Is Your Company Ready for an Application Service Provider?
<a title=Application service providers at Zoot! Href=http://www.zootweb.com/additional_information/application_service_provider.html>Application service providers</a> or (ASPs) are companies who offer an entire package for your company’s business, not just a service via the Internet, they also provide the software programs that your company will use on a daily basis to access their services. Application service providers are also known as Software as a Service, meaning you get the service and the software together, plus maintenance, upgrades and IT service 24-hours a day.
Many companies are switching to application service providers instead of holding onto their archaic in-house software. Rather than paying overhead for an in-house IT staff and new software upgrades every year, plus hoping that your customers can access your website once it is up- businesses are opting for application service providers to take all of those concerns off their mind and simply provide an all-in-one service. Plus, businesses are looking to new models online for new <a title=Customer acquisition at Zoot! Href=http://www.zootweb.com/additional_information/customer_acquisition.html>customer acquisition</a> .
Immediate Benefits
• No need to purchase new software or deal with the complexities in-house.
• Changes, upgrades and service are all done remotely, therefore relieving stress of having an IT group that is purely responsible for maintaining problems that come up.
• As part of the software as a service, an ASP is responsible for maintaining and upgrading the service with 24 x 7 technical support. This saves the company and employees valuable time that is spent trying to fix back-end issues when they should be spent with customers.
• Satisfy customer demands quickly and securely. With an application service provider you can securely deliver the resources your customers are looking for any time- anywhere there is Internet service.
Important Things to Consider Before Partnering with an Application Service Provider
Security and confidentiality are important considerations; you will want to have clearly defined expectations in these areas with your application service provider.
As with any important partnership, your company should expect an agreement to throughout your relationship. The extent of this agreement should be in proportion to the importance of the application to your business. At a minimum, you should address issues of service level, data ownership, confidentiality, termination and liability. The agreement should protect your company against unforeseen consequences.
You will want to monitor the status of tech support, outages and scheduled maintenance. Warning signs are only useful if someone notices them and does something about them. You will want to remain involved throughout the implementation to ensure the relationship with your application service provider remains on track.
About the author: Melissa Peterman is a web content specialist for Innuity. For more information regarding Application service providers or customer acquisition go to ZOOT.
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