Six tips to maximize the value of SaaS

process inefficiencies, lack of appropriate tools, and lack of links to branch offices, all of which have just taken over Host Analytics The chief financial officer of the company Kelly battles in The common problems faced when leading a new team are the tasks that have stalled.

Battles said in an interview: "Many teams split up, have multiple versions of the same data, there are a lot of spreadsheets everywhere, the process is all manual , although our company size is still relatively small, but still facing the cost of high, difficult, slow problem. "As a result, the Host analytics company has 150 employees in four offices, including an office in India. Its finance team spent most of their time on tedious basic work, such as closing the bill at the end of the month ("routine" in battles's words), rather than helping the start-up develop and develop its business.

The unexpected twist was that when battles joined host Analytics in 2009, the company was not actually using its own products. Host Analytics specializes in the development of Software as a service (SaaS) application that packs these software into enterprise performance management software, such as budgeting, financial forecasting, planning, consolidation, and reporting.

As a result, battles began to transform her team and the company's application software and processes, helping to drive the entire company to transform SaaS. Today, the company only uses preset software licenses for Microsoft Office, and all its other applications are delivered online. Finance alone added six SaaS tools in six months, including its own host Analytics suite, NetSuite Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) and four supporting applications, such as Boomi integration software and payroll processing systems. "For me, the ability to deploy six productivity tools in six months, with such a lean team, is remarkable and well received," battles said. "Battles this to compare with her experience in the previous company, which took a full year to deploy the pre-built ERP system, and during that time all other technical projects were suspended. ERP deployment alone cost 2 million dollars; In contrast, the cost of Host analytics spending on all financial systems adds up to less than 50,000 dollars a year. Admittedly, it doesn't have to pay to buy its own apps, but battles says that even if it does, it won't cost more than $50,000 a year.

For host analytics, the use of their own financial kits, the publicity is clearly more convincing; a SaaS developer who does not rely on its own development platform is a bit like a bakery not tasting its own cupcakes. But the ability to migrate more broadly to managed applications relies on the removal of inefficient, fragmented processes that are a bottleneck, crowding out the valuable time and effort of the six-member financial sector.

For example, according to Battles, "in a better month", the Finance department's month-end checkout process will take at least 10 days. She stressed that best practices in the industry were considered to be six days, and 10 days were averages at best. With SaaS, the same process takes only four days.

Battles said: "In the past the financial team spent too much time on those routine formalities." She added that the savings were being diverted to analysis, forecasting and business development – all of which helped break the stereotype that financial professionals are only good at computing. "It allows us to improve our image and make us more of a business partner in the eyes of the executive and board, not the trading engine they see." ”

For financial fans: one specific aspect of the new application that helps optimize is revenue recognition, which the company automates with NetSuite. Similarly, Host Analytics automates financial consolidation with its own software.
Battles said: "Most of the income recognition problems of SMEs using spreadsheets." There are a lot of mistakes in spreadsheets, it takes a lot of time, and it's very inconvenient. ”

It is worth mentioning the title of battles: She is now the chief financial officer of the company, not the chief information officer or chief technology officer. Host Analytics's internal IT resources are primarily dedicated to traditional desktop support. The company also has a customer-facing external service team to help internally adopt its own software.

"In fact, we didn't have the infrastructure or IT support to implement these projects," battles said. The architecture of SaaS is configuration, not customization. We have hired software from other companies. ”
SaaS has also swept through other parts of the company. For example, Host Analytics now uses the salesforce.com system, and the company recently decided that the e-mail system should switch from managed Exchange to Google Apps. While some vendors have repeatedly advertised that SaaS and other managed it functions have consistently saved costs, battles says the company plans to improve technology rather than cut costs, especially for small businesses.

"The key is that there are tools in the past that only big companies can enjoy," battles said. And because of these tools, become more competitive. ”

Battles the following advice for executives and managers (whether financial or not) who pursue similar strategies:

• To have the right people: "Think ahead, do the basic work first." You still need a team with enough staff to guide the work to ensure that the foundation is well established. ”

• To have the right process: "Understand your own processes and policies." The application must support the process you trust. For example, if your budget process is changing, it's not a good idea to design an application around it-if you change the budgeting process, you have to redesign the way you build your application. ”

Build for the future: "You don't have to do it overnight, but I think you must have a good vision for the future." ”

• Take a prioritized, step-by-step approach: "Don't get overwhelmed." You don't have to do anything at once. The beauty of SaaS is that you can start, repeat, learn and adjust, and then grow. ”

• Integrated critical application software: "Integration steps are often missed or overlooked as an unnecessary additional cost." As long as you can select several major applications and integrate them, you can discover a lot of value. ”

• Know what you're buying: "I think we did a lot of work at the end of a project we implemented, and it cost too much." "Specifically, battles refers to the small and medium-sized enterprises should carefully read the details of the work instructions, consider what they need, what they spend." If you're planning a heavy task yourself, don't buy a service – which is actually what battles suggests: "If you get a full picture of the situation, you can build it the way you want it to, and it will be very fast." ”