Assessments for Start-ups and On-premise Software Companies
“Don’t move to cloud computing without a complete assessment of the ‘as is’ and the ‘to be.”
David Linthicum,
Founder Blue Mountain Labs
The assessment phase evaluates the current business and analyzes the opportunities and challenges to becoming a successful SaaS business.
The SaaS assessment is based on the emphasis desired by the client and their type of business. This may range from a comprehensive analysis to an assessment of a specific operational area. For example, the assessment may be directed solely at just the technology challenges of moving to SaaS, or the channel opportunities and challenges in transitioning to SaaS.
Assessment Methodology
In a comprehensive assessment the current business model and historical financial results are analyzed, and the market is examined from the perspective of both the on-premise and SaaS offerings, to evaluate the current “As-Is” norm. The opportunity of a new SaaS offering by the company as well as the risk of maintaining an only on-premise strategy is evaluated.
A SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats) analysis of the current business is developed to provide guidance for the company with and without a SaaS strategy. The assessment may recommend a phased strategy (an initially hosted solution to provide SaaS-like capabilities), a hybrid SaaS strategy (providing new modules with a SaaS delivery model incremental to current capabilities) or a full adoption of SaaS delivery models for some or all modules may be appropriate.
The assessment can also provide an indication of the market risks that may occur by not adopting a SaaS strategy. Finally, a high level business proposition is provided for moving to a SaaS model, be it a transition to a full SaaS or Hybrid SaaS/On-premise model with crucial KPIs and next steps identified.
Finally, the company resource changes to adopt a SaaS strategy can be explored from the capabilities of the current team to adopt a SaaS strategy, the training for the company’s existing personnel to make the transition, and the recommendation of where additional skill sets may be required.
