be used to assist you in cutting real estate costs and improve your efficiency at the same time.

Combating the Barriers When Implementing the Use of Alternative Workspace

Although the adoption of Alternative Workspace has certainly picked up, there are still barriers in the wider implementation.

Some of the obstacles that exist are:

1. Organizational Culture
2. Management Concerns
3. Resistance/ Fear of change
4. Executive Buy-in

A great way to combat these obstacles is with data. Many times we have discussed how Workplace Management Solutions can assist organizations in scheduling resources, managing space, detecting actual real estate utilization, and maintaining equipment. All of these systems allow organizations to better manage their alternative workspace, but you can also take the data from these systems and track utilization and see how their alternative workspace is benefiting your organization. All of this data can be turned into useful information by using Workplace Business Intelligence.

Making The Switch to SaaS

In a time where many organizations are cutting budgets SaaS or Software-as-a-Service is a nice way to put some money back into your organization’s budget and improve your ROI.

SaaS allows organizations to cut back on the dollars they spend to staff an IT department. With SaaS the solution is hosted elsewhere and supported by a third party, all while it is easily customizable by the end user.

In a recent survey, conducted jointly by Datamation and THINKstrategies, where 55 parties responded, 44 participants had already subscribed to SaaS and 8 others were weighing their options concerning the growing technology.

So if you’re looking for a hosted solution or SaaS for your organization what should you be thinking about?

1. Make sure your provider supports all of your needs
2. Anticipate what needs you may have in the future
3. Make sure expansion into different geographical areas or departments is supported

Top 10 Reasons to use SaaS

SaaS, or Software-as-a-Service, can be a great tool in cutting real estate costs while improving the overall efficiency of an organization. Specifically it can assist an organization in areas like resource management and alternative workspace management.

Recently Jeffrey Kaplan of THINKstrategies listed his Top 10 Reasons to use SaaS. Here are his Top 10 Reasons:

1. Limited risk:  Most of the top SaaS vendors offer a 30-day trial or you can negotiate a pilot program to test how their solutions meet your needs.
2. Fewer upfront costs:  Unlike traditional business applications which require users to acquire a perpetual license fee and make a capital investment in servers to support the applications, SaaS solutions can be obtained on a pay-as-you-go basis. However, you may have to pay for the first year subscription up front.
3. Rapid deployment:  SaaS vendors can roll out their applications whenever you’re ready. No need to wait for servers to be deployed or staff to be hired and trained to get a new app up and running.
4. Lower Total Cost of Ownership (TCO):  Not only can organizations avoid the upfront costs of traditional software perpetual licenses and servers, but they can also redirect their limited inhouse staff from the tedium of ongoing support because this burden falls on the SaaS vendor. This helps to reduce the overall TCO of SaaS solutions.
5. Greater Utilization:  Because SaaS solutions are designed with the end-user in mind, they are more user-friendly and generate greater utilization rates than traditional, legacy applications.
6. Better Reliability and Security:  Despite prevalent concerns about the reliability and security of SaaS solutions, the truth is that there have been far fewer service disruptions or security breaches among SaaS vendors than in traditional, on-premise software environments.
7. Easier Integration:  Because SaaS solutions generally rely on a common set of web service protocols and application programming interfaces (APIs), they are easier to integrate than traditional, on-premise applications. However, it can still take specialized tools and skills to fully integrate SaaS applications to legacy applications or data sources.
8. Quicker Access to Innovation:  The multitenant architecture of SaaS enables users to more easily obtain software updates and upgrades than their legacy software counterparts because every user can share the innovations of their peers without having to worry about the enhancements disrupting their unique configurations.
9. Shared Benchmarks and Best Practices:  Once a SaaS vendor attracts a critical mass of customers, they can aggregate the non-proprietary activity data from their customer base to create valuable benchmark data which can give their customers useful insight into industry best practices.
10. Vendor/Customer Alignment:  In the past, the idea of vendor-customer ‘partnerships’ was an allusion. Once a software vendor sold a customer a perpetual license for their application, there was little incentive for the vendor to ensure the customer’s satisfaction and success. The subscription pricing model underlying SaaS, puts more pressure on the SaaS vendor to ensure its customers are happy with its solution to increase the likelihood of renewals, service expansion and referrals.

SaaS Improves Productivity and Efficiency

Software-as-a-service, or SaaS, is now being recommended to companies seeking to improve the productivity of their employees.

