SaaS – Advantages and Myths

Let us consider a situation in an organization, where a particular software is required to manage the multiple projects and the employee time sheets. Now, assuming that they decide to get the development of the software done in-house the initial step would be to bring the users together to collect and decide the feature list which then will be discussed with the developers. Developers and project managers will evaluate it against the available resources. So after about couple of meetings the users, developers and project managers will come to an agreement over the complete set of functionality and the time frame. (By this time, couple of weeks has already elapsed.) Generally speaking, the accepted time frame for rolling out new software done in-house is eighteen months. That amount of time is simply not acceptable in a dynamic and competitive business or industry. What’s more, a recent study has shown that almost a third of all in-house projects fail. Imagine waiting 18 months then getting disappointed by a program that just does not meet the needs or carry out the tasks the users want it to, after spending all the money on manpower, new hardware and software, as well as non-tangible things like lost opportunities.

  

SaaS has provided that comfort zone, It provides an opportunity to use – use immediately something that you want. SaaS is basically software solutions used as service. It is an acronym for Software as a service. The user pays for its usage. Or more effectively it can be called as software on demand.

The software is made accessible to the users via the web or WAN or LAN. There is no license fee attached with it but simple revenue model is pay-as-you-use.

Advantages

 There are several advantages of SaaS like it allows the users to pay for its usage only. So say like in an organization if only ten people are going to use it and that also for a short period of time, the organization doesn’t have to invest huge amounts of money in buying the license and getting it installed. They can use SaaS for any sporadic demands. 

1. As it doesn’t require any installation, it saves lots of system administration expenses and tasks. As the data resides on the service provider’s server, the data backup and security are also included in the service.
2. Moreover usually the SaaS software are very customer specific as they are functionality specific and are very scalable according to the customer needs and requirements.
3. Software updates are also done as a part of service, hence the users really can concentrate on the functionality.

 The maturity of a software as a service is gauged by its ability to configure, handle multi-users and scalability. The most matured SaaS will be able to configure itself to the client, can handle multiple clients and lastly the system can run on various servers without altering the software architecture.

Indian Software as a Service (SaaS) adoption is expected to reach USD 352 million levels in 2012 from 105 million USD in 2009, as per recent studies conducted by IT research firm Springboard Research. Enterprise spending on SaaS in India is expected to grow at 60%, as compared to 46% in Asia Pacific between 2008 and 2012.

Challenges

1. SaaS like any other new technology has faced resistance from its users. Many people think that SaaS is not good for an organization as they lose the control over their data and customizations. Quite contrarily SaaS takes off the extra burden of system administrators’ tasks like maintenance and up gradations.
2. Another myth is that SaaS requires a steep learning curve, what with signing up on one's own, with no one coming to the office for a demo but actually SaaS applications are built on the assumption that the end users will be non-technical people. So they are quite user friendly and intuitive. 
3. SaaS is aggressively opposed by the in-house developers, usually because they feel threatened about their job security. Actually it just puts the developers in the new roles. They are still required in the organizations to evaluate the various SaaS available in the market, build relationships, ascertain if they are technologically sound, and have the correct security policies in place.
4. Any SaaS provider has to be on the toes all the time. SaaS applications are built to give the user a near hassle-free experience since they are judged every month. If a service fails to provide the team a positive experience, the users will stop using it and move to the next best competitor. Thus most of the times, SaaS providers extend extra helping hand in form of support, online chats and online forums to give the customers extra comfort.

Some of the examples of SaaS are Salesforce.com (www.salesforce.com), Google apps (www.google.com), Fogbugz – a bug tracking tool (www.fogbugs.com) and TimeMerlin (www.timemerlin.com) – an employee time management tool to track timesheets and projects.

Asset Management System

My Assets

The main objective of having an Asset Management system is to have updated documentation of the warranties, policies, compliance certifications and business process objectives as established by the business. Now more and more businesses need it as businesses operate on a broader, more global scale. IT assets are often purchased, implemented, and maintained by different departments in remote locations. This combined with the fact that IT infrastructures are constantly changing and evolving, makes it very difficult to keep track of IT assets and their current status.

