How moving from on-premise EHS software to true SaaS EHS solutions saves time and money, while future-proofing organizations for years to come.
The Software as a Service (SaaS) market is estimated to be worth around 250 billion U.S. dollars and is expected to reach over 299 billion U.S. dollars in 2025. While the SaaS industry has grown–and continues to grow–exponentially over the last decade, not all EHS managers have fully embraced this digital approach to EHS software. For many professionals, the weariness of shifting from on-premise EHS software to true SaaS EHS solutions is due to a lack of education about true SaaS and its benefits for their organization.
This blog digs into the details about what distinguishes true SaaS from other deployment methods, the value SaaS holds for organizations, and why it matters in this digital transformation era.
What sets true SaaS apart from “Fake SaaS”?
True SaaS is rooted in continuous innovation, security, agility, and scalability. It’s a software distribution model where a third-party provider hosts applications and makes them available to the end user via the internet. This is vastly different from EHS on-premise software deployment methods, which we’ll discuss later in this blog.
Many software companies of late claim to have the SaaS model but lack the key elements of SaaS. Today, vendors are seeing an opportunity to lure customers into fake SaaS that lacks agility, security, and scalability – key tenants of true SaaS. Oftentimes, a software provider may mount a web portal into a server hosting their on-premise software in an attempt to simulate cloud benefits. This, essentially, only masks a legacy on-premise software and lacks the true SaaS benefits of speed, performance, uptime, maintenance, security, and digitization.
Investing in a true SaaS EHS solution – not masking a legacy on-premise system – lowers costs, provides more security, improves access, and offers unlimited opportunities for scalability.
The Limitations of On-Premise Applications
While on-premise applications transformed how we do business for decades, the new era of digitization is causing many organizations relying on on-premise applications to fall behind.
While many on-premise solutions can operate without the internet, they don’t support a mobile workforce. More and more organizations are shifting to remote work and satellite offices and need access to applications while working in the field. A true SaaS application allows employees to tap into the software anywhere, at any time, as long as there is a connection to the internet.
The scalability of on-premise applications is another limitation EHS professionals should consider. While true SaaS is easily scalable and deployable to employees around the world, on-premise software requires manual installation, which is a tedious task that often requires skilled IT employees to complete.
Data loss is another disadvantage of on-premise software that organizations need to consider. With true SaaS, data is backed-up on the cloud. But with on-premise data storage, a malfunction in the system can result in permanent data loss.
Deployment time and cost are the last two major drawbacks of on-premise software. It can often be costly and time-consuming to invest in, configure, and deploy an on-premise system. As the business grows and evolves, an on-premise system won’t naturally grow with it – meaning more costs add up over time too. Those who leverage SaaS spend less money on IT infrastructure, upgrades, customization, and IT team labor than their on-premise counterparts.
Why Organizations Should Embrace True SaaS for EHS
Cost reduction is the main benefit for many organizations when moving to SaaS. Not only can SaaS yield a more predictable cost structure, but it also helps companies reduce software costs overall.
Software availability and reliability are other key benefits for EHS professionals. With a unified SaaS solution, employees worldwide can tap into the EHS software – whether they’re in the field, working from home, on a mobile device, or in a satellite office. In addition, SaaS provides frequent data backups, which gives users peace of mind knowing they won’t lose critical information if a computer or device goes haywire.
Scalability and adaptability are also common needs EHS professionals seek out when searching for EHS software. With a SaaS model, the cloud-based servers can easily grow with the organization and adjust to data storage and deployment needs. For fast-growing companies, they won’t be hindered by equipment that can’t keep up.
Don’t Fall Behind in Digital Transformation
EHS professionals who have not adopted SaaS could hold back their organizations from cost savings, enhanced application, reliability, availability, mobile application deployment, and new technology adoption. The integrated CorityOne ecosystem offers simple and streamlined access to all solutions, enhanced business intelligence, and targeted data exchange between solutions.
With CorityOne, EHS professionals leverage simplified single sign-on, personalized homepages, dashboards, quick navigation to important flows, security certifications in the highest industry standards, integration with other enterprises IT systems and devices, and continuous innovation.
