Cloud vs. On Site Software. We have heard this a lot, and it is a very important issue for us to address, as we always want to help you win customers! Follow along with our sales guy, G-ray, our product specialist SkiDog, and our technological guru DellFan, as they muscle through these important questions and often times cases we receive on how to address SaaS technology vs. installed and on site software.
Case Question: I am attempting to win a new customer and my competition is using installed and on-site software. They are selling the fact that they are better prepared to respond to their customers needs due to their software ownership. Because Four51 is a SAAS, how should I respond to this argument?
G-ray: Availability, Scalability, Security, Interoperability, and Delivery. As you talk about availability look for proof of 99.9% 24×7 up time. Ask if they can restore a backup to a specific point in time. Learn about their infrastructure redundancy and performance monitoring capabilities.
SkiDog: Have your customer read the Four51 Architecture Overview found here and subscribe to status.four51.com for uptime statistics and alerts.
DellFan: Availability is important, and has become standard practice for any SAAS. This not only covers uptime, but bandwidth redundancy, backup power, and compliance for SAS 70 and PCI. Scalability is the biggest differentiation, because this is where cost savings come into play big time. Four51 provides an infrastructure leveragable by many, meaning users no longer have to invest in:
- the price of the machine it is installed on.
- the cost of the software and its annual maintenance.
- the cost of several machines to support different environments (Production, Test, Staging, Demo, QA).
- the cost of Disk Space.
- Backup Systems.
SkiDog: I would ask about the hosted software’s ability to interoperate with other systems. How accessible is the data so that it does not need to be re-keyed into other business applications. Four51’s solution guide can be found here.
G-ray: SAAS companies are in the business of RUNNING the software they deliver as a service. It’s all they do. Your competitor is simply USING softtware. That’s a huge difference when it comes to being accountable and responsive. SAAS companies have invested a great deal in tools and processes that allow people to know what is going on at all times. SAAS is delivered continuously, meaning that new features and bugs are updated real time, anytime so that customers don ’t get lost in older versions of software. So, reliability, consistency of delivery, and an appropriate sense of urgency are all advantages of SAAS.