Seven Domains of Successful SaaS Enterprise Deployments

Seven Domains of Successful SaaS
Enterprise Deployments
BEST PR ACT ICE PAPER Abstract The Software as a Service (SaaS) model evolved in the mid- to late 1990s. This model makes it possible for This paper summarizes the key companies to subscribe to software applications, rather than licensing and deploying software in their own IT ingredients for a successful on- facilities. The two primary benefits of the SaaS approach are that employees can access the service via the demand implementation. Find out how you can benefit from the Internet and that the operation of the infrastructure can be outsourced to a SaaS vendor, while also making data knowledge gained by the protection and application governance a contracted function of a professional service provider, rather than a salesforce.com Global Services collateral duty of in-house IT staff. organization, as outlined in the seven domains described in this Now fast forward to 2007. SaaS is gaining mindshare in the CIO community and a fundamental shift in the paper. software industry is underway. Large enterprises looking to consolidate and reduce their operating costs, while simultaneously meeting expanding governance mandates, are beginning to embrace SaaS. In fact, according to Forrester, “39 percent of very large enterprises already use SaaS, while 24 percent of large enterprises and 22 1percent of midsize companies use or are interested in the strategy. ” There are significant differences between the SaaS model and the traditional enterprise model. In a traditional software delivery environment, much of the budget and delivery calories are consumed setting up the infrastructure in order to support the development of the solution as well as the production environment. Delivery timeframes are lengthy and any changes to business requirements have major impacts to schedules and budgets. Often the end result is a solution that is not widely adopted and doesn’t meet the business needs. Alternatively, Salesforce implementations are characterized by iterative and rapid deployments which focus on meeting business needs and delivering high business value to end-users. The ability to make rapid changes and deploy quickly has broadened the spotlight from a focus on infrastructure to a focus on CRM strategic foundation items. Being an industry leader in the SaaS space made it possible for the salesforce.com Global Services organization to “chart the waters,” to determine the key ingredients for successful on-demand enterprise implementations. With more than 4,000 implementations under its belt, no other organization can match its experience. From this wide variety of customer interactions, including business and IT leaders around the world, salesforce.com has distilled best practices, lessons learned, and collective tribal wisdom into the following seven domains: 1. Vision and Strategy 2. Business Metrics 3. Adoption 4. Sponsorship and Governance 5. Process 6. Roadmap 7. Technology and Data
For More Information Contact your account executive to learn how we can help you accelerate your CRM success. 1 Network Computing, Survivor's Guide to 2007: Business Strategy, 12.21.06, By Andrew Conry-Murray.
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1. Vision and Strategy Companies often find technology projects seeming to set its own course, based on what the technology makes least difficult to do, rather than being driven primarily by business goals: the resulting investments often fail to align with each other or with overall mission and strategy. Working with a company’s executives to define a program strategy up front is essential, since this strategy will be the basis of the business case, the end-state vision, and the program roadmap. Without a vision and strategy, employees don’t know what to deliver, customers and other stakeholders don’t know what to expect when they interact with the company and customer experiences are left to the mercy of market forces and competition. The vision and strategy will provide a “compass” for the program, to help build consensus among key stakeholders, and ultimately helps organizations articulate what the ideal customer experience should be. By setting clear goals, the strategy also clarifies the benefits of a Salesforce implementation, thereby increasing the chances of success. Finally, a well-defined strategy reinforces the sense of ownership, account... [download for more]