Europe ready for software as a service, says IDC

Analyst firm, IDC has found European organisations are ready for software as a service (SaaS).

In a recent end-user survey of 2,077 IT decision makers in Western European organisations with more than 20 employees, over a third (37 per cent) said they would invest in SaaS in the next 24 months to replace or supplement the functionality of existing enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems.

Only slightly less (35 per cent) of respondents said they would replace or supplement existing customer relationship management software in 24 months and 32 per cent said they were looking at new supply chain management (SCM) applications.

As a result of the research, the analyst firm stated that these were "positive and ambitious spending implications," which Bo Lykkegaard, IDC European Enterprise Applications and Services program research director said was somewhat unexpected.

"We were somewhat surprised that European end users are so positive when it comes to investing in business solutions delivered as a service," he said.

Lykkegaard added that SaaS spending would most likely be directed at new applications and replacing of broken ones, rather than at ripping and replacing working systems.

"European organisations seek to leverage the SaaS delivery model to reduce risk, complexity, and upfront costs of new IT initiatives," he said.

The research also found that end user enthusiasm for SaaS was not limited to a particular country or company size: "They highlight a positive attitude across all segments," it added.

Large enterprises were most positive about ERP solutions, while mid-sized companies are leading with CRM in SaaS spending plans. By country, the UK, Germany and France were less bullish than Spain and Italy when it comes to SaaS.

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