Many research firms have predicted that the worldwide economic recession is responsible for the global increase in the software-as-a-service (SaaS) market revenue. According to a recent Gartner report, SaaS is forecast to have a 17.7% compound annual growth rate through 2013 for the aggregate enterprise application markets, representing a compound annual growth rate of almost five times the total application market of 3.6%. While cost is always a factor in decision-making, the increasing uptake of SaaS in the pharmaceutical industry is all about flexibility, our experts say. Currently, sales and marketing is the most common vertical to employ SaaS, but as more applications mature, the industry will expand its use of SaaS to more areas, such as human resources, call centers, supply chain, compliance, and clinical applications. According to Forrester Research, overall SaaS is experiencing growth in up to 13 areas, including archiving and e-discovery, business intelligence, collaboration, CRM, digital asset… Sidebar: SaaS Knockoffs: Seven Ways to Spot a Fake SaaS is Not a One-Size-Fits-All Solution THOUGHT LEADERS Ken Arbadji. VP, StayinFront, a global provider of CRM and decision-support solutions. For more information, visit ­stayinfront.com. Leila Daiuto. Sales Director, Axentis, a part of ARC Logics, a Wolters Kluwer ­business, which provides governance, risk, and ­compliance management software. For more information, visit axentis.com. Jamie Duke. Chief Operating Officer, SciQuest Inc., which provides global ­procurement automation and supplier enablement solutions. For more ­information, visit sciquest.com. Dominic John. Director of Software ­Marketing, Symyx Technologies Inc., a provider of software solutions for the ­electronic laboratory environment that ­transform scientific R&D. For more ­information, visit symyx.com. DeWayne Manning, R.Ph. President, DiseaseTrak, a specialty healthcare ­services company that creates and ­manages patient management solutions. For more information, visit diseasetrak.com. Ken Parmelee. Director of Application Development, Antenna Software, which enables organizations to design, build, deploy, and manage secure mobile ­applications. For more information, visit antennasoftware.com. Jo Ann Saitta. Senior VP, PDI Inc., which ­provides commercialization services for ­established and emerging ­biopharmaceutical companies. For more ­information, visit pdi-inc.com. Nagaraja Srivatsan. VP and Head of Life Sciences, North America, Cognizant, which offers IT, consulting, analytics, and business process outsourcing services to global pharma, biotech, and medical-device companies. For more ­information, visit cognizant.com. Matt Wallach. Executive VP and General Manager, Veeva Systems, which develops SaaS applications for the global life-sciences ­industry. For more information, visit ­veevasystems.com. Steve Webb. Chairman, Interactive Medica, which supplies SaaS applications to the life-sciences industry. For more information, visit interactivemedica.com. Mike Wexler. Founding Principal, Biltmore Technologies Inc., which offers SaaS business intelligence solutions and technology ­consulting to sales and marketing divisions of pharmaceutical and biotech companies. For more information, visit biltmoretech.com or e-mail [email protected]. any research firms have predicted that the worldwide economic recession is responsible for the global increase in the software-as-a-service (SaaS) market revenue. According to a recent Gartner report, SaaS is forecast to have a 17.7% compound annual growth rate through 2013 for the aggregate enterprise application markets, representing a compound annual growth rate of almost five times the total application market of 3.6%. While cost is always a factor in decision-making, the increasing uptake of SaaS in the pharmaceutical industry is all about flexibility, our experts say. Currently, sales and marketing is the most common vertical to employ SaaS, but as more applications mature, the industry will expand its use of SaaS to more areas, such as human resources, call centers, supply chain, compliance, and clinical applications. According to Forrester Research, overall SaaS is experiencing growth in up to 13 areas, including archiving and e-discovery, business intelligence, collaboration, CRM, digital asset management, enterprise content management, enterprise resource planning, human resources, integration IT management, online backup, supply chain management, Web content management, and Web conferencing. Adoption and Uptake According to industry sources, SaaS is not yet pervasive in the life sciences, but its growth is on the rise. Our experts discuss the growing adoption of SaaS in the industry and offer their predictions for future applications. Arbadji. StayInFront. Between 60% and 75% of new prospects we speak with express an interest in a SaaS-based model. There are varying reasons for their interest. It should also be noted that organizations, and even individuals at organizations, may define SaaS differently. For instance, for some, an outsourced system that can be supported in a cloud computing environment is the goal. For