SaaS can assist companies in realizing the full potential of their organization.  This is particularly the case with resource management and alternative workspace management applications where quick and easy adoption of these systems by the users help companies maximize their efficiency.

IT Business Edge says, “Software-as-a-service delivers software in a web-based form available anywhere there is an internet connection and often on any device – increasing employee productivity with its anytime-anywhere access,”

With the software being available anywhere it makes it very easy for many businesses to use these solutions, and based on the ease of use many companies will turn to SaaS to save money while becoming more efficient at the same time.

The ROI of Software-as-a-Service

A free whitepaper is now available that focuses on the long-term value of SaaS products.  The whitepaper is based on the findings of Forrester Research who, after examining client's decisions about purchasing SaaS solutions, concluded that firms achieve substantial ROI with SaaS solutions.

Whitepaper summary: Firms almost always consider software-as-a-service (SaaS) as a cost-advantage over on-premise in the short run due to its quick implementation times and pay-as-you-go pricing. But many firms question the long-term value of SaaS, wondering if the rent-versus-own model necessarily has a cost crossover point and if so, when? As SaaS continues to move into a broader range of applications and into larger, more strategic deployments, Forrester examined client decisions across a range of SaaS solution areas and found that firms obtain long-term value with SaaS solutions.

To download this free whitepaper, click here.

Report: One-Third of all Enterprises To Use SaaS in 2010

According to a recent report published by research firm Forrester, one-third of all enterprises are either currently subscribed to software-as-a-service applications or have plans to do so in 2010. 

This report included data from a survey of nearly 2,200 IT executives and other related technology executives from a number of small and medium sized organizations in North America and Europe.  Stefan Ried of Forrester believes that some might find it interesting that, despite the economic climate, larger enterprises are lining up to adopt SaaS faster than most small organizaations.

"Many vendors mainly position their cloud services toward SMBs with a belief that they will jump on the bandwagon first because they often have more limited IT budgets than larger enterprises," said Stefan Ried. "Instead, vendor strategists should investigate specific adoption levels by industry, region, or company size to identify their sweet spot for an SMB cloud offering. Large enterprises even adopt some cloud services significantly faster than SMBs."

SaaS: No Offense to Capital Expense

Steve Banker recently outlined the differences in how hardware and software are expensed.  He put hardware in the context of a vehicle where over time, the value depreciated to a point where it is more economically viable to sell or repurpose it.  In some instances of software, the same thing can happen.  While an initial software purchase can provide near-immediate value (which is should), especially when rolling out a new initiative such as alternative workspace that affects many areas of the organization, how does that value change when factoring in maintenance costs, additional feature requirements, and the cost (in time, energy, and money) of upgrading the system.

What I found most interesting is that even when going through the cost/benefit analysis of software purchases, the conclusion is that software-as-a-service is the preferred method of software delivery.  Why?  First and foremost, there are no capital expenses associated with SaaS so any on-demand purchases doesn't affect the balance sheet. Further, the costs of upgrading is minimal - if any - because those costs are included in the agreement.  And as Banker contends, "From a budgeting perspective, this strikes me as much cleaner." 

SaaS Adoption Continues to Rise – But Why?

Over the past couple of years the amount of attention over Software as a Service has grown considerably and with it, that adoption of cloud computing organizationally has grown with it.  Why?

There are several factors, not the least of which is because SaaS has bridged the gap between enterprise and small and medium business applications.  Solutions that were once only viable for large enterprises due to cost, infrastructure requirements and overall adoption are now available to the smaller folks, helping to expand the availability and thus market reach of these applications.  In fact, as Larry Marion of Datamation points out, BusinessWeek Research Services recently conducted a survey that found that four of five managers and senior executives in North America are interested in or currently in the process of adopting the SaaS model – and roughly a third of all respondents have already adopted it in one form or another within their organizations.

As Marion indicates, it’s important to note that there is a distinct difference in the level of interest in SaaS depending on who you ask.  Those executives at medium-size organizations are adopting SaaS for vital applications while those at enterprise companies really are more targeting SaaS for their second-tier applications.

But the point is, cloud computing continues to grow in popularity.  Even for larget enterprises, they can leverage SaaS to augment their existing applications rather than making the full investment of standard on-premise solutions.  At the end of the day, SaaS provides the flexibility for any company to utilize primary or secondary applications at a fraction of the price.  And that’s what it’s all about – reducing costs.  In the BusinessWeek survey, when asked what the three most important factors of SaaS were, the need to reduce capital and operating costs were far and away the most popular answer.  And in this economy, who can blame them?