Gartner report states enterprise SaaS will grow by 27%

A twit from Gartner led me to this research synopsis which suggests that SaaS enterprise market will grow by 27% in '08 from '07. This confirms the earlier research report by McKinsey that I had posted about.

According to this Gartner research the two antecedents of this fast growth of SaaS are lower cost and growing demand for rapid software implementation. The report goes on to stress the importance and emergence of Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS). I concur with this conclusion, I think (large) successful SaaS players will offer PaaS sooner than later, for example, see Intuit's Quickbase.

The report does not deal with supply chain applications, but in the enterprise market the office suites solutions are expected to have 99.2 per cent compound annual growth rate (CAGR) from 2007 through 2012. I think this is great, I am happy for my friends at Zoho. They note that the content, communications and collaboration (CCC) markets remains the largest contributor to the overall SaaS enterprise application markets with revenue exceeding $2.1 billion in 2008, and it is expected to amount to $4.7 billion in 2012. Good news for folks at Wordpress and Movable Type.

Overall good times for SaaS.

BestBuy opens a store for women by women !

According to Penn, the author of Microtrends, microtrends are patterns of behavior exhibited by at least 1% of a population, and are more likely to cause major (institutional) changes.

One such trend discussed in the book is growing influence of women in technology purchase.

In the light of Penn's thesis it is interesting to read that BestBuy [disclosure, BestBuy is QLogitek's client] the innovative technology retailer has opened a new store designed by women for women. The design team consisted of members from both employees and clients( 40 plus local women customers) [read the story here].

History of EDI: QLogitek's SaaS EDI Solutions (Part 2)

SaaS EDI Solutions such as our Hosted EDI System makes it possible for clients to have full EDI capability within 60-90 days. Like typical SaaS solutions, SaaS EDI solutions does not require high upfront capital investment. Moreover, the client benefits from all improvements
to the system from the multi-tenancy model, in other words no pricey future upgrades, no hardware and software maintenance.

SaaS EDI Solution QLogitek offers has these key features and functionality.

• Automated PO, Acknowledgments, Remittances, Advanced Ship Notice (ASN), Invoice, Online Shipping & License Plate Labels and much more...
• Vendor Managed Inventory (VMI) 
• Online Price Ticketing
• Trading Partner Score Card
• Demand Forecasting

Here is a case study that demonstrates how HMV, a music retailer, benefited from QLogtek's SaaS EDI solution.

History of EDI: SaaS EDI Solution (Part 1)

In the coming few posts I am going to extensively discuss SaaS EDI System or Hosted EDI System or SaaS EDI Software...essentially EDI system that is available using a subscription model.

I have been meaning to blog about few key SaaS supply chain software solutions QLogitek offers, but I haven't done it due to numerous reasons. Without brooding on that let me dive in.

I think it is appropriate to start by presenting the history of EDI.

Brief Chronological History of EDI

• 1968 - Transportation Data Coordinating Committee(TDCC), a railway consortium began discussing standards for inter-company data exchange
• 1970s - Many proprietary data standards were being used by large prominent corporations such as GM, Kmart (yes Kmart !),Sears etc
• 1973- TDCC developed a standard for reconciling between the various proprietary and industry standards.
• 1975- Consortium of companies in various industries began to assemble standards for their industry, for example the Insurance industry started IBM IV ANS, and Pharma started ORDERNET.
• 1981- ANSI X12 and WINS format evolved from the TDCC effort.
• 1996- EDI standard was defined by National Institute of Standards and Technology.
  

First, the definition of EDI, "EDI is the computer-to-computer interchange of strictly formatted messages that represent documents other than monetary instruments."

While talking about EDI it is important to understand that the message, the EDI document, is independent of the mode of transmission. In other words EDI documents can be transmitted over any agreed protocol and network. Today companies are abandoning traditional and expensive Value Added Networks (VANs) and turning to Internet technologies for transmitting EDI documents. This is where a company like QLogitek comes. In the next post I will look at our SaaS EDI Solution known as Hosted EDI System.

Sources: (Bibliography based Scott Berkun's idea; thanks Jackie)

1. Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_Data_Interchange
2. Chwelos et al (2001),Research Report: Empirical Test of an EDI Adoption Model,Information Systems Research 12(3).
   
3. Sriram et al (1994), Electronic data interchange: Does its adoption change purchasing policies and procedures?,International Journal of Purchasing and Materials Management 3(1). (link subscription required)