Some of the benefits of using Asset management in TimeMerlin is that the organizations can achieve complete visibility into their technology, gaining an in-depth understanding of what systems and equipments exist, where components reside, how they are used and how they affect core business tasks and activities. Armed with this information, organizations can improve infrastructure efficiency and performance, and minimize related overhead expenses. The best part is that it allows the organizations to have Simplified IT inventory management and auditing.
As companies expand their operations globally, their servers, networks, business applications, desktops, and other components are often scattered across numerous locations around the world. This makes keeping track of technology assets quite difficult. Compounding the problem is the fact that many companies control their technology inventory using manual, paper-intensive processes, which drain resources and are highly prone to inaccuracies and inconsistencies.

With Asset Management module, companies can fully automate the process of monitoring and accounting for all their technology assets, allowing for enterprise wide IT audits in a matter of minutes instead of days. So, they can more efficiently and effectively – and more importantly, accurately – track and manage their IT infrastructures and related inventory, no matter where the various components reside.

Asset Management in TimeMerlin is an intergrated module that tracks all the activities right from the deployment, management and expense reporting of IT assets.

Asset management in TM has a very intuitive flow where the assets can be assigned to the employees. All the active employees/users are listed in the drop down menu and hence the selection can be made. All the assets then need to be given a unique name and identified by the asset type such as monitors, keyboards, mouse, ups, routers, firewalls, telephone handsets, modems etc. It also stores information like company location, manufacturer of the asset, serial or service no, specifications, accessories etc.




 The asset managements system has some of the predefined reports like individual users can run a report on ‘My assets’. It will give list of all the assets assigned to the users. Admins can also run the report on 'All assets' to get a detailed list of who has been assigned what. The users can also search by a specific asset or by a specific user.

Secured Chat functionality

This release marks the launch of TimeMerlin Chat—a new way for you to communicate with your co-workers in real-time. The emails have been the primary ways to communicate, but when more immediacy is necessary—for example when discussing the bug or an issue which involves lots of talks going back and forth —the emails might not be enough. Chat aims to fill this gap.

Chat bar is placed at the bottom of your browser—no installation or assembly required. From this bar you can view your list of online colleagues and open conversations with any or all of them. Unlike the Inbox, the messages are delivered and displayed to your colleague as soon as they're sent, so you should expect a response right away and without any page loading. You can collapse conversations to get them out of the way, and go offline if you don't want to use Chat at all. Chat is there when you want it, and tucked away when you don't.

Conversations are one-to-one, completely private, and only between TimeMerlin colleagues.

Some of the features of chat functionality have been listed below:

•  Chat entry is split into two lines, chat entry doesnot runs off-screen 
•  Text can be pasted into chat with ctrl+v 
•  Contents of the text entry line can be copied with ctrl+c  
•  Chat can be scrolled with the up arrow, down arrow, and END keys while inside the chat entry  
•  Text entry cursor can be moved with the left and right arrow keys

Employee Engagement

According to Scarlett Surveys, "Employee Engagement is a measureable degree of an employee's positive or negative emotional attachment to their job, colleagues and organization which profoundly influences their willingness to learn and perform at work".

It has not been very long that the organizations have started to fiddle with the word ‘employee engagement’ because Employee engagement has been found directly proportional to employee retention and also to the productivity of the organization. According to HRSurveys, People higher in levels of organizaton show higher levels of engagement because of the power vested in them to make decisions and the authority to influence the decision making process.

Some of the outcomes of employee engagement are emotional attachment, involvement, commitment and productivity. These are discussed below:

Emotional attachment

Emotional attachment of an employee with the organization has a love-love relationship with engagement. Better employee engagement creates stronger bonds of emotional attachment and vice versa i.e. strong emotional attachment invokes better employee engagement.

