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Contributed on February 14, 2018

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6 reasons why Global SaaS CX platforms are a better choice than Local point solutions

Blog: Capgemini CTO Blog

I often get asked whether customers should choose Global SaaS CX Platforms (from vendors like Salesforce, Oracle or Microsoft) or rather pick local point solutions. Especially customers with smaller organizations struggle with this question. My answer always is that there are pros and cons to both solutions, but usually you are better of with the larger companies. I’ll give you the 6 main reasons for this statement.

1. Security

The companies that are in the SaaS business can probably not survive a data breach – not even with the size they are. A severe leakage of data would cause their shareholders value to plummet, eventually putting them out of business. Which is why they have extremely large departments that oversee the security of their environments. They are known to hire ‘ethical’ hackers to try and hack their environments just to allow them to stay ahead of the ‘non-ethical’ hackers. Small local companies simply don’t have the amount of manpower nor the money to equal that. Not to mention the comparison to your own company’s security spending.

2. Portfolio

The platforms cover all your (potential) CX needs, meanwhile still allowing you to start with just one module if that’s the only thing that you require. It is very reassuring to know that your next step on the CX path can be taken within the periphery of the platform of your first step allowing you to move quickly when opportunities arise. It assures that data models are aligned and that data flows easily from one module to the other. Which leads nicely to the next point, connectivity.

3. Connectivity

Surely your local point solution will have extensive API capabilities, but the platforms offer ever increasing capabilities of out of the box integrations without the need to code anything. And if you need to code, they usually offer you accelerators with example code, preconfigured API’s or validated partner solutions that provide integrations with guaranteed functionality on each version including backwards compatibility.

4. Scalability

Yes, I know, all cloud solutions are scalable. And I Know that you are only a global player in your dreams. But even within your business there will be moments, foreseen and unforeseen, where the volumes handled temporarily increase. Next to that you might be that potential new star rocketing into global importance. The assurance that multimillion interaction volumes sometimes pass through their platforms on an hourly level can be very reassuring in that respect.

5. Roadmap

This is one of the items that I value highly. It is an aspect where companies tend to overestimate their own capabilities and their own ‘special needs’ compared to other companies using these SaaS solutions. I often hear that it is difficult to influence the roadmap of the platforms, whereas with small local companies that is easy. You can get your customization pushed on their roadmap quickly. How inviting that may sound, it also requires you to have a roadmap for the development of that tool yourself. Because as soon as you run out of ideas the tools development will slow down. The large platforms, however, have large departments that are already planning their roadmap for development more than 2 years ahead and they have been creating their product based on a wide variety of customers. They receive their input from all their customers which allow you to be a smart follower without the necessity to instruct the product managers of the tool what to develop, probably there is already a ton of functionality in the existing tooling that you can directly implement. But even more interesting, they all are very willing to listen to your needs and wishes to develop their product in a direction that suits their customers. So even with them, you can get your ideas pushed into the product.

6. You matter

This item is often forgotten, but even though you might not even need 10 licenses, as soon as you have bought them you matter to the SaaS company. The cloud has changed their reward structure to such an extent that each license that is not renewed weighs at least as heavy as a new one sold. They are there to keep you onboard. No matter how small you are because your licenses are part of the entire stack of licenses that need to be renewed each month.

These 6 topics identify why you should always consider the global SaaS players in the CX area and how you can benefit from them without being intimidated.