A few months ago, busily trying to crack the code for an Outsourcing & Offshoring (O&O) business concept to small companies, I came across the aaS (as-a-Service) thing. By now most people had certainly heard about the difference between Scandinavian airlines (SAS) and Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) and I had worked with the later in my previous jobs.
So I was thinking if SaaS is the buzz in IT with a value proposition prevalent to SMEs, what about the equivalent in BPO? After some research I found BPaaS (Business-Process-as-a-Service), BaaS (Business-as-a-Service), PraaS (Process-as-a-service), BPMaaS (Business-Process-Management-as-a-Service) culminating in WaaS (Whatever-as-a-Service) and EaaS (Everything-as-a-Service).
Whatever the letter in front of the aaS , it appears to be the most comprehensive and attractive outsourcing model for small companies, because:
1) it provides the customer an end-to-end process solution and they can construct an overall value chain rather than just buy software.
2) It requires little or no capital expenditure for starting up and running the services.
3) It offers pay as you go pricing models with no minimum order quantities and no lock-in.
4) It is rapidly up- and downward scalable according to the business needs of the customer, and
5) if you combine it with offshored service delivery it comes along with an unbeatable price.
Now, as the business concept was born, I had to give it a name. After evaluating oBPMaaS (offshored-Business-Process-Management-as-a-Service), "flyingjellyfish" (all thoughts on how many beers I had before this name came up, please directly to my e-mail) and others I finally locked in at "big solutions for small companies", because this is what it really is about.
P.S.: For the scientific version on aaS, please have a look at Forrester or contact a consulting company, preferably my former employer.
No comments:
Post a Comment