Robert DeSisto

This past month 20% of my customer inquiries came from CIOs and their supporting staff asking how to fix poorly negotiated SaaS contracts or respond to new business requirements for SaaS services. In many cases, the IT organization’s first exposure to SaaS is when problems occur. Rather than solve each problem as it occurs, I recommend getting in front of the SaaS Curve.

Early generations of SaaS were often implemented on an island, with little integration, configuration and customization requirements. This enabled business executives to drive the deployment of the software without involving the IT organization. SaaS is now being leveraged to handle more-complex business requirements, which requires more configuration and integration outside the domain expertise of the business administration professional. The business organization is not equipped with procurement, vendor management, and software deployment skills to support increasing complexity. Gartner’s SaaS Readiness Assessment Checklist (See Gartner Research Note – Use the SaaS Readiness Assessment Checklist Before Deploying Your SaaS Solution) will ensure that you’re in a position to manage the life cycle of a SaaS contract. The checklist focuses on specific issues such as security, disaster recovery, governance policies and vendor management protocols as they relate to SaaS. Whether you have already implemented a SaaS solution or not, the checklist will provide guidance of where you need to be as an organization to support SaaS initiatives.