SaaS remains in the spotlight for 95 per cent of firms

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More than 95 per cent of businesses expect to maintain or increase their use of software as a service (SaaS), a Gartner survey has shown.

As for where firms are looking to leverage SaaS, respondents cited email, financial management, sales force automation and customer service, along with expense management as the most popular areas.

In a statement, Sharon Mertz, research director at Gartner, said: “SaaS applications clearly are no longer seen as a new deployment model by our survey base, with almost half of those surveyed affirming use of SaaS applications in their business for more than three years.

She added: “A key survey finding was that more enterprises are renegotiating contracts for greater functionality, additional users and improved financial terms. Thirty percent of respondents said that they had renegotiated their SaaS contracts before the end of the initial term.”

However, the poll also found that the majority of firms do not have policies in place to govern the evaluation and use of SaaS.

Just 39 per cent of the 270 IT and business management professionals surveyed said that such a practice had been implemented in their operations. This represented an increase of just one per cent from 2008.

Earlier this month, Gartner predicted that IT spending will increase by 5.3 per cent this year, with IT services to grow 5.7 per cent.

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