Friday, April 8, 2011

Are Hosted and SaaS Delivery Models the Answer to Doing More with Less? (Strategic Focus)


Are Hosted and SaaS Delivery Models the Answer to Doing More with Less? (Strategic Focus)

As the higher education market prepares for a period of unprecedented change, institutions will increasingly seek new ways to do more with less. Historically, institutions has been reluctant to adopt alternative delivery models for technology, but many will begin to view them as a valuable strategy for adding sophisticated technology solutions while holding IT budgets relatively constant.
Source: SaaS Market
Buy Now : Market Research
Scope
  • Identifies the key forces driving and impeding the adoption of SaaS and other alternative delivery models
  • Offers insight into how IT vendors can improve their service delivery models
  • Analyzes the crucial issues that will affect the decision to either adopt an on-premise model or outsource to a third party
  • Explores the competitive landscape for higher education vendors that offer alternative delivery models
Highlights
A growing number of institutions have come to realize that providing IT services is not their core competency. Using alternative delivery models or outsourcing specific IT functions to a third-party vendor will offer a slew of benefits to institutions and will be well-received in the higher education market.
The success of individual vendors with exploiting alternative delivery models will depend largely on their ability to offer the right IT solutions and services to alleviate the appropriate pain points. Therefore, vendors need to be aware of which functions are most likely to be outsourced and which are likely to be kept on-premise.
As more and more applications are made available through SaaS and institutions become accustomed with this technology, SaaS will become more mainstream in the higher education market. However, until institutions are ready to make that leap to use SaaS for mission-critical systems, SaaS will not be ubiquitous in this industry.
Reasons to Purchase
  • Validate your market messaging and positioning in the education market
  • Gain insight into which delivery model works best within the higher education market
  • Understand what drives institutions to adopt a SaaS delivery model
Summary 1
Key Messages 2
It’s time for institutions to get back to doing what they do best 2
A multitude of factors will increase the uptake of alternative delivery models 2
Vendors are in varying stages in providing alternative delivery models to higher education 3
Although SaaS is becoming mainstream, it will never be ubiquitous 3
Table of Contents 4
Table of figures 4
Market Opportunity 5
It’s time for institutions to get back to doing what they do best – education and research 5
Alternative delivery models – what do they really mean? 6
On-premise versus outsourced and on-demand options 7
A multitude of factors cause institutions to revisit the alternative delivery model options 9
Technology is complex and institutions can no longer provide the human resources to manage it 10
Round-the-clock reliability and performance are an expectation rather than a luxury 10
Disaster recovery readiness has persuaded many institutions to switch to SaaS 11
Alternative delivery models provide a lower cost of ownership 11
SaaS-based applications offer up-to-date software and increased functionality 12
Alternative delivery models are not perfect for everyone 13
Institutions have concerns about security and the access to sensitive student data by third parties 14
Leave IT security to the technology experts; it’s their job 14
Large investments have already been made towards on-premise delivery models 14
Institutions do not want to give up control over mission-critical solutions 15
Institutions link early cumbersome and costly ASP models to SaaS 15
Institutions, meet ASP’s younger, hipper cousin, SaaS 15
Technology Evolution 16
Institutional characteristics have little impact on the adoption of alternative delivery models 17
In higher education, mission-critical and SaaS are like oil and vinegar 18
SIS will not likely be a SaaS offering any time soon 19
Just because SaaS is out, it doesn’t mean that other alternative delivery models are off the agenda 19
LMS and lecture capture solutions are getting mixed reviews for SaaS 20
CRM and SaaS fit well together 20
A content explosion institutions is driving the adoption of alternative delivery models 21
Email management is a burden on higher education 21
Competitive Landscape 23
Vendors are in varying stages in providing alternative delivery models to higher education 23
ERP vendors are supporters of alternative delivery models, but the market is not ready…yet 23
Datatel 24
Jenzabar 24
SunGard Higher Education 25
When it comes to SaaS, the market is mixed for LMS and lecture capture solutions 25
ANGEL Learning 26
Blackboard 26
eCollege 27
Sonic Foundry 27
Tegrity 28
The higher education market embraces CRM solutions delivered as a SaaS model 28
Intelliworks 28
RightNow Technologies 29
Content management providers are extremely advanced in their SaaS delivery options 29
Google 30
Hyland Software 31
Microsoft 31
Although SaaS is becoming more mainstream, it will never be ubiquitous 32
Go to Market 33
Provide a migration path for SaaS adoption 33
Educate institutions on the benefits of SaaS and other alternative delivery models 33
Invest in developing a solution that is fundamental to higher education 34
Offer innovative industry-sensitive pricing models 34
APPENDIX 35
Abbreviations 35
Methodology 35
Further reading 36
Ask the analyst 36
Datamonitor consulting 36
Disclaimer 36
List of Figures
Figure 1: Institutions are increasingly outsourcing its IT functions, most commonly enterprise applications 6
Figure 2: Summary of various software delivery models 9
Figure 3: Advantages of the SaaS and on-demand delivery model 13
Figure 4: Higher education is changing its opinion of hosting and SaaS services 16
Figure 5: The likelihood that an enterprise application will be offered through a SaaS model 17
Figure 6: There is little relationship between an institution’s characteristics and what tasks it outsources 18

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