SaaS ITSM ROI #2 – Infrastructure Savings

We recently began highlighting the various areas in which SaaS IT service management (ITSM) solutions deliver substantial value over their on-premise counterparts. In a previous entry, we discussed the savings SaaS provides by eliminating high upfront licensing costs.

In this post, we’ll investigate the SaaS ITSM ROI that can be achieved through the elimination of infrastructure requirements.

Lots of Hardware Translates to Lots of Money

Legacy on-site service desk environments come with extensive component requirements. In addition to the software itself, companies must purchase, install, test, and provision database servers, server software, and other hardware. The costs associated with these can add up rather quickly, as each server required to support the application would come with a price tag of approximately $5,000.

There are also other considerations, specifically security, reliability, and availability. Companies deploying their ITSM environments on-site must put the appropriate mechanisms in place to optimize system performance and preserve the integrity of the application and associated information. This would require added expenditures in the form of redundant or back-up servers stored in off-site or remote locations, further reducing ITSM ROI for the on-premise solution.

SaaS Frees You of Hardware Burdens

On the other hand, SaaS ITSM ROI is much greater because all components are already up and running at the provider’s site. Clients don’t need to invest time and effort into buying and deploying servers and other hardware. Additionally, SaaS vendors take security and availability very seriously, and often have comprehensive measures in place to keep the environment fully protected.

So, let’s conservatively estimate that a company implementing an on-premise IT service desk would need two servers – one to support the application itself, and one to support redundant or back-up operations. They would need to shell out an initial upfront investment in infrastructure of $10,000. Yet, a SaaS customer would have to spend nothing at all on infrastructure.

In our next ROI post, we’ll talk about the differences in on-premise and SaaS ROI when it comes to the time, effort, and budget required for deployment.

Read the SaaS ITSM ROI White Paper!

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Related posts:

1. SaaS ITSM ROI #5 – Minimized Internal Staffing Requirements
2. SaaS ITSM ROI #3 – Faster Implementation
3. SaaS ITSM ROI #4 – Reduced Consulting Requirements
4. Whitepaper: Why SaaS-based ITSM delivers more value
5. SaaS ITSM ROI #1 – Lower License Costs