Business Analytics as a Service

Assimil8 's experience of developing

a dedicated SaaS capability

BUSINESS ANALYTICS AS A

SERVICE

Presented by Karl Mullins

Assimil8

www.Assimil8.com

[email protected]

Part 1 – What Do We Do – A little about Assimil8

– What is the Service and offering

– Why SaaS Is important to our mid-market clients

– How does this help our clients

Part 2 – How Did We Get There – What did we did internally

– Our journey to get to a point of delivering solutions

Part 3 – WIIFM?

Briefing

About Us

IBM Cognos

Recruitment

Specialists

Business

Analytics as a

Service

BI, TM1 & EP

Expertise

Value Added

Technologies

“Achieve More” with Assimil8

• IBM Premier Business Partner

• IBM Ready for Cloud Services

• IBM Cognos Sales, Consultancy,

Training & Support Provider

• Software Development

What Is Analytics?

What Does SaaS look Like?

What Does SaaS look Like?

Assimil8 Business Analytics as

a Service is...

– Scalable, Modular Analytics service

– BI and Performance Management Solutions • By Size

• By Industry Sector

• By Service component

– Customised client branded portal technology

– Version Control & Regression Testing

– Automatic documentation capabilities

– Geo spatial capabilities from ESRI

– Self Service Password Module

Service On IBM Cloud Hosting

Organisation

External Services

Data Warehouse

ADMINISTRATOR

External

Sources

USER

USER

IBM SoftLayer

Underpinned with..

Support and Value Added Services

– Instance provision, Software Images & Virtual Machines

– Dynamic Storage

– Internet Transfer

– Secured LAN

– User/Group security management

– Monitoring Services

– Maintenance Services

– Economies of scale

– Disaster Recovery and Backup Planning

– Notification Services

– Solution integrity and Continuity

Why Is SaaS Important to our

Clients

Mid Market Companies would like to perform better but;

• Times of Austerity!

• Cash Flow is KING

• Increased pressure to cut costs

• Increased pressure to cut head count

• Increased pressure to reduce infrastructure

• Increased demand for pay as you go facility

• Increased demand for rapid deployment

• Increased demand for outsourced solution management

• Aspire to become an Eco-Friendly operation

• Targeted to reduce CO2 carbon footprint

Typical Non SaaS Engagement

Barriers

• Hardware (Lease or Purchase lead time)

• Software (Perpetual)

– Generally Initial oversizing

• Resource

– Exposure, training, salaries, head count, attrition

• Long procurement cycle

• Cost NOW, Benefit Later (ROI)

How Does Assimil8 SaaS

Offering Help?

• Cost Effective

• Agile

• Focussed

SaaS Cost Effective

• Pay as you go/use

• Opex not Capex

• No set up – it’s already there

• Little or no infrastructure layout

• Pay per use = no paying for hardware you don’t use

• All technology needed is already in your office

• Security is included

• Energy costs minimised

SaaS Agile

• Always up to date

• Automatically up-to-date version

• No need to schedule implementations

• Upscale package instantly

• Remote working is inherent

• Multi tenant means flexible

• Data accessed centrally so work any time, any place

• Capacity – Possible to Increase and Decrease at short notice. (Month End)

SaaS Focussed

• Quick to put in place. Decide – implement – use

• Central server inspires collaboration

• Less implementation time = more strategy focus

• Virtually nil maintenance – focus on improving usage

• Environmental impact minimised

• Political benefits - Less conflict between business and technical managers (focussed on us )

Mid Market SaaS Clients

Benefit Summary

• Rapid deployment

• Low upfront costs

• Monthly rental (SAAS for Cloud & Cognos)

• Low administration costs

• Lower TCO and fast ROI

• Business Continuity built in – no false starts

• Lower running costs

• Change Solution as their business changes

Part 2 – How Did We Get there

…, a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step

Actual Experience

…, If we didn’t get there someone else would

• We made the leap !

• Steep Learning Curve

• Pioneering solutions • Risks & Reward

• Preparation is everything

• 1Direction Autobiography • 3 years in a lot has

changed

• Long way to go

• Still learning

• Fluidity

KISS - Solution

• This is NOT the team (really!)

• We mean.., Keep It Simple Stupid

KISS Solution Recipe

• Create ‘off the shelf’ business solutions

(Size,Sector,Analytics Capability)

• Add Managed Service Platform

• Add Value Added components and

Technology

• Add Support functions

• Bring all ingredients together in a simple

straight forward SERVICE to the client

• Leave to rise for 3 years

SaaS Ingredients

Paradigm Shift in approach / team – Crucial to up skill on IBM Cloud Hosting

• SoftLayer, IBM SCE

• Software around the edges

– Crucial to have Integration skills

– Crucial to have dedicated support team

– Crucial to have Go to market license agreement to support low cost service model IBM ASL.

– Early Adoption clients (prove the SaaS service)

– Identify Value Added Services and Software which compliment a SaaS route to create a Market and proposition differentiator.

Talking Numbers

• 2011 –Adopted Cloud Internally

• 2011 – £2K & 1 SaaS Client

• 2013 – 30% of our Business Services

Revenue from SaaS Offerings

• Annual associated contracts of £200,000

• Predictable and Secured business

models.

Part 3 WIIFM

What’s In It For Me?

– Piggy Back mass marketing drive of Cloud Computing & SaaS.

– Open new doors to business that would never have been reached due to cost barriers

– Revisit old clients with new sales approach

– Change plateau at entry level services, untapped markets (<50m Entry point)

– Reduces Sales Cycle longevity (Your Costs!)

– We can sell to IT Managers ‘Sign-Off’ authority

WIIFM – Our Findings

• Less competition in this space! (Not after today)

• Clients have an appetite to expand services

• Up-Sell additional features easily and quickly built in to the model

• Clients push more software opportunities – Can you look after our CRM system, HR System,

Legacy Systems and Database.

• Mutual recognition of ROI quickly

• Value of Assimil8 grown as a direct result of annuity contracts and SaaS Model.

• Compliments our other services and models – Evolution rather than revolution

Parting Thought

• IBM Cloud Host Invaluable to

proposition and success.

• Embrace and Adopt!

• We added £200,00 pa to our business with

these contracts in 3 years, largely with what

we already had!

• No Other option internally could derive such

business growth – not at such a low cost.

Thank You

• Thanks you for your Patience and

Attention