The SaaS revolution is starting to take on an air of inevitability.
Oracle’s online business currently brings in a surprisingly large percentage in revenues, and Charles Fisher has recently signaled that the new Fusion technology will also be available in a SaaS framework. SAP has entered the BusinessByDesign product line amid little fanfare, and Microsoft recently started to champion their Microsoft Dynamics toolset.
When added to the already impressive list of Tier 1 SaaS providers, such as WorkDay, NetSuite and Salesforce.com we can see how opportunity draws competition. An interesting recent development is a global contract awarded to Salesforce.com, the sector pioneer, by Citibank; totally debunking the myth that SaaS is for SME’s only.
So what other changes are in the offing for the world of management consultants? Where are the big opportunities within this area?
As we pointed out in a previous article, VAR’s and channel companies are already starting to embrace this change by focusing on Business Process work and the work of implementing, rather than relying on license fees for their revenue. Charles Prince has also underlined this by recent claims that after the first 2.5 years the SaaS model can be even more profitable through sales of value add services, rather then the old technology models.
Salesforce.com is again setting the pace in this area starting another wave of tremendous change and tremendous opportunity. Force.com is just one of the waves of emerging platforms that companies and consultants alike can use to create their own online systems. Coghead, SuccessFactors, the coming Microsoft platform, are all examples of how companies can be able to take the next step in software on demand.
One possible hook for consultants is to use these platforms to generate their own niche tools, driving into areas where there is still little or no SaaS coverage. Thus providing them with a grab bag of niche applications to deploy at will. Exchanges like AppExchange are already bristling with niche tools that consultants can draw from to suit client needs. Coupled with the implementation services above it can provide a range of niche areas for consultants to build on through partnerships and other mechanisms.
However, all of this does beg the question; if companies can easily build and deploy small niche business applications globally, why would they rent them from a SaaS provider?
This, I feel, is one of the real growth areas for consulting professionals at the dawn of the SaaS age. The case for SaaS is established, most IT managers are coming, kicking and screaming, to embrace this advance in technology, and the platforms and tools now exist to develop these applications quickly, easily and economically.
There is a need for specialist companies to provide the development skills, post deployment implementation experience, and the culture change techniques to make these systems permanent. Specialists who can work with HTML, Ajax
Why would companies dedicate their own resources to this? It is niche work, given the size of the systems in use it is often not gigantic systems, and the consultant can and should also bring additional experience for developing and embedding work processes, providing training, and providing an external point of view.
Allowing everybody else to focus on their line roles, this is why they are there in the first place.
