The sharing economy is making its mark on IT, with digital services and applications available in subscription models. Businesses are able to pay for only what they use in areas like software, infrastructure, and platforms all trending toward as-a-service offerings. The mindset is becoming Everything as a Service, or XaaS, where every kind of outsourcing offers clear advantages.
XaaS offers flexible consumption that lends companies increased agility for providing improved innovations and better experiences to customers. Providers are increasingly creating sales models that personalize business offerings and put one-size-fits-all contracts at the bottom of the list.
What’s Included in Everything? When options like Software as a Service (SaaS), Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), and Platform as a Service (PaaS) emerged, businesses were able to opt into purchasing these services on demand, rather than owning the product. Data storage followed suit, with options including private cloud, hybrid cloud, and multicloud improving scalability. These trends have small businesses prioritizing strategies that embrace the as-a-service approach, with XaaS the ruling guideline for how to obtain innovation and new capabilities.
The Benefits of Sharing: Any small business can benefit from a pay-as-you-go model, because it improves agility and removes the friction involved in offering a personalized experience to customers. Businesses are able to cut their costs because they no longer own software, corresponding hardware, or the responsibility to maintain and support it. In turn, this allows companies to reduce their operating expenses and work within a predictable cost model. Here are five benefits that XaaS delivers:
- Agility: XaaS allows smaller companies to introduce new solutions more quickly and access tools that would have been out of reach financially in the past.
- Data Interpretation: Companies no longer need to rely on intuition to make business decisions; in the reality of XaaS, there’s easier access to big data tools and insights that allow for data analysis and interpretation. This can be done at a lower cost to make better informed decisions.
- Productivity: XaaS applications facilitate streamlined communication as well as file sharing, in addition to areas like password and security management. XaaS minimizes the time spent on maintenance, and removes the barriers to scaling infrastructure and the need to manage servers.
- Costs: The more businesses invest in XaaS, the more they’ll see significant cost reductions. Rather than the high cost of ownership for a specific solution, companies remove the need to go “all in” on a particular software purchase and pay for only the features and tools they need.
- Cyber Security: Few small businesses are prepared to weather a cyber attack, but investing in XaaS provides the rigorous cyber security cover of technology providers. Businesses can implement better authentication and password policies and leverage apps that protect business and customer data.
Everything as a Service, or XaaS, allows small businesses to pay for only what they use, removing the high cost of hardware and software ownership and shifting the focus of the IT team back to company objectives. Contact us at Compass Solutions to begin exploring which services might be right for your company to outsource.
