{"id":10169,"date":"2020-02-18T15:22:00","date_gmt":"2020-02-18T20:22:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-us\/blog\/?p=10169"},"modified":"2023-03-30T04:22:09","modified_gmt":"2023-03-30T08:22:09","slug":"cloud-delivers-benefits-but-saas-delivers-more","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-us\/blog\/cloud-delivers-benefits-but-saas-delivers-more\/","title":{"rendered":"Cloud delivers benefits – but SaaS delivers more"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\n\t\t\t\t\t\tCloud delivers benefits – but SaaS delivers more\t\t\t\t\t<\/h1>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t

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Eight to ten years ago deployment options were hardly a consideration. Most accounting solutions were still licensed and deployed on your own premises, or perhaps licensed and hosted by a reputable third party. \u201cCloud\u201d had yet to become part of the business vernacular and \u201cSaaS\u201d was still a relatively new and poorly understood concept.  While other complementary solutions like Customer Relationship Management (CRM) were headed in that direction, entrusting the transactional system of record of your business to the cloud required a higher level of trust that had not yet developed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But now – how times have changed! Today the majority of businesses have some sort of cloud strategy and the shift to the cloud and SaaS has begun in earnest. When cloud was far less popular, decision-makers worked hard at analyzing the pros and cons and understanding all their options. Now with all the media and vendor hype, it appears to simply be a given. Like the tide, the surge towards cloud seems to be unstoppable. And as people and companies accept the inevitable, they stop looking at the different options with a critical and questioning eye.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mint Jutras has been following perceptions and trends in cloud and SaaS since our inception in 2011, and we carefully distinguish between the two. We do this through our annual Enterprise Solution Study, an electronic survey that collects data from hundreds of respondents from all types of companies, of all sizes. In 2019 we had 464 participants. As in prior years, we asked those who were considering a SaaS solution (but not yet using one) what appealed to them about SaaS. Their responses are summarized in the \u201cAnticipated\u201d column in Table 1. For those already on a SaaS solution, we asked what benefits they had achieved by moving to SaaS. Participants were allowed to select any and all that applied. We found the answers this year disappointing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Table 1: Anticipated versus Realized Benefits of SaaS.  Source: Mint Jutras 2019 Enterprise Solution Study<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Over the years the potential benefits we list have evolved but have been quite similar year after year. And year after year the percentage of participants recognizing the various potential benefits increased \u2013 until this year. With almost every software vendor hopping on the cloud bandwagon today and many of the largest claiming victory in the race to be the biggest and the best, we fear many business users are also hopping on that wagon without truly understanding the benefits. And without this kind of knowledge, choices are being made without full understanding. As a result, some of those benefits are being left on the table.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And therefore, we start this 5-part blog series by defining the various cloud and SaaS options. Parts 2 through 5 will summarize the different benefits into the following categories:<\/p>\n\n\n\n