Is SaaS BI really catching on?

I’ve seen over the past three years a transformation and adoption of customers moving to SaaS BI offerings (like Business Objects OnDemand). Why is this happening? There are really three reasons why customers are adopting SaaS BI: better collaboration amongst companies, faster time to deploy BI, and lower up front costs.

Better Collaboration amongst companies: I’ve seen a new breed of customers who want to share content with their customers and their partners. In traditional BI, IT manages their BI systems, but when it comes to sharing content outside the organization, IT finds it difficult to allow for external collaboration. SaaS BI provides the ability to share content securely both internally and externally and allow users to collaborate quickly about their information.

Faster time to deploy: As I’ve worked with various OnDemand customers, they all want to immediately deploy BI to meet the demands of their business so they can make better decisions. If they can’t access their data or BI, customers can’t forecast and make timely decisions. That’s why Business Objects OnDemand provides the ability for businesses to quickly deploy BI without having to wait for a BI infrastructure to be implemented.

Lower up front costs: In addition to faster time to deploy, SaaS BI provides a subscription cost basis which provides lower up front costs to an organization. You can subscribe on a year term basis and determine the number of users you’ll need. Subscriptions can be handled as an expense in an organization whereas investing in an internal BI system, hardware and software becomes a capital investment and requires a corporate IT budget.

Is SaaS BI really catching on? You bet it is. Here is a link to one of our customers Rapid Advance who leverages our Business Objects OnDemand solution for their partners and customers. For more information on Business Objects SaaS BI, go to http://www.ondemand.com/.