It hadn’t occurred to me until recently that yet another factor that doesn’t get added into the SaaS mix with any degree of precision is the indirect, accretive savings. Firms spend fortunes on backing up and maintaining data. That should be a commodity. Like filing cabinets. It’s the cost of doing business so it needs managing just as much as any other commodity spend.
If I put as much of my digital life out onto the Internet through SaaS applications, then I’ve solved problems of storage, managing and maintaining much of my IT infrastructure and almost certainly extended the life of existing equipment. That is because the problems of processing power have been moved out to the network. It also means that all the baggage Windows has traditionally dumped on your machine that eventually leads to your needing to either replace or reformat the hard drive, with all the associated re-implementation costs just disappear.
I realise the counter argument, especially among bigger firms, is that they need to have control over their data. Fine. But then I always ask – why does it have to be on-premise? What is so special about data? And which data are we talking about here? Data is valueless until it is turned into actionable information, which is where your skills as a professional accountant come in.
Who knows, if you do the math on this, you might find that you can afford to get a bunch of the new MacPro titanium shelled laptops that also run Windows apps. That would be good for your image and so your ability to market. All at possibly zero cost. Sounds like a good deal to me.
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