CXO on SaaS and BI in India

CXO Today is running a piece worth reading entitled “BI Vendors Play the Good Host” by Rajendra Chaudhary. In the piece, Chaudhary summarizes the effect of the SaaS model with customer relationship management applications vis-à-vis its effect on the Business Intelligence community.

At center is a statement by Bhavish Sood of (wouldn’t you know it?) Gartner: “Smaller businesses are now willing to invest in BI because of increased awareness about its benefits. However, lack of resources, financial and otherwise, constraints their ability to deploy costly BI software. The inherent ability of SaaS to reduce these price points to their fractions is what’s working to its advantage.”

Business intelligence software is making inroads into the small business arena, and SaaS would appear to be perfect for the smaller firm, as much money is saved in IT by having a host somewhere in cyberspace rather than present at the physical firm. “But these generic SaaS-related benefits are not enough to fuel greater adoption of hosted BI applications among small enterprises,” correctly points out Chaudhary.

Though Chaudhary begins the story closure with “giving a perspective on the maturity levels of Indian customers and their willingness to experiment with the on demand trend, Sood said that Indian customers are only warming up to the idea and it will take some time before they start adopting SaaS as the preferred channel,” it is clear where India’s future is heading in this regard.

Chaudhary’s entire story can be read here.