What are the benefits of a SaaS integrator for SMEs?
IT challenges: Why use a SaaS integrator in the age of self-service? Here's my answer, using the example of SMEs with Office 365 vs Google Apps and Dynamics NAV vs Odoo (ex OpenERP).
A SaaS integrator optimizes the configuration of Office 365 for your needs
Office 365 is a powerful, powerful solution. But end-users who want to deploy it themselves forget that the promise of SaaS is simplification, not simplicity.
"Many of our customers want to migrate all their digital assets to Microsoft Azure Cloud tools. We naturally recommend that they go through our company, which specializes in Microsoft technologies. Some follow us directly. Others prefer to try for themselves. The reality is that the latter quickly come back to us because, even in the age of SaaS, you can't migrate Exchange and NAS with a simple snap of the finger."
With this customer feedback in mind, Emmanuel Kerhoz, Cloud Architect at Valor Conseil (Microsoft Partner), explains that Office 365 deployment must take into account a number of points of vigilance if it is to be carried out properly. For example, to date, the migration of files named with special character sets must be carried out using scripts. Another example is the need to set up OneDrive correctly to ensure versioning of recently migrated files; otherwise, you're sure to be disappointed. And there are many other examples, such as recovering write/read rights internally, or securing and monitoring access rights externally.
Emmanuel Kerhoz concludes very clearly: "Microsoft's Cloud solutions are easy to get started with, but if they don't take your needs into account, you'll have to do it all over again. Experience of solutions and technical environments, combined with consideration of your constraints, means that SaaS integrators specializing in Office 365 can ultimately save SMEs a great deal of time, while optimizing their usage. Let's hear it...
A SaaS integrator develops add-on modules for Google Apps
It would be a disservice to our comparison of Office vs. Google Apps (vs. Zimbra) to present the advantages of using a Microsoft integrator without presenting those of a Google integrator!
Google Apps remains a UFO in the SaaS landscape, because to my knowledge it's one of the only solutions that really offers simplicity, given that its functional proposition is sufficient for a large number of SMEs. And that's without taking into account the multitude of add-on modules, both free and paid, all based on the solution's dozen or so APIs.
But a CIO or Sales Director will tend not to seek to make this solution interoperable with the existing information system, forgetting the services and added value of a Google Apps SaaS integrator...
"Today, there are a large number of APIs that make it possible to integrate Google Apps with CRMs. Google's APIs are naturally very open to specific developments for each business need. In recent months, we've developed a number of technological feats with Google Apps add-on modules. Display information from your IS in Google Apps? No problem. Bringing data from Google Apps into your BI tools? Of course, we'll set up or develop the connectors to do just that.
In the world of Google Apps, anything is feasible for a small or medium-sized business," explains Laurent Jacquet, General Manager at Business Cloud. Demonstrating the nature of feasible connections, I'm still amazed at the extent to which Google Apps' capabilities are underestimated...
A SaaS integrator takes your business issues into account with Odoo
Florent Thomas, Managing Director of Mind & Go, is a little surprised by my question "Why should an SME still go through an integrator in the age of SaaS? "It's the integrator's proximity and understanding of business issues that makes the difference. Odoo (formerly OpenERP, editor's note) is an open-source software company, which carries out all its R&D on the framework, while remaining naturally far removed from the realities of the field. Odoo support is excellent, but cannot understand the customer's process behind the scenes. It's up to our functional consultants, our team, to do this work."
Florent Thomas goes on to explain a whole series of concrete implementations that are not possible via self-service on the Odoo website: "So, naturally, if you're a very small business starting out with a classic business and no IT infrastructure, you can do without us. However, if you need to set up a VPN to connect to your local LDAP... If you need specific developments on a community module directly on our servers or your servers... If you need to communicate with other systems... Then you won't be able to go through the publisher's site, and the SaaS integrator becomes essential."
After this introduction, I understand all the specifics of Mind & Go: vertical expertise from infrastructure, to virtualization and deployment, with the implementation of various management solutions (such as Odoo) derived from open source software, whose value is to freely free oneself from the limits imposed by traditional proprietary software. According to Florent Thomas, SaaS has the advantage of being a standard that salespeople push; but to be satisfied with it from a certain size of SME, with processes that become more specialized, would be a mistake because the tool must adapt to your methods and not the other way round...
A SaaS integrator verticalizes Microsoft Dynamics NAV for your distribution business
Microsoft Dynamics NAV is the world's best-selling ERP. There's a good reason for this: like all good Microsoft products, its parameterization and specification options enable it to meet the needs of all business sectors.
"Above all, we recruit business school graduates, former CFOs and industrial managers, who think in terms of the "Enterprise", to support change. Our business is above all consulting and business processes for CPGs (Consumer Product Goods, editor's note), because what interests our customers is our business know-how. Being a SaaS integrator, in our case, means above all providing expert advice on implementation, not on development, even if this is always necessary in part.
Franck Le Strat, General Manager at Isatech, explains that SaaS is a business gas pedal when deployed by a company specializing in a specific sector. And that, contrary to popular belief, the same volume of services is always involved with major accounts. Above all, SaaS offers flexibility and scalability. This is not the case with SMEs with less than 50-100 employees, where there can be very little integration and specific development.
It was on the basis of this acquisition of field expertise in Dynamics NAV in SaaS and PaaS mode that Isatech developed Isacomerce: a verticalized solution for the distribution of goods in general and e-commerce in particular. Just goes to show that a SaaS integrator can completely repackage a vendor's solution to optimize it for your Internet sales strategy, with virtually no on-site intervention. That's the magic of SaaS.
Article translated from French