Involvement
The studies have indicated that more the team involvement, trainings and incentive pay schemes, more is the employee involvement which has been found to be liked with productivity. But the more important by product of the involvement at employee level is what I call ‘employee-empowerment’. Employees find themselves empowered which brings in confidence and trust.

Commitment

Studies have statistically demonstrated that engaged employees are more productive, more profitable, more customer-focused, safer, and less likely to leave their employer.

Productivity

In a study of professional service firms, the Hay Group found that offices with engaged employees were up to 43% more productive.  

But the bigger question what are the different ways or the activities to improve employee engagement? Some of the ways could be:

Attitude towards the job: The employees that have positive attitude towards their job and the organizaton, tend to stay connected with the management and play a very proactive role in the change management or disaster management processes. Thus the organizations must provide with an environment conducive to the development of positive attitude towards work.

Employee clarity of job expectations: It is very important that the employers pass very clear expectations to the employees which in turn results in better communication and positive work culture. All employees must be clear about their job expectations, department vision, success measures, priorities, hierarchy flow etc. Unclear expectations, on the other hand, give rise to resentment and negative emotions. This can be easily implemented by having a good appraisal system in place which ensures that all the employees get to know the success measures, department vision, heirarchy etc. TimeMerlin has excellent appraisal system that is so simple and easy to use and doesnot create a overhead task on any employee in the organization.

Career advancement/improvement opportunities: Generally speaking all the individuals have an instinct to grow in their career. The organizations and the management has to provide that fodder for growth constantly so that all the employees move ahead in their learning curve.
If at any point employee feels he has not landed in the right job, employers must provide the other opportunities wherever possible. Organizations should provide variety and an open environment that encourages employees.

Communication: Communication process has to be a two-way process. The management should communicate regularly with all the employees regarding growth of the organization, challenges in the industry and occasionally easy to understand company financial information. Utmost care has to be taken to process the communications in such a way that the employees are encouraged to express their positive or negative comments to the management. Constructive feedback should be put into practice and the employee who has given the feedback should be appreciated accordingly. Monthly or quarterly newsletter with employee section is a very effective tool in making the announcements and acknowledging success. Similarly blogs, forums and other discussions boards can be utilised to establish communication.

Quality of working relationships with peers, superiors, and subordinates:  Team building activities, workshops, seminars, training opportunities or even simple group coffee breaks strengthen the relations. Healthy relationships are required not between peers but also supervisors and subordinates. Good communication is the key to build healthy and fruitful relationship. Inspirational and motivational leadership also helps the employees to look up to their role models and generate lot of loyalty.

Reward to engage: As mentioned earlier the employees must be rewarded for the active engagement. Individual, team and organizational success must be celebrate and appreciated. A simple group email with a thank-you note, a handshake and a thank-you phrase at the lunch hour or coffee break also goes a long way. Long serving employees should be rewarded as per the company and HR policies.

TimeMerlin is one stop shop to all the points mentioned above. It provides a platform to make announcements, discuss employee growth and list the company expectations from the employees. Under the miscellaneous tab, the various seminars, talk-shows, or other company and project events can be listed and communicated to everyone in the team. TimeMerlin also has its secured chat functionality for internal use. This will ensure that all the employees stay connected to each other without the hassle of anyone outside the network bothering them.

What is TimeMerlin ?

Inspired by Who am I ? Something I write as a tribute to the application that we create and design – TimeMerlin!!

What is TimeMerlin ?
A precious application of employee time management…
This application is you – dear TimeMerlin.

Imagine a timecard narrating where the employee activities come from.
That application analyses, reminds and helps to decide.
This application is you – dear TimeMerlin.

The application where decision making is enhanced…
This application is you – dear TimeMerlin.

A precious application interacting through the web…
This application is you – dear TimeMerlin.

The wonderful application of employee time management, project management, appraisal management and expense management.
This application is you – dear TimeMerlin.

Happy New Year!!

Thanks for a highly productive year!! TimeMerlin team is the BEST team. Thanks to all for making it very interesting and lively.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all!!