Supply Excellence
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Who Says SaaS Can’t Do the Integration Dance?

February 2nd, 2007 · by Tim Minahan · 1 Comment · On Demand/SaaS

It is no longer controversial to assert that Software as a Service (SaaS) has arrived as an acceptable, if not preferable, model for software delivery. SaaS solutions deliver software functionality, content, and services over the Internet from a single application instance that is shared among all customers. That means there is no need to install or maintain costly software or hardware. Pricing is based on a “pay-as-you-go” subscription. And system performance and service levels are managed by the solution provider.

The quantitative TCO, performance, and time-to-value benefits of SaaS have been chronicled here, citing both research from industry analysts and real-world experiences of a wide range of enterprises.

However, SaaS continues to get a bad rap when it comes to application integration capabilities. Traditional installed software vendors and IT departments attempt to position integration as the Achilles heel of the SaaS model, arguing that SaaS solutions only focus on narrow processes, are built for small- to mid-size businesses, and lack integration capabilities.

Anyone delving into these issues quickly ascertains that such claims are pure myth. SaaS providers now offer integration solution suites supporting complete end-to-end processes, such as Source-to-Pay, Order-to-Cash, and even complete back-office operations, such as financials and human resources. And, while SaaS delivery and pricing models extend to small- and mid-size companies, large enterprises are currently the biggest users of SaaS solutions.

Leading SaaS providers (my employer included) have also developed innovative new enterprise application integration approaches that marry proven business-to-business integration (B2Bi) methods with the delivery and cost benefits of software as a service to permit a flexible array of data integration options — from periodic batch to real-time messaging — between SaaS solutions and installed enterprise applications.

This new Integration as a Service (IaaS) model treats integration as a fully hosted service, eliminating many of the burdens and costs of implementing and maintaining enterprise application integration using traditional software and methods. IaaS delivers a multitude of pre-defined adapters between your SaaS solution and leading enterprise applications. IaaS also ascribes to a flexible, subscription-based pricing model that scales based on the level of integration required.

Steve Sprague, CMO at Seeburger, a global leader in B2Bi and enterprise application integration (EAI) solutions, and I teamed up to examine the requirements and benefits of this new IaaS approach and what it means for the future of SaaS and the enterprise application marketplace. You can read all about it on Line56.

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1 response so far ↓

  • 1 Supply Excellence » Barclays: Transforming Supply in an Ever-Changing World // Apr 30, 2007 at 8:22 am

    [...] Critical to Barclays’ plan is the role-based dashboard and advanced, Web-service-based integration capabilities provided by its supply management solution vendor. The bank is also using innovation Integration as a Service (IaaS) offering from its supply management solution, which provides pre-defined adapters to all major ERP and business systems from a fully hosted, subscription-based Web service. Barclays will use this service-based integration model to capture transactional information from all its disparate financial and purchasing systems and to deliver critical supplier and contract information to these systems in return. [...]

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