SaaS is not…
…converting existing software to web-based.
It is the entire web experience you are going to give your customers from coming to your site, trying out your app, paying for it and interacting with your company for support, help, referrals etc. If you consider yourself a SaaS provider, what you really need to focus on is the ’service’ aspect of SaaS and not just the ’software’.
As SaaS gets common and a way of consuming software, what will set one provider from the other will NOT be the software or the features but the overall experience that they can deliver to convert and keep a ’stateless’ web visitor to a long-lasting paid customer.
I could not agree more. The specific services being provided need to be set out in a SLA (service level agreement) to emphasise what you are offering to customers, that your competitors are not offering. The terms of the SLA should also be fair and not completely supplier biased.
The content will depend upon the type of services that you are delivering to customers. For example, is disaster recovery included as standard? If so, what is the usual recovery time. Are backups of customer data to be made? If so when, where will these be stored, what security provisions will protect this data?
Irene Bodle is a UK lawyer who specialises in SaaS agreements.
Thanks Irene. Appreciate the feedback! These points should be mentioned on the SaaS provider’s website.