How Software-as-a-Service Helps Enterprises

IBM (NYSE: IBM) says nearly half of the businesses using Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) are achieving competitive advantage, rather than simply reducing costs.

Leading enterprises—those gaining competitive advantage through broad SaaS adoption—are collaborating more effectively through social business tools, improving the customer experience, and accelerating time to market through their SaaS initiatives.

These are the findings of a recent survey conducted with more than 800 IT and business decision makers worldwide by the IBM Center for Applied Insights. The findings were released Tuesday, Jan. 28.

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IBM says global spending on SaaS is expected to reach $45.6B by 2017, according to industry estimates. SaaS is often used by line-of-business leaders who are looking to deploy technology to rapidly provide their teams with needed functionality, increase productivity and address new market opportunities.

In fact, according to IBM, industry analysts estimate that by 2017, CMOs will spend more on IT than CIOs, while Forrester reports that 65 percent of business leaders have plans to buy technology for their group without involving IT at all.

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The study confirms that SaaS is delivering on a wide array of benefits, on top of lowering total cost of ownership, and shows that organizations that strategically and collaboratively deploy SaaS are able to execute on programs that drive business growth better than their peers who lag with SaaS deployments.