Deploying a SaaS application is new for many companies and there are lots of people willing to offer advice on how to evaluate and select the right SaaS solution. Alistair Croll offered a good set of questions to ask when evaluating SaaS. I like his advice because it offers a good holistic view of SaaS and makes the point that a long term vision of the SaaS option is critical to making a good decision.
Alistair recommends asking the following questions,
- Adaptability: How easily can you modify the application? This can be as simple as adding fields or building dashboards, or as advanced as a programming platform.
- Reliability: How much can you depend on the system to function well? This boils down to four things: Performance, availability, scalability and security.
- Task productivity: How effectively can your users accomplish their goals? How many cases-per-minute or entries-per-day can workers do, and how many errors do they make?
- Price: How much will it cost — really? Because SaaS offerings are so varied in pricing, it’s hard to compare them. A better model is to create several benchmark subscribers (a 10-, 100-, and 1,000-person organization) and compare upfront and ongoing costs for them.
- Back-end integration: Can you plug it in to other things? Any enterprise SaaS offering will have to work with other systems, for everything from authentication to data sharing.
- Longevity: How long will the SaaS company be around, and what’s your exit strategy? With ISVs, you could ask for software in escrow. However, when a SaaS provider closes down, your entire IT systems can vanish with the flick of an “off” switch. Offers from Intuit and others to help stranded customers notwithstanding, this is a big problem.
- Ecosystem: How many third-party developers and integrators surround a particular platform with plug-ins and add-ons, and how active are they? A vibrant ecosystem means a more extensible, flexible solution.
Drop me a note with your favorite questions to ask when evaluating SaaS.