others, it’s the ability to more rapidly deploy a proven system that improves workflow and users’ ability to do their jobs. The monthly payment model with reduced, up-front costs is also appealing. But it all boils down to efficiencies. Companies today are looking to provide their employees with the tools they need to improve their effectiveness in terms of both time and money. Daiuto. Axentis. We estimate SaaS will increase 20% in 2010 as more pharmaceutical companies recognize the need to decrease internal IT costs and increase compliance with international, federal, and state regulations. Compliance has become an ideal area for SaaS because of the high level of scrutiny by the U.S. government, the constantly changing laws and regulations, and the associated immediate response that’s often required and expected. Another hot issue in pharma is managing risks in the extended enterprise — suppliers, contractors, and vendors. The SaaS model supports third-party risk management by providing an application to external users outside of the company’s firewall. Duke. SciQuest. In many ways, SaaS is tailor-made for the pharmaceutical industry, where most organizations operate numerous facilities in different geographies and rely on the ability to quickly and efficiently share information. SaaS provides a distinct advantage in any functional area or activity where the company does not have a core competency or outsourcing the expertise required is more cost-effective than investing the IT dollars to develop or maintain an in-house solution. In the short term, there will be accelerated adoption in areas where SaaS providers can demonstrate that their offerings deliver the same or better reliability and security than traditionally deployed software. Any type of project or CRM activity is usually the first on the list. Other areas such as R&D are beginning to take advantage of SaaS solutions to a greater degree and SaaS-based procurement solutions are already considered the standard in the upper echelon of the industry. The proven ability of SaaS in these disciplines will only accelerate the adoption of on-demand applications in other areas, particularly as the pharmaceutical industry seeks to more effectively capitalize on its core strengths. John. Symyx. Typically, the pharma industry is slow to adopt and move to the latest informatics systems; however, current economic pressures and trends are forcing companies to reduce and control informatics spending, as well as support distributed partners and outsourced capabilities. Research data commissioned by Symyx indicates that 20% of scientists today would consider using a SaaS environment for their ELN; 51% were not sure, but in theory could be convinced; and 29% said they would not consider a SaaS environment. Pharma has started to accept SaaS applications — our research found 28% of scientists already used some form of SaaS application — and we can expect rapid growth with early adopters. Growth within pharma is expected to mimic that of well-known SaaS companies, such as Salesforce.com, whose growth rates have ranged from 20% to 35% CAGR over several years. Parmelee. Antenna Software. We expect an increase on the order of 30% in 2010 for secure SaaS and cloud-hosted services for the pharmaceutical industry. With the economic pressures pharma companies are dealing with, they are all aggressively pushing toward external services. Saitta. PDI. Based on the number of inquiries I get from colleagues and other companies seeking information about SaaS, I expect growth will be significant in 2010. If I were a betting woman, I would say the use of SaaS in pharma will double. There will be growth in the sales and marketing area for sure, because the SaaS solutions for those functions are the most mature right now. Srivatsan. Cognizant. SaaS as a model is clearly on the uptake in the life-sciences commercial operations area. In commercial operations every business process area is being evaluated to determine if it can be delivered as a SaaS model. The process areas covered are salesforce automation, CRM, incentive compensation, alignment, sales reporting, etc. Wallach. Veeva Systems. The use of SaaS in the pharma business is not purely being driven by the pressure to cut costs. This is only one reason why SaaS is becoming the dominant technology delivery method for the industry. In addition to allowing life-sciences companies to cut IT costs, SaaS delivers the flexibility, usability, and speed that the industry requires as its business requirements change rapidly. If the current trends continue at the same rate, SaaS will be pervasive across the pharma landscape this year, specifically in the areas of salesforce automation and CRM. In the United States in 2009, more than 95% of all newly deployed SFA/CRM programs were users of a SaaS system. Part of what is driving adoption of SaaS within CRM is the presence of pharma-focused SaaS providers. Outside of CRM, there are very few vertically focused providers of SaaS solutions. Webb. Interactive Medica. At the moment, the situation of cost is not the biggest issue driving the trend in pharma; it’s the need to adjust a