When to let someone else host your software.

There are an ever increasing number of hosted / online / SaaS applications available to business and it can be difficult to decide if that is the right route to take.

In short - most businesses have the choice of whether to host a business application themselves or to let someone else take the hassle of managing the server(s). If the choice is to let someone else host it, there is often a further choice - buy the license or pay on demand (eg per use or transaction etc).

As you would expect, the vendors will have a convincing argument in favour of their chosen route. Salesforce.com say hosted on demand is the route, SAP will say never, host it yourself. Some vendors will offer you the same product by two methods - Sage CRM (license and self hosted) vs SageCRM.com (ondemand).

Ondemand is tempting

• no up front costs
• no server costs
• usually easy exit route
• regular monthly payments
• BUT can be expensive over a longer term

The only way for a business to decide which approach to use, is by asking some common sense questions -

• How much will we rely on the system?
• Is it a long term investment in systems?
• Will it be business critical?
• How much do we have to spend?
• Can the company afford the capex?
• What options are available for the type of application we need?
• What capacity do we have on our servers?
• Does the company have the skills required to manage the application?
• Do we have the bandwidth to access the application?
• What level of support do we need?

There are a ton of other relevant questions but answering the above should give a good idea of the direction to take. And have this little Q&A session before you get too tempted by the salesman.

Hint: Talk to the consultants that implement the applications - they are more likely give you the true story and advise on the right approach for you. Beware though - if the consultant doesn't have a broad and unbiased knowledge they might send you to a favourite. Ever asked an Apple fan what they think of anything Microsoft!

Time to consider web based HR systems?

In general, businesses have been slow to take advantage of fully web enabled HR systems.

There seem to be a number of reasons for this:

• fear of loss of control of data
• concerns over security of data over the Internet
• and maybe the most important, the HR software industry hasn't provided really excellent systems!
  

Thankfully there is a good response to all of the above concerns and take up is increasing. There are significant benefits that web-based solutions offer over and above traditional systems

Top of the list of benefits when moving to a web system is that it allows HR processes to be deployed to all the appropriate members of the workforce wherever they are. Add to this the fact that the best systems allow users to configure and manage these processes from end to end. If access to processes is provided on a community basis there are huge time savings available. Managers will need to access a different range of processes (eg manage sickness) to their employees (eg book a holiday). And, of course, the HR department and key business managers will need access to a wide range of information across all areas of the business. When the ability to deploy and action HR processes to and from any location is combined with community based access, the result is like having an HR manager at every desk. Furthermore, with the demands on businesses to adapt to and support more flexible working practices continually growing, this remote access is crucial in enabling a mobile workforce.

At long last we are starting to see HR departments get the budgets and therefore the systems they deserve.

Putting HR back in control of their systems

It is critical that HR systems put HR and the business back in control of their own processes. In my view, this must begin with a revision of the idea of configurability. The big enterprise sofrware vendors (PeopleSoft, Oracle, SAP etc) have made users scared of configuration - expensive, time consuming and rarely delivers on promise! Many HR systems will claim to be configurable. In reality, this means that they can be customised by developers who will build new code to define and support each nonpackaged process. This is a lengthy and prohibitively expensive process.

The latest generation of HR systems are succeeding in putting the business back in control. They allow processes to be easily configured by business users, and deployed in real time. If business users can easily map each common process, such as absence, holiday requests, appraisals, new contract offers, etc on to a configurable system, and then roll them out across the organisation immediately, the benefits that will result are far reaching. This should not be timeconsuming or expenseve and must deliver quick returns.

HR systems must free up HR to focus on strategic activities by significantly reducing the burden of repetitive administration without compromising on the business’ flexibility. Business users should be able to build in their own escalation and notification rules, meaning the system can manage data proactively to help informed and on-time decision making.

To read more about this topic you might want to visit my library page.