Pros and Cons of SaaS
While SaaS has been gaining popularity recently, it is noticeable that its popularity is limited to small and medium-size businesses. Larger enterprises are still rather reluctant to embrace hosted application for their IT needs.
One of the top reasons why big businesses are reluctant to adopt SaaS is business continuity. Next to business continuity, data security, vendor lock-in, and accountability are some of the issues that clients — both large and small or medium-size businesses — raise most of the time. SaaS are typically fit-for-all, so customization is another nagging issue. And, the issue of interoperability and portability also comes up.
We have considered these issues in detail here:
www.executivebrief.com/blogs/the-pros-and-cons-of-saas-part-2
www.executivebrief.com/blogs/the-pros-and-cons-of-saas-part-1
How Do Millennials Affect Tech Spending?
Related article about the millennials and how do they define where your tech funding goes:
http://www.executivebrief.com/blogs/how-do-millennials-affect-tech-spending
Benefits of Outsourcing to CMMI-Rated Vendor
In the outsourcing selection decision, many organizations use the candidate suppliers’ Capability Maturity Model® Integration (CMMI) maturity level as one of the decision-making criteria. Suppliers want to maximize their chances of winning business from companies that are pursuing offshore outsourcing services. Since CMMI maturity level ratings serve as a differentiator, these organizations want to position themselves among the elite. Maturity level 5 is the place to be, in CMMI terms.
Additional useful advice on this topic could be found in the article:
CMMI - Does Your Outsourcing Supplier Make the Grade?
Report Data
The original research "How technology sectors grow: Benchmarking IT industry competitiveness 2008" by the Economist Intelligence Unit, where the article data were taken from, can be found here:
http://global.bsa.org/2008eiu/study/2008-eiu-study.pdf
Social Networking and CRM
More than mere communication and content sharing platforms, social networks are a source of relevant information to marketers and CRM professionals, and should be used more actively in the business environment.
From the most focused ones to those that cater to as many groups as possible, social networks map out the connections that exist among the millions of members and those of their networks’. As a result, the information that social networkers provide on their profiles allow marketers to generate a database of potential customers as well as provide CRM professionals new ways to handle customer feedback.
More about the role of social networking in building customer database: CRM+Social Networking: Extending Customer Contact
High Cost of Saving Money on Outsourcing
Indeed, there is a general belief that outsourcing is supposed to save you money. This is especially true when it comes to outsourcing mission critical work like software development, typically done offshore, with companies who enjoy very low labor rates. Unfortunately, the saying “Outsourcing will save you money,” is a lot like the old adage of, “Practice makes perfect.” They’re both half-truths. The real truth is: “Only perfect practice makes perfect.” If you repeat the same mistakes again and again, practicing something wrong for any amount of time won’t make it right. Similarly, only outsourcing with the right partner will save you money in the long run. Pick the wrong one and you’ll pay dearly for that decision.
www.executivebrief.com/article/the-incredibly-high-cost-of-saving-money-on-outsourcing.