{"id":10089,"date":"2022-03-10T10:50:39","date_gmt":"2022-03-10T18:50:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.qad.com\/blog\/?p=10089"},"modified":"2022-03-10T10:52:22","modified_gmt":"2022-03-10T18:52:22","slug":"saas-diffusion-and-the-improvement-of-business-capabilities","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.qad.com\/blog\/2022\/03\/saas-diffusion-and-the-improvement-of-business-capabilities","title":{"rendered":"SaaS Diffusion and the Improvement of Business Capabilities"},"content":{"rendered":"

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”10090″ img_size=”full”][vc_column_text]Have you jumped into the deep end of <\/span>SaaS<\/span><\/a> yet? Maybe you\u2019re saying, I\u2019m in up to my ankles now, that\u2019s far enough, I\u2019ll get the agility benefits we talked about last time and call it a day. Well, the same research that identified links between SaaS diffusion and agility, also identified a relationship between SaaS diffusion and the improvement of firm capabilities, like organizational learning and focusing on your core competencies. Get your wetsuit ready, you\u2019re going to want to jump in headfirst!\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Learn from Your SaaS Deployment<\/span><\/h2>\n

Prior to this recent research, there were academic discussions surrounding the idea that if firms <\/span>adopted SaaS<\/span><\/a>, organizational capabilities and learning would be lost. The thinking was that when applications are developed in house, the organization learns a great deal about the business. Which is true. Anytime we analyze how the business runs, examine processes that might need to be updated and compare your practices to best practices, we learn. Of course we learn. But do you need to develop your own application to learn or might you learn more from deploying a SaaS application? Our research showed that capabilities significantly improved as more and more SaaS applications were diffused. The more SaaS we use the more we learn about our organization. But why?<\/span><\/p>\n

To answer this question, we start with the question of core competency. What is your business? Do you manufacture something? Are you a publisher? Do you provide services like flying people around the world, or building office buildings? Why do people do business with you vs your competitor? Do you have a unique, competitive advantage? If so, it might be worthwhile to develop an application that supports that unique competitive advantage. It might be a good idea to explore how to improve it so that you can maintain your leadership position. But if the area of the business that you are thinking about improving in house is not your core, you are better off deploying a SaaS application, period. SaaS applications have tons of industry-specific, world class features that your business can immediately start using. There is functionality that has been developed by looking at best in class processes, by understanding new industry requirements, etc. In short, SaaS applications provide a platform to start understanding important aspects of your business immediately.<\/span><\/p>\n

SaaS Survey: Business Capabilities<\/span><\/h2>\n

The capabilities questions in our recent SaaS survey were presented to 554 respondents and were measured with a Likert scale – 1 (strongly agree) to 5 (strongly disagree):<\/span><\/p>\n