company’s business to align with the particular customers it is serving. Cost comes into the decision-making process, but almost certainly the incentive stems much more from the ability to rapidly change the technology configuration. The SaaS model enables a much easier and more rapid adjustment and enhancement environment for companies. This works well particularly for marketing and sales, worlds that are all about constant change and the need to change to respond to opportunities. We find that the marketing and CRM areas are adopting SaaS more rapidly than any other areas. A traditional client server-based application struggles to support the new, complex, selling environment. Most clients are having a difficult time trying to keep their current application up to speed so that it will enable them to support these new business processes. SaaS models today seem to match more what companies are seeking now and in the foreseeable future. Actually, we believe there is no area in the pharma business that would not benefit in some shape or form from the SaaS model, except maybe manufacturing. Manufacturing is about consistency, not change. The next wave of uptake in pharma will be the medical marketing area, where the ability to have a joined-up business process in a collaborative environment means that companies with medical information needs —physicians and patients — can share data. The true benefit of SaaS is that there is no real barrier to sharing applications across departments. Savings, Savings, Savings, and Other Benefits There is no doubt that a company can save money by using a SaaS model for some areas of its business — up to 75% on some processes. Our experts add that the industry should also consider the other potential benefits, such as efficiency. Wexler. Biltmore. A SaaS sales and marketing data warehousing/reporting solution shows short- and long-term dividends, including low-implementation risk, a short implementation timeline, robust functionality, and a zero-footprint solution. In other words, the client does not need to develop or support the application, or maintain hardware, software, or a data center. Furthermore, our analyses on SaaS sales and marketing data warehousing and reporting solutions show a 74% savings in the total cost of ownership. Daiuto. Axentis. Companies can save hundreds of thousands of dollars in hardware, software, development, maintenance, upgrades, and support by outsourcing a key function or process to a SaaS software provider. By eliminating the maintenance of homegrown point solutions and moving to enterprise SaaS applications that are highly configurable, efficiencies are easily realized. Time to implement is often significantly quicker with the SaaS model, since the applications are already developed, tested, and running in a production environment. There is a cost-savings associated with this time savings that the business and IT both get to realize. Saitta. PDI. In my experience, up to 50% of the costs associated with licensing maintenances fees and hosting can be saved, which is a very significant savings. Most SaaS models are subscription-based models, so rather than committing to three years of a specific platform or hardware that the company owns, the subscription allows the user to pay month by month or year by year. Wallach. Veeva Systems. In our experience, life-sciences companies can save 10% to 50% of their annual ongoing costs by moving to a mature SaaS platform. The savings in system upgrades and patch deployments alone can be in the millions of dollars. Arbadji. StayInFront. There are many pieces to the SaaS approach and in each one of these areas there is an opportunity to benefit from efficiencies. Starting with the back-end infrastructure, vendors providing SaaS models will include the required infrastructure, backup, and security with the ability to scale easily. Since the infrastructure is typically included in the SaaS model, organizations not only save on server hardware, but on power, head count, and physical space. Minimizing implementation costs, as well as configuration settings that allow changes in data that eliminate the need for custom code, could be considered a best practice in the industry. Systems can come pre-validated with many of the steps and documentation required to execute a validation included in the core package. This can also mean that the system can be delivered more rapidly, allowing companies to gain the benefits of the new system sooner. This approach also reduces the support issues that can take users out of the field and allows vendors to include automatic upgrades so that organizations can reap the value of new features on a regular basis and avoid the need for wholesale upgrades. Daiuto. Axentis. SaaS models are often used in organizations with little to no IT organization or an IT organization that is strapped with several other key IT initiatives. SaaS offers pharma organizations the ability to get up and running quickly when there may be little time to build, customize, maintain, or integrate homegrown or existing installed applications. For example, many life-sciences organizations are entering