Trend Radar 2008: SaaS Impact on IT Infrastructure
Check other articles in the series...As we go into the era of broader SaaS adoption inside the Enterprise, the CIO’s office has some new headaches coming, although overall, a simplification of the IT infrastructure is on course.
Imagine.
You are the CIO of a Fortune 500 company. Your organization has deployed Salesforce.com for CRM, Concur for Travel, Webex for Collaboration, and a host of other SaaS applications for various other niche functions. And in many cases, some of these applications are integrated with each other.
Now.
The Regional Sales Manager at your Atlanta office is on the phone yelling, because he has a presentation with Coca Cola, and needs to access Webex through Salesforce.com and be able to record and store the session. “It’s not working!!!!”
Go figure what’s broken.
My point is, in this federated environment, a whole new layer of infrastructure is now needed to keep things running, and that need is going to produce some interesting new companies.
This segment is part 7 in a 13 part series Offshoring →
Jump to part: The Convergence Device Movement, Device Usability, Miniaturization, Simplicity in Design, SaaS in the Enterprise, SaaS in SME, SaaS Impact on IT Infrastructure, Offshoring, Verticalization Everywhere, Emerging Markets, Turnarounds, Edutainment, Financing, Roll-Ups, and Acquisitions
Your observation is very much on point. Smaller/newer firms will have a smoother sailing when it comes to creating a SaaS-friendly infrastrucutre/environment but the mid to large size firms, with their legacy baggage and complex web of devices/networks, will have a throbbing headache operationalizing SaaS. Effective SaaS adoption will mean setting up of new infrastructure, streamling/integrating SaaS vendor technology/process requirements, tons of employee training on solution usage, etc. I can definitley see how an IT consultancy can carve out a whole new service offering around this CIO problem and pave the way forward.