Gartner, Inc. predicts global SaaS spending will hit $14 billion by 2013, but as of yet most businesses in the Middle East have yet to take advantage of the SaaS model. With SaaS, software is licensed to a business to be used on demand over the Internet. Under the SaaS model, vendors develop, host and operate software for customer use. In many parts of the world, SaaS is used for tasks such as billing, human resource management and sales force automation. LiveRoute () has launched its SaaS portfolio in partnership with Aplicor Inc. in order to offer Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) and Customer Relationship Management (CRM) to Middle East businesses.
Jawwad Rehman, MD and partner at LiveRoute, advised that the economic uncertainties of the past two years have spurred Middle East companies to consider technology, such as ERP and CRM, to help create efficiencies and identify opportunities for growth.
“Unfortunately,” he explained, “ERP and CRM remain relatively complex, high cost and very high in maintenance for mid and large size organizations. LiveRoute was established to address those needs as its core competency in order to make things simple, straightforward and affordable for companies to utilize ERP and CRM through the Software as a Service model.”
According to existing market data, LiveRoute expects that the average enterprise can save up to 70 percent of initial costs if it opts for Aplicor’s SaaS EPR & CRM applications instead of the traditional on-site model. Over a five year period, business will still save up to 46 percent in costs by going with Aplicor’s Applications.
“The people who are behind LiveRoute and running LiveRoute at the executive level are extremely aware of the technology shortcomings of this region, as well as the opportunities,” said Rehman. “LiveRoute’s executives have had strong careers with some of the very large names in the IT industry and the region. We know our customers and we definitely have good insight about what’s going on locally. We also obviously are aware of the major trends. Software as a Service is not something that just popped up last week or last year, but since the economic crisis began people are actively looking for business solutions that bring cost benefits.”
LiveRoute is targeting three types of companies as adopters of CRM and ERP under the SaaS model. There are many companies in the region which have never used CRM or ERP because it was far too expensive for them to consider, when implemented in the traditional manner. There are also a good number of companies who couldn’t afford the international big names in ERP and CRM, so they developed solutions in-house, but these are generally inadequate. Finally there are the companies who spent a fortune on ERP and CRM, and continue, with regret, to spend a fortune in licenses, maintenance, upgrades, hardware and training.
“Our ERP and CRM SaaS solutions are international enterprise quality offerings, but our solutions come with very low capital expenditure requirements. There’s no data center required so hardware costs are low. Because they’re accessed over the Internet, the solutions are globally accessible – not just within a company’s four walls. Last but not least, we take away the burdens of maintenance, availability, scalability and configuration in regards to these solutions so that companies can focus on the business requirements, not the technology.
LiveRoute’s business plan for operating in the Kingdom includes building channel partnerships with multiple existing companies who are already providing system integration to Saudi organizations. Plus, Reham expects to continue to be personally engaged with Saudi companies, creating awareness for the benefits of SaaS.
“There is tremendous interest in our offering and over the last two months we have been in talks with more than 50 organizations in Saudi Arabia,” he commented. “They are very excited because traditional ERP and CRM solutions can take six to eight months to deploy. With our SaaS model, the time to have the solutions up and utilized effectively is just six to eight weeks. Our offering could be a game changer for many Saudi companies.”