into corporate integrity agreements with the federal government. These agreements allow little response time to implement compliance programs for several thousand employees, contractors, and vendors. A SaaS model can provide immediate relief and a quicker implementation timeframe than what may be available in-house. In addition, SaaS applications have built-in best practices that companies can take advantage of, especially if they don’t have the right resources or available in-house resources to build the application. Duke. SciQuest. SaaS requires limited IT resources and infrastructure in comparison with traditionally deployed software. Deployments are typically faster as well, although this of course varies from provider to provider. Funding terms are likewise more flexible — the ability to subscribe to software can significantly lower up-front costs. Perhaps most importantly, in many functional areas the inherent architecture of SaaS enables organizations to be more productive and save money. Some solutions enable researchers to quickly and easily purchase the supplies they need in an online environment similar to popular consumer e-commerce sites, eliminating administrative tasks. This provides leaders with unprecedented visibility and control over spending and can decrease the cost of goods and services by upward of 20%. This functionality and flexibility would not be possible with traditionally deployed software. John. Symyx. People typically look at SaaS as an opportunity to save money; however, our research shows the No. 1 reason scientists especially want SaaS is to support better collaboration with outsourcing parties and partners. Sitting outside a firewall, yet still having instant access, allows communities of researchers to capture and share information and workflows in a straightforward, secure, and efficient manner. In addition, SaaS applications increase an organization’s technical and business agility. New researchers and projects can be added and taken offline with only a few days notice. If SaaS technology is not adopted, collaborating with organizations that are not within a company’s firewall will be challenging. Firewalls limit the efficient flow of knowledge and information between researchers; the technical solution to this problem is often too costly and time-consuming to implement. Thus, researchers resort to e-mail to manage their shared workflows. Important documents are consigned to information graveyards in mutually inaccessible e-mail and file-sharing systems. With a hosted ELN, however, researchers can log into a central application online to share common protocols and procedures. They can search, access, and learn from past experiments carried out by researchers in their group, and at the conclusion of the experiment, the captured information and reports can be readily accessed by all parties in the secure ELN network. Furthermore, when new researchers or parties join the network, the system can scale appropriately, giving the organization the agility to change business directions and partners quickly and efficiently. Manning. DiseaseTrak. Many times the first benefit organizations hear about are the cost savings. Many other benefits exist within these solutions that are often afterthoughts but need to be equally weighed in making a decision as to the best solution that fits a pharmaceutical company’s need. Some of these include speed to implementation, ongoing product enhancements, legal/technical compliance with every changing regulation, and finally access to a much larger system that allows for potential growth without reinvestment in new solutions. Many SaaS solutions can be implemented in less than 45 days without extensive rework and customization of the in-house solution. Parmelee. Antenna Software. There are tremendous savings in gaining cutting-edge technology. Other benefits are immediate delivery of multiple secure data streams to mobile users on the edge, dynamic visibility into company operations, more inventory precision, automation of regulatory tracking, and the ability to readily reuse data. By simple data aggregation through the SaaS provider, the contextual value of the data that can be provided is greatly increased. Saitta. PDI. SaaS is highly cost-effective, but other important benefits include flexibility, speed to market, and the ability to quickly change configurations in response to business dynamics. SaaS gives the user control of managing the configuration, the way it looks, feels, and what information it will contain. In-house technology is based on a fixed infrastructure that requires more development time and costs. SaaS removes the headaches of maintenance and frees staff to perform more innovative and creative work, which provides a competitive advantage. Srivatsan. Cognizant. SaaS provides predictability of costs to the services that are being procured. In the long run, companies save money as they do not have up-front costs on infrastructure and the models will scale with the growth of their business. The other benefits of SaaS include flexibility in the pricing model, adaptability to changing business needs, and the