HR Automation: The SaaS Advantage

An EmployWise™ White Paper

Introduction

From On-boarding to retention and to more complex HR issues,

managing talent is a top priority for any organization, in the current

business scenario. HR professionals are needed to move quickly,

make faster decisions, adopt strategic business approach and shorten

the learning curve as much as possible to stay ahead in business and

remain competitive. The old support tools don’t seem to help in the

‘new normal’ for HR professionals.

Today, the most comprehensive and cost effective, efficient and

organized way to manage talent is Software-as-a-Service. A platform

that delivers the software solutions online.

In addition to the ever changing business scenario, the contemporary

work place is also changing. Out of ‘100 best companies to work for’

by Fortune magazine, 82 allowed their employees to work from home

or telecommute. This is one of many trends that are gaining

momentum focusing on result based work culture. This germinates a

requirement of a system that can equip employer and employee

equally with anytime and anywhere availability.

What is Software-as-a-Service?

Software-as-a-Service is a system that provides comprehensive

software applications through a completely secure Internet

environment. Instead of purchasing software license that requires up-

front capital expenditure, in-house IT infrastructure and a lot of

maintenance, a company can choose to use the software for a

subscription fee, while the software and company data are stored by

a secure and remote host.

Gartner report, December 2008 A December 2008 survey by Gartner found that the nearly 90% of organizations are planning to maintain or increase their usage of SaaS solutions for the following reasons: 1) More cost-effective from a TCO standpoint than on-premise solutions 2) Easier and/or faster to deploy than on-premise solutions 3) Lack of IT resources necessary to implement an on-premise solution Gartner Report User Survey Analysis: Software as a Service, Enterprise Application Markets, Worldwide, 2008, December 2008

Companies earlier using traditional in-house tools for their HR Automation cite tremendous benefits

when moving into SaaS deliver model:

Better features and functionalities

Better customer support and after sales service

Convenience and 24 by7 access

No headache of upgrades, management and maintenance

Multi tenancy keeps the costs low

Cost effectiveness

Secure data and confidentiality

What do you get, when you get SaaS?

There are benefits and advantages in being a SaaS-y. As a service, you get commitments from the

service provider to deliver new features and capabilities,

up-time, data storage, bandwidth, great and ongoing

support, regular upgrades, and a wide variety of

configuration and options.

The SaaS service provider also equips clients with the

ability to connect the system to other systems (through

a rich set of programming interfaces), the ability to

customize the work structure, branding, and the ability

to develop a comprehensive and periodic reports. Not

only that but, instead of procuring the software and

running it in your own IT infrastructure, you are now

part of a community of customers using the software.

True SaaS vendor helps you connect to this community

online, by accessing support, peer groups and shared

content.

IDC states the percentage of U.S. firms which plan to spend at least 25% of their IT budgets on SaaS applications will increase from 23% in 2008 to nearly 45% in 2010. IDC Study- Economic Crisis Response: Worldwide Software as a Service Forecast Update (November 2008)

The Economics of SaaS Pricing

In the area of Human Resource Automation, you can begin with a system that does simple performance

appraisals, for example, and then upgrade to more complex succession management features in coming

years.

While the SaaS model has these flexible

pricing options, it also brings the challenge

of a "continuous recurring cost" to put

into your budget schedule. Licensed

software purchases can be budgeted as

"capital" for purchase and

implementation, and then "annual

expense" for maintenance. Most

companies prefer to capitalize their assets

- it allows them to spread their expenses

over longer periods of time and improve

their reported operating income. SaaS

software does not allow this flexibility: the

monthly fees start on day one and they go

on forever.

Why is SaaS the Real Deal?

A SaaS distribution model can be a cost effective

option for an organizations looking at avoiding Hugh

upfront investments in purchasing of a license. Since

a SaaS model is always hosted, organizations can

avoid adding servers, powering servers or setting

aside space for them in a data center by utilizing a

web-based system that users can access through a

browser. Since the vendor supports the solution, the

organization may not need staff dedicated to dealing

with help-desk related issues.

Is SaaS the right choice for you?

Rather than purchasing a certain number of users or capacity, the SaaS model allows an organization to add new licenses as needed.

This option provides the choice to start small and expand later, steadily increasing the number of users and the associated costs as their organizational needs expand.

As SaaS software is deployed over the web, the IT department may be much less involved which will result in lower costs.

Why is Not All SaaS, a REAL SaaS?

Due to SaaS gaining momentum rapidly, everyone including who don’t have the SaaS capability are

trying to jump in to make quick bucks.

But not all SaaS is SaaS, here’s why:

It’s not Hosting and Subscription that gets you to be a real SaaS

SaaS software runs on the provider's premises, not the customer's servers, and payment is by

subscription spread over the term of the contract rather than as an upfront license fee.

There are key advantages that flow from these, mostly to do with amortizing the cost of acquiring,

implementing and operating the software. Costs are shared across more than one customer, yielding

economies of scale.

Multi Tenancy: The game changer

Multi-tenancy refers to having all customers running on a single unit of the live software. Unfortunately,

there are number of software vendors who haven't yet reached that level yet. Most of them are holding

back from multi-tenancy because they're saddled with conventional software code that isn't architected

that way. It'll take them time and a massive re-engineering effort to switch (if they ever manage to).

There are huge benefits to be gained by the customer through true Multi-tenancy.

Quick and Easy Implementation: With multi-tenant SaaS, the software is already up and running in the vendor's data center in advance. Having the software already operational means that customers can go live in a matter of days or weeks, and they're free to phase in the roll-out to cause minimum disruption to business operations.

