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BPM may be all the rage, but sometimes implementing the BPM tools out there means loads of various expenses and consulting fees. From the land down under, eVision hopes to change that with its MessageXchange.com solution, which delivers integration and business process management through the Software-as-a-Service model -- a model which eVision co-founder John Delaney says can take a lot of the pain out of BPM.

EVision got its start back in 1996 with a business focus of business-to-business integration. It offers its services on MessageXchange.com both directly to customers and through licensing to service providers.

Using SaaS for Integration and BPM

"People may be surprised that Software-as-a-Service can be used for integration and BPM," he says. "But I think they will quickly become excited by what they can do and how easy it is to use."

SaaS has long been used in other areas like CRM, such as is the approach of companies like Salesforce.com. Delaney points out that SaaS works the same way for integration and BPM as it does for those applications -- customers have the functionality hosted for them without the need for infrastructure and with a pay-as-you-go approach that is scaled to individual usage needs and amount of features used. For BPM, that means a monthly message volume fee and per-seat user fee.

"The removal of the up-front capital expenditure and on-going operational and maintenance costs significantly reduces the total cost of ownership," Delaney points out. "It also means the ROI can be achieved in months rather than years."

Software-as-a-Service also has a faster speed-to-market, Delaney points out, with reductions from 10-30% as compared to a conventional software application, and is future-proof since enhancements and new functionality are added without the need for customers to purchase upgrades.

Case Studies

If you're wondering how SaaS-based BPM might be used, one existing eVision customer is a financial services company that has an outsourced mortgage processing service running on MessageXchange.com.

"Their developers use the web portal and have created the messages and processes that integrate mortgage brokers, banks, credit rating agencies, legal services and government departments," Delaney says. "They also monitor and support their customers’ usage via web portal. This service enables them to take a mortgage application and automatically process it."

Another example is a telecommunications company with a 200-retail shop network with call centers and  adealer network. This company uses MessageXchange.com to integrate the front of house systems with the back-end and the outsourced warehouse and other partners.

Future of SaaS

The future of SaaS is now, says Delaney, and he predicts it will become the dominant way of delivering software thanks to its ability to allow any sized project to quickly achieve ROI.

"In the software product model, most integration and BPM applications remained the preserve of larger organizations. They have the critical mass to achieve a return on the up-front capital costs and on-going running costs associated with those projects," he says. "The SaaS model means SME’s and smaller projects can also access the same if not better functionality and achieve a return since they only pay for what they use."

Delaney predicts a proliferation of SaaS applications starting strongest in the SME end of the market but then with larger organizations following suit -- similar to how client server applications overtook mainframes.

"Our ever more competitive and changing world will require a rapid, flexible and lower cost model, which is why Software-as-a-Service will become the popular choice," he says.

To learn more, including eVision's future plans for MessageXchange.com, listen to the entire podcast.

Executive Summary by Krissi Danielsson

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Market share and -- and investment dollars -- keep flowing toward the Software as a Service sector, and OpSource is the latest firm to benefit from both trends.

One week ago, the company received $20 million in funding from a group led by Intel Partners to expand sales, marketing and R&D.

“Intel sees that Software as a Service is changing the way that people use software and the underlying technologies. They wanted to get close to the SaaS companies and see how their product could be used more effectively for them,” Opsource CEO Treb Ryan said.

It is also rolling out SaaSTrak, which can help software companies provide new on-demand applications in as little as 72 hours. A client need only to fill out a two-page questionnaire about their business and infrastructure before receiving a custom delivery solution.

Software companies, Ryan believes,“shouldn’t focus on things like running a 24/7 secure operation -– those are the kind of things that can hold them back from focusing on what strategically differentiates them in the market,” he notes.

“Today, no one in the market is going to really give that customer the ability to go on the Web and buy a per-user-per-month or per-transaction type of delivery of their service and get moving very quickly, he added.

The questionnaire’s content and format was based on their years of working with over 80 SaaS companies to discover common elements that ensured success.

The result yields “the basic support and infrastructure and the basic support and management needs that normally you would have to spend days with a business consultant to discover,” Ryan noted.

“What we discovered in this on-demand world is that the ability to start quickly and work with a company as it’s growing is far more effective than trying to do a long business consultancy arrangement at the beginning of their lifecycle,” Ryan said.

“It’s all about getting your customers up to and started,” he maintained.

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This week we're staying in the Software-as-a-Service space to focus on Jamcracker, a seminal survivor founded seven years ago as an .asp provider.

Last month, Jamcracker released version 2.0 of their Jamcracker Service Delivery Network. JSDN enables solution providers to instantly create turnkey online stores from which they can offer and deliver a variety of on-demand services.

VP of Marketing Don Best spoke about how Jamcracker survived the meltdown of the dot-com market in general and the .asp market in particular. Now, paper-thin margins have eased somewhat, security and accessibility has improved, and VARs, telcos and "anyone with a trusted relationship with their customer" are clamoring to add new services.

"Now the consumer is driving the expansion of the SaaS model this time...it is economical for them," noted Best, who added some success stories and ended with an upbeat multi-billion dollar projection for the SaaS market in the next two years.

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Today's First Look takes a foray into the SaaS, or Software-as-a-Service Market, to look at Unleash Inc.’s project management software that could revolutionize how people at institutions, municipalities and corporations engage in enterprise planning.

"Unleash Inc.’s founder, president and CEO Diane Nerby detailed how her product will “engage people’s input, align them around a shared vision of success, and then drive results.”

The software scales from individuals who want to organize disparate objectives all the way to managers who want to organize far-flung teams into finely tuned collaborative teams.

A manager can create a series of Web-based forms that will define an objective, collect feedback and ideas from employees, assign responsibilities and deadlines and track progress.

Click on the link below for a full report.

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