ability to incorporate real-time user feedback. Wallach. Veeva Systems. The benefits of SaaS are undeniable. But I would note that not all solutions that claim to be SaaS deliver the benefits of mature SaaS platforms. Many companies have branded their existing products as SaaS without fundamentally changing the underlying delivery model. These applications are what I call SoSaaS, which stands for “Same Old Software-as-a-Service." It is important not to lump all SaaS applications together. If a SaaS application is not multi-tenant, then many of the cost and other benefits are simply unattainable. An analogy that explains the multi-tenant vs. single tenant concept is a single homeowner who is responsible for all of the maintenance and upkeep, such as raking, mowing the lawn, fixing the roof, shoveling snow, etc. Someone who lives in a condo represents the multi-tenant solution. Somebody else rakes the leaves, fixes the roof, plows the driveway, etc., and each has a back up. On the hardware side, this means there is one big shared data set greater than any one house could have and everyone in the condo benefits from the system. Economies of scale put everyone in the exact same place; everyone gets better performance, and each user gets it cheaper because of the economies of scale. Webb. Interactive Medica. One of the long-term benefits of employing SaaS is moving the technology purchase from a fixed-cost basis to a variable-cost basis. This allows pharmaceutical companies to adjust as the business increases and decreases, and the nature of the per-user-rental model enables those particular costs to move with the flow of the business. This can bring a level of comfort to companies as it gives them a much better feeling about investing long term. F PharmaVOICE welcomes comments about this article. E-mail us at [email protected]. The popularity of technologies labeled “SaaS" and “in the cloud" have made these terms table stakes for all CRM vendors. As a result, providers are abusing these terms, and it’s creating buyer confusion. To determine whether a multi-tenant SaaS CRM system is genuine, ask the vendor these questions: 1. How many versions of the application does the vendor maintain? 2. Does it cost more for customizations? 3. Is there a limit to the number of custom objects that can be created? 4. How long does it take to do an upgrade, including mobile users? 5. How many upgrades are done a year and how much do they cost? 6. Is the application scalable without extra costs? 7. Is the application genuine multi-tenant? Source: Veeva Systems. For more information, visit veevasystems. com. ne of the industry’s major concerns regarding SaaS is security of data stored on an outside server. After all, information in all of its forms — from proprietary compounds to growth strategies for emerging markets — is the lifeblood of the pharmaceutical industry. In the past, this was a valid worry, but these days, SaaS providers believe they can guarantee security of data and intellectual property in this high-risk, competitive industry. According to Nagaraja Srivatsan, VP, head of life sciences, North America, Cognizant, SaaS vendors have invested heavily in security platforms and infrastructure. “SaaS providers are extremely sensitive about the security requirements of their customers and have gone to great lengths to provide secure and compliant solutions," he says. However, the client needs to take on some of the responsibility of due diligence, says Jamie Duke, chief operating officer of SciQuest. “It’s no secret that security is an important concern, not just with SaaS, but with all IT systems and protocols," he says. “It’s imperative to know beforehand who will have access to your data at all times and how it is secured. Pharmaceutical companies should demand proof of best practices, including accepted security safeguards and complete system redundancy — not just at the provider’s site, but also in the form of a fully functioning remote location. Natural disasters, as we all know, have the potential to take entire operations off line. Companies simply can’t be too careful or focus too much on security, not just with SaaS, but in all IT initiatives." The importance of thoroughly assessing the SaaS provider’s ability to safeguard intellectual property and data cannot be overstated, he adds. Due diligence is key, says Dominic John, director of software marketing, at Symyx Technologies, to the point of actually testing the system’s security with “ethical hackers." “Some large pharmaceutical companies engaging in SaaS applications have paid ‘ethical hackers’ to attempt to break into their systems," he says. “SaaS vendors should be able to say if this has been tried with their system and whether their system held up to ethical hackers." The SaaS provider also has the responsibility of ensuring it is taking all the security measures possible, or else it won’t earn the industry’s trust or business. Mr. John adds that close attention to service-level agreements and standard operating procedures are the true test of a low-risk, highly secure service. “Life-sciences companies should insist that their partners have