Just Configure, don’t customize: An important benefit or multi-tenancy is enabling policy-driven configuration of applications. Multi-tenancy obliges vendors to push greater configurability because their customers want the flexibility to modify how the applications work for them.

One version of software: SaaS providers always provide one single version of SaaS application. With single multi-tenant software all customers are automatically upgraded to the latest version instantly and automatically. All the innovations that take place in software can be used by all users and clients.

Shared Infrastructure: Multi-tenant allows multiple customers to run on the same infrastructure. Clients do not need any infrastructure to run the application. The users use the application that’s hosted and maintained by the SaaS provider. The cost of infrastructure gets shared and that benefit is also shared with the clients.

Is SaaS Scalable?

The SaaS model is as apt for 20 People Company as it is for 20,000. The reason is its ability to scape up

when there is a need. SaaS business model involves supporting a very large number of customers and

even larger number of users on a 24x7 basis anytime, anywhere. Thus a true SaaS application needs to

be architected and built such that it is capable of supporting these very large volumes.

As mentioned earlier as well that SaaS model doesn’t require any IT infrastructure and hence at the time

when there are more people who want to use application, all clients need to do is to ask service

provider to issue new subscriptions. Again, the maintenance and implementation is all taken care of by

the provider itself.

The Maturity Model of SaaS

Broadly speaking, SaaS application maturity can be expressed using a model with four distinct levels.

Each level is distinguished from the previous one by the addition of one of the three attributes; is

scalable, multi-tenant-efficient, and configurable.

Level I: Ad Hoc/Custom

At the first level of maturity, each customer

has its own customized version of the hosted

application, and runs its own instance of the

application on the host's servers.

Architecturally, software at this maturity level

is very similar to traditionally-sold line-of-

business software, in that different clients

within an organization connect to a single

instance running on the server, but that

instance is wholly independent of any other

instances or processes that the host is running

on behalf of its other customers.

Typically, traditional client–server applications can be moved to a SaaS model at the first level of

maturity, with relatively little development effort, and without re-architecting the entire system from

the ground up. Although this level offers few of the benefits of a fully mature SaaS solution, it does allow

vendors to reduce costs by consolidating server hardware and administration.

Level II: Configurable

At the second level of maturity, the vendor hosts a separate instance of the application for each

customer (or tenant). Whereas in the first level each instance is individually customized for the tenant,

at this level, all instances use the same code implementation, and the vendor meets customers' needs

by providing detailed configuration options that allow the customer to change how the application looks

and behaves to its users.

Moving to a single code base for all of a vendor's customers greatly reduces a SaaS application's service

requirements, because any changes made to the code base can be easily provided to all of the vendor's

customers at once. However, repositioning a traditional application as SaaS at the second maturity level

can require significantly more re-architecting than at the first level, if the application has been designed

for individual customization rather than configuration metadata.

Level III: Configurable, Multi-Tenant-Efficient

At the third level of maturity, the vendor runs a single instance that serves every customer, with

configurable metadata providing a unique user experience and feature set for each one.

This approach eliminates the need to provide server space for as many instances as the vendor has

customers, allowing for much more efficient use of computing resources than the second level, which

translates directly to lower costs.

Level IV: Scalable, Configurable, Multi-Tenant-Efficient

At the fourth and final level of maturity, the vendor hosts multiple customers on a load-balanced farm of

identical instances, with each customer's data kept separate, and with configurable metadata providing

a unique user experience and feature set for each customer.

A SaaS system is scalable to an arbitrarily large number of customers, because the number of servers

and instances on the back end can be increased or decreased as necessary to match demand, without

requiring additional re-architecting of the application, and changes or fixes can be rolled out to

thousands of tenants as easily as a single tenant.

Benefits to your entire Organization:

Top Level Executives/CEOs:

Convenient 24/7, anytime/anywhere self-service access Empowered through self-service and decreased reliance on HR Instant, easy-to-use, up-to-date reporting and analytics Easy, efficient administration of performance reviews Approve staff requests

HR Professionals:

Easy, efficient, comprehensive, state-of-the-art HR management under one umbrella Manage HR functions for unlimited employees across locations Instant, stress free, up-to-date reporting Saved time in answering manager and employee inquiries Monitor and assure HR compliance

Employees:

Empowered through self-service and control of personal information Instant information and updates without assistance from HR Improved company-wide communication Improved training and development tracking and planning

About EmployWise™

A Leading SaaS service provider

EmployWise™ is a multi-tenant SaaS or “cloud based” solution that provides integrated and total

employee life-cycle management capabilities that help companies support employees through every

phase of their service with the company, from recruitment to separation. EmployWise™, enables human

resource departments to be more productive by streamlining and

automating HR processes. EmployWise™ modules cover the entire

employee lifecycle and customers can pick and choose to deploy them as needed now and as they grow.

IBM Beacon Awards Winner

EmployWise™ is the Winner of 2008 Beacon Award, under Software as a Service

(SaaS) Innovation category; recognized as Outstanding IBM business partner in

innovativel y creating value for the clients.

IBM Beacon Awards recognize IBM Business Partners for outstanding delivery of

value to clients and innovative approaches to solving business issues.

EmployWise™ contested with over 725 nominations from around the worldand

was judged by the leading industry journalists, analysts, and IBM top executives.

About Global Groupware Solutions

Global Groupware Solutions Limited is committed to enabling businesses across the world develop

strategic competitive advantages through lasting relationships with their employees and customers.

It provides technology solutions that combine a deep understanding of business processes across

verticals with cutting edge information technology.

In over a decade of existence, Global Groupware Solutions has worked with small and large

organizations, spanning several industry verticals.