SaaS: secure competitive advantages with Software as a Service

Seven benefits of SaaS solutions for SMEs  

In an ever-changing digital world, companies must constantly modernize their applications to remain competitive. However, managing an application on-premise can be a significant financial and human burden. 

The challenges facing businesses are many, including: 

• High costs: On-premise applications represent a considerable initial investment for licenses, servers and hardware 

• Obsolescence of applications: Organisations may wait too long to update their application with a new version. This is then so outdated that the existing hardware needs to be updated and also a lot of time is needed until the new version is ready for use (through development, testing, integration, and migration) 

• Adaption to the changing needs of the organisation: The addition of new key business functions requires a change of the existing application 

• Complex maintenance: Internal IT teams must devote time and resources to maintaining and updating applications and environments (production, pre-production, development, etc.) 

• Lack of agility: On-premise infrastructures can be rigid, sometimes limited by their performance and difficult to adapt to needs 

By using SaaS, IT managers no longer have to worry about such or similar problems. Here, the external partner manages the solutions and is the only point of contact for upcoming software updates. 
 

This is an overview of the most important advantages of SaaS: 

1. Relieving your IT department: companies that opt for a SaaS solution benefit from an all-round package. Configuration, maintenance, updates and licence management of the software - the partner takes care of all this. This relieves the IT department and frees up time for other important and strategic tasks within the company. 

2. Lower investment and operating costs: customers of SaaS solutions do not have to set up their own hardware infrastructure to host the software. In addition, they only pay for the actual use of the software at fixed monthly fees. They can often choose from different subscription models that best suit their actual requirements and number of users.  

3. Scalability: whilst business growth can be driven, crisis situations cannot always be foreseen. However individual situations may change, upgrades or downgrades are possible at any time. 

4. Fast deployment and rapid introduction of new software: high investment costs for the new software and the platform for it as well as a lack of capacity in the IT department no longer have to deter SMEs: by eliminating this and allowing them to get started immediately, new applications are made available much faster. 

5. Higher level of security and better data protection for sensitive information: SaaS providers ensure that the storage, processing and exchange of their customers' data between client device and server is carried out using state-of-the-art security technologies and in compliance with data protection regulations. This includes, for example, ISO 27001 certifications, end-to-end encryption or the guarantee of physical security. The latest security updates that are available are always installed automatically. Read in this infographic why security gaps due to missing software updates pose a risk, keyword "Zero Day Attack". 

6. Uninterrupted availability around the clock: providers of SaaS solutions guarantee 24/7 availability of their solutions and ensure in the background that downtimes are kept to a minimum. Data backup and recovery in the event of an emergency is automatically covered. SaaS products are therefore always ready for use and guarantee companies uninterrupted operations.  

7. Outstanding user-friendliness: Most SaaS solutions are designed to be very user-friendly and offer an excellent user experience. Users can usually get started quickly without much prior knowledge and only need short introductory sessions. This saves companies training costs and shortens the implementation time. 
    

SaaS is on the rise 

These advantages also seem to be convincing many SMEs. According to eurostat figures, 45.2% of EU companies purchased cloud computing services in 2023. There are still huge differences between company sizes though. While 77.6% of large companies purchased cloud computing in 2023, only 41.7% of small companies and 59.0% of medium-sized companies did so.  

Of these EU companies that have purchased cloud computing services, the majority (95.8%) have already purchased SaaS - relatively evenly distributed across all company sizes (small companies: 95.7%, medium-sized 95.7%, large 96.9%).  
 

Software in the cloud with Konica Minolta: More individuality and flexibility for SMEs  

Konica Minolta offers various SaaS solutions in different areas: in the print area, the Workplace Pure and SAFEQ Cloud solutions are among the leading solutions; in the information management and collaboration area, these are Microsoft 365 and M-Files; in the business processes area, Microsoft Dynamics 365; and in the analytics and intelligence area, Power Platform. 

Even though Konica Minolta has a strong and broad base here, it still takes into account the individual situations of SMEs with holistic and customised concepts. The journey there begins with a thorough analysis of its customers' processes and requirements. 

"Ultimately, our goal is for our customers to see the Cloud Software solutions we offer as an integral part of their own IT. We want to provide these services seamlessly and intuitively for customers so that they have their IT under control without having to worry about operational processes," emphasises Morgan Leucat, Director ITS Sales at Konica Minolta Business Solutions Europe GmbH. “The freed-up resources can then be used by IT teams to focus on strategic initiatives and improve overall operational efficiency."