experience working within the life-sciences environment," says Ken Arbadji, VP at StayinFront. “This domain expertise includes understanding the sensitivity of the data and understanding the federal and state regulations that guide the storage and backup of these data. As an extra precaution, life-sciences companies may also contract with third-party auditors to evaluate the vendor’s compliance with service-level agreements, the contractual components that guarantee data and intellectual property security. These practices are not new to the SaaS environment. Companies have hosted customer databases with the most sensitive information for more than a decade." Some pharmaceutical companies, however, still throw up roadblocks when it comes to implementing SaaS because many believe there are no short cuts and really no guarantees for security. Others say research information is at risk whether managed in house or by a third party. Another argument for SaaS is that other industries that are just as competitive and handle even more sensitive information are using SaaS models. “Organizations considering a SaaS approach need to weigh the risk of on-premises vs. off-premises hosting with a company that specializes in risk planning, security, and data management and recovery," Mr. John says. “Arguably, off-premises, hosted information management may be more secure in many cases." According to Ken Parmelee, director of application development at Antenna Software, there are fewer pharma companies worried about security with regard to SaaS vendors than before because of the advances in security and technology. “There are so many security technologies that can be readily implemented, SaaS vendors can meet regulatory and client privacy requirements quite easily," Mr. Parmelee says. “SaaS providers guarantee security in different ways." Matt Wallach, executive VP and general manager at Veeva Systems, agrees that data security and intellectual property are really no longer issues with mature SaaS providers. “SaaS providers use the same technology and standards used by Internet retailers and online banking systems," he says. “Experience goes a long way in providing security. These important areas can take years to develop before a vendor can guarantee data security and privacy." To ensure the highest level of process controls and security, the facility should be SAS 70 (the Statement on Auditing Standards No. 70) certified, which ensures that an independent auditor has tested the contracted internal controls of the service organization, says Mike Wexler, founding principal of Biltmore Technologies. “The SaaS provider should be using a data center that is secure, redundant, and environmentally controlled," he says. “Vendors should also be willing to provide financial commitments to service levels." A SaaS provider must understand the regulations and standards around data privacy and security in the pharmaceutical space, says Leila Daiuto, sales director, Axentis, a part of ARC Logics, a Wolters Kluwer business. “To guarantee a secure environment for customer data, the SaaS vendor must have physical and logical security all operating toward confidentiality, integrity, and system availability," Ms. Daiuto says. To ensure confidentiality, the mature SaaS vendor will make use of publicly known and well-tested encryption algorithms for storing and transporting customer data. “In a contiguous system where data from different companies are comingled, sophisticated logical security must be in place and tested by a third party to verify that a continuous maintenance plan is being executed," she adds. “The SaaS vendor must have a mechanism in place to detect unauthorized changes to both the application and the data being hosted to maintain integrity of the system. Typically this consists of thorough testing and methodical review of test cases and business-use scenarios provided by the customer. The SaaS vendor must make sure that the data are manageable at the granular level, while maintaining a level of simplicity that enables quick detection of vulnerability. The SaaS vendor must test against multiple browser configurations to make sure that a weakness in the browser does not become a vulnerability that permits unauthenticated or unauthorized use." To adequately provide uninterrupted system and application availability, SaaS vendors must invest in an infrastructure with no single point of failure to facilitate handling the load, while ensuring availability. “The SaaS vendor’s goal is to protect its client’s sensitive information without getting in the way of the client," Ms. Daiuto says. “Additionally, disaster recovery scenarios must be well-thought out, denial of service must be prevented, and enough bandwidth must be available to meet client expectations." According to Ms. Daiuto, SaaS vendors must continue to invest in physical and logical data security. “Requirements change and technologies evolve rapidly, so the investment to mitigate breach needs to be made; SaaS vendors must always be one step ahead," she says. “Lastly, SaaS vendors also must invest in ongoing security management for internal and client-driven