Sales applications have always required effective automation, for providing efficient and smooth running of processes and administrative responsibilities for sales professionals. That is why we recommend you to move your sales applications to the cloud. One key advantage of implementing SaaS-based sales technologies is it offers better process integration. Apart from this, cloud deployment also provides user engagement as open APIs improves the user experience and enable mobile functionalities. Organizations having complex business processes gain a huge advantage from open APIs in SaaS as it allows faster change mechanisms in sales processes.
What steps should CIOs take while moving sales to the cloud?
1. Be Aware of Data Storage Policies
People are becoming increasingly alert about data privacy. Hence, governments in some countries have implemented stringent data protection and privacy laws. This has been creating concerns organizations contemplating of moving their sales to cloud as some countries have made strict policies for storing data only within country’s data centers and beneath their corporate firewall.
But, as IaaS has been gaining popularity, major cloud vendors are now addressing the data center issue. SaaS/cloud service providers are not responsible for user data unless it’s negotiated and documented in the SaaS contract. Many SaaS providers merely architect their solution based on availability of their services and not on data loss. Thus, IT leaders must assess their cloud contracts and SLAs to understand where cloud service providers are allowed to store older versions of the data, and for how long.
2. Make a Clear Plan for Negotiating Cloud Deployment Contracts
Companies wanting to move sales to the cloud must carefully evaluate and plan a five-year TCO. Creating budgets for a cloud solution must happen before agreeing on contract terms with a subscription-based vendor. It is important to negotiate the cost of licenses upfront, as well as negotiate tiered-level pricing. Integration of SaaS with other systems also causes extra cost. Additionally, in a SaaS solution, some of the operating costs for management and operation of the application are packaged together in the licensing fee. Thus, CIOs and IT leaders must consider all these factors while developing a TCO plan.
3. Build a Sustainable Sales Applications Roadmap
For creating a roadmap we suggest you adopt a Pace-Layered Application strategy that helps companies manage their IT investments and plan for implementations. To develop a roadmap by using this technology, IT leaders can start by deconstructing their portfolios into individual applications. After this, they can identify the specific business and sales processes that each application supports. Thus, by classifying the application portfolio according to pace layer strategy, organizations can formulate new ideas, unique processes, and efficient strategies.
SaaS offers rapid implementation of sales technologies. Thus, by moving sales to the cloud, a company can collect structure and analyze large datasets in an easy and efficient manner.
