Case Study 2

Group 9
LJ11
Case 1 | Software as a Service: ERP by the Hour

Case Situation Analysis (Min 50 words):

SaaS is a way for organizations to use cloud- based Internet services to accomplish the goals that
traditional IS infrastructure and software models have in the past. SaaS customers pay to use
applications on demand, giving them the freedom to access a software service only when needed.
SaaS has several advantages. Organizations can move their data storage into the cloud, reducing the
cost of buying storage reduce the risk data loss. SaaS utilization also allows organizations to become
more productive outside the physical confines of their buildings. Employees can access services from
remote offices or from their mobile devices. One of the main disadvantages of SaaS is that customers
must give up some autonomy over their applications and data. In addition to more general-purpose
applications, many organizations are deploying ERP capabilities via SaaS vendors.

Problem Analysis: Problem Definition and Problem Statement

 Problem Definition

One of the main disadvantages of SaaS is that 1) customers must give up some autonomy over
their applications and data. Some organizations 2) require specialized software solutions and
are used to customizing software in-house to meet their needs. Although some SaaS vendors
are beginning to offer customizable solutions, the problem is still a roadblock for some.
Computing off-site also means that 3) security may be an issue, as organizational operations
and data are effectively running on someone else’s server. As it is 4) virtually impossible for
some types of organizations to keep their data and their secrets in the cloud, such concerns are
another roadblock that organizations must overcome in order to use SaaS products.
  Problem Statement
1. Customers must give up some autonomy over their applications and data
2. Require specialized software solutions and are used to customizing software in-
house to meet their needs.
3. Security may be an issue, as organizational operations and data are effectively
running on someone else’s server.
4. Virtually impossible for some types of organizations to keep their data and their
secrets in the cloud

Diagnosis: Cause and Proof of Diagnosis

Problem Cause Evidence Impact

Customers must SaaS uses   Software as a service  User must give up some
give up some another vendor (SaaS) (also known as autonomy in maintaining
autonomy over to maintain the subscribeware or rentware) their applications and
their applications server is a software licensing and data, in exchange for
and data delivery model in which convenience and ease of
software is licensed on a use that SaaS provides.
subscription basis and is
centrally hosted.

Organization Re- Every  Organization that looked  The organization have to

quire specialized organization has or function in a similar adjust to ‘prebaked’ or
software solutions their own industry might have totally more generic software
and are used to business models. different business models solution and managed
customizing like Apple and Samsung. their workflow in
software in-house accordance to this.
to meet their Another option is to
needs. request a customized
software from SaaS
provider, although this is
  still uncommon.

Security may be SaaS uses Your data is your data. Organization is at risk of
an issue, as another vendor You don’t want anybody data loss or data theft. It is
organizational to maintain the to access it unless you especially worrying if the
operations and server allow them to. This is easy organization store a
data are enough to maintain when sensitive data on the
effectively you store data on-site, but platform.
running on what about in the cloud?
someone else’s Because your data is stored
server. elsewhere, it might be
impossible to know just
 how closed off it is

Decision Options

Decision Option Description

 SaaS provider offers more customizable  Giving organizations the ability to customize their
software solutions that suits to the software solutions will give them more space to
organization’s specific needs. work with and fully utilize the software to their
needs. This can also include customizing how they
would save the data so its also more secure.

By implementing data fragmentation, we can split

SaaS provider provides more secure server
by implementing data fragmentation and
spread them across multiple servers, the
data can only be understood by the key
holder.
data into smaller chunks that then spread across
multiple server, if an attacker found a chunk of
data, they can’t make sense of it since its only a
fraction of the actual data.

Recommendation

Selected Option Reason

  SaaS provider offers more customizable  Allowing organization to customize the

software solutions that suits to the
organization’s specific needs.
software’s features will suit their business
model better and make them more productive.
This can also be extended into allowing the
organization to opt for using a private cloud
server for few sensitive information.

Conclusion (Min 50 words) :

Based on the problem and solution mentioned above, we can conclude that using SaaS is the
right choice for organizations in this 4.0 era, this is because all the data that is stored in the
cloud can decrease organizations expanditure and streamline the process of data management.
But we also need to be aware of the downsides such as data loss and data leakage because no
technology is fullproof, no matter how good and advanced it is.