audits, such as SAS 70 audits, 21 CFR Part 11 validations, penetration tests, and other ongoing tests." F While the adoption of SaaS has increased in the areas of sales, marketing, and supply chain, there may be some business functions within the industry that are not conducive to a SaaS system. Any function that does not require a high level of flexibility or that needs a complex, customized technology system should not try to incorporate SaaS, most of our experts say. A few sources, however, foresee the future forming into one big computing cloud, with every business function operating on SaaS. Our experts discuss the practical application of SaaS throughout the industry’s verticals. Leila Daiuto. Axentis. Clients with a history of heavy custom development may have a more difficult time transitioning to a SaaS provider. Although SaaS typically allows for significant configuration, it is not primarily meant to be a highly customized system for a company. Jamie Duke. SciQuest. It’s not really a question of which business functions are good candidates for SaaS and which are not. In the coming years, organizations will move away from IT infrastructures as we know them in light of the benefits of SaaS; however, it will always be imperative to know at all times where the data are, whether the information is safe, and who has access to it. The data should not be in the “cloud" with the client having little insight into what that means on very specific terms. Another question is reliability. Success in SaaS demands utility, such as uptime. With those requirements satisfied, whether a business function is right for SaaS is dependent on the organization in question and a wide range of factors unique to it, including the complexity of the existing IT infrastructure, the resources available to the internal IT team and its overall sophistication, and the integration capabilities of the SaaS solution in question with core systems. Legislative requirements should also be considered, particularly when the data in question are governed by strict oversight, such as in clinical trials where patients’ personal information is shared. Dominic John. Symyx. It’s only a matter of time until most applications consumed by a company will be provided as SaaS applications. This will happen as SaaS technology increasingly meets customer needs, and customer confidence in the technology becomes entrenched. In theory, a SaaS application can be used for any purpose but currently there are limitations. For example, software applications that can have heavy compliance and auditing requirements such as an ELN might not fit the SaaS model if the service relies on dynamic cloud computing and resources. A dedicated, hosted service is a must where full auditing and logging control are critical system requirements. In addition, there is a perception that SaaS applications integrate less well with in-house software and instruments. However, the technology and methods for overcoming these challenges are rapidly improving, and it’s only a question of time until advanced system auditing and integration solutions for scientists become available in a SaaS model. Ken Parmelee. Antenna Software. The focus should be less on the functions and more on the purposes of the functions. Almost any mobile worker or internal application can in some way gain value in the SaaS model. A good example is R&D data. This is incredibly valuable and sensitive information, and the industry may not want the information held on an external system. But there are providers that offer secure hosted central processing units where server horsepower is invaluable. There is no reason not to take advantage of such services. Jo Ann Saitta. PDI. The areas that become more challenging for incorporating SaaS are more advanced, more highly customized data manipulation functions. Lots of SaaS models are developed to the lowest common denominator, so if the system needs to be changed very frequently and immediately, it may not be well suited for SaaS. If a system requires a lot of customization, think twice about using SaaS. Nagaraja Srivatsan. Cognizant. Processes that have proprietary data that cannot be shared are those that are not suitable for SaaS. There are little to no benefits of SaaS in some areas of discovery, some areas of regulatory submissions, or core areas of manufacturing. Most other areas are open to a SaaS model. Matt Wallach. Veeva Systems. SaaS is absolutely not the best delivery model for everything. It’s best where companies need agility and flexibility in a business tool that the end users don’t necessarily need to use. In areas such as general accounting or manufacturing, flexibility in a system can actually be a bad thing. And usability is not an issue. If your job is to aggregate accounts payable, you are going to use the account system. It would not make sense for a life-sciences company to invest in a project to replace an on-premises general ledger or MRP system with a SaaS system. The only benefit might be cost savings, but there may be more important areas on which to achieve these savings.

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