Workflow Management Solutions

Should All Business Applications Be SaaS?

Tuesday, June 9, 2009 by Chris Goldsmith

If you read any publication about application software, you will hear the term SaaS (software as a service). As the momentum for SaaS builds you might expect all supply chain logistics software to be offered in a SaaS model. Does that make sense? As with many good ideas, the hype builds so that people think the solution can be used to address any kind of problem, but this can result in the proverbial square peg for a round hole. SaaS is already proven in CRM and makes a lot of sense for Transportation Management solutions since you get a network effect by already having several carriers integrated. However, one of the core tenants of SaaS is a multi-tenant architecture with everyone running on the same software. This typically results in more simplistic less configurable applications.

Could the SaaS approach work for WMS solutions? I have visited several warehouses and they are all different physical configurations. Even within the same company each warehouse has a unique configuration of dock doors, shelving, material handling, workers skill-sets, and space requirements. This uniqueness generally drives unique business process flows to optimize the flow of goods into and out of the warehouse. While some vendors have started offering WMS solutions in a SaaS model I believe it will be very challenging to manage the heterogeneity of requirements that are inherent in many companies’ distribution operations yet adhere to the core tenants of SaaS. While the time may come, SaaS is still the square peg to solve the WMS round hole.

Image via flickr user Nick Saltmarsh

Comments for Should All Business Applications Be SaaS?

Saturday, August 8, 2009 by Roberto Michel:: Maybe so, especially since WMS and MES already require bar code scanning, weighing, or other forms of data collection. This means you need IT support and assets on site anyway. As to the workflow and value stream processes being "too unique" to handle with SaaS, maybe the problem is that SaaS vendors need to improve their configuration tools while still allowing for a single multi-tenent base software code. So you could say that either the processes are too unique to SaaS, or that SaaS isn't flexible enough for the unique processes.
Monday, August 10, 2009 by Chris Goldsmith:: Thanks Roberto for your comment. I think you raise an interesting point about the configurability of SaaS. When I think about the different requirements across industries when it comes to WMS, I think it will be a long time before any SaaS system could have a robust enough configuration tool to handle requirements for a food and beverage distributor versus a electronics manufacturer as an example. Even if a SaaS system could address the different requirements, then I wonder how complicated the SaaS system would become to configure and deploy? With WMS there is not a strong network effect (i.e. SaaS TMS software with carrier integration) so I think this is another reason why adoption of SaaS based WMS is lagging other enterprise applications.