Key Elements of Software + Service (S+S)
Greater Reliability: For the 2007 operating year we maintained uptimes for our customers greater than 99.99%. We also successfully processed thousands of EPM specific tickets for our customer base, leading to a significant knowledge base from which you can benefit.
Its Cheaper: For all long-term hosting customers we will offer a free own vs. rent analysis. In almost all cases we can offer a higher service level than your internal IT at a lower price point. This is because we can spread the cost of very specialized EPM resources across many customers.
Better Support: It’s not a matter of intelligence or ability. We host for companies with some of the smartest and most capable IT functions in the world. The reason why so many of our customers use us to provision their EPM environment in a SaaS model is because we can offer products and services that only become cost-effective when you hit a very large user population. So, for example, we have an entire library of advanced reports, e-learning content, and web based tutorials. It would take an existing IT function a huge investment to provide these services, but we offer them to all our SaaS customers as part of our unique package.
Manage the Complexity: Trouble shooting EPM issues can be difficult. In any given day you will see issues that are user related, application related, and server related. Often successfully resolving the issue will require the support resource to understand all three domains. With outsourced EPM support you can gain the benefit of this specialized knowledge without the cost and volatility of building it internally.
Benefit from the Community: By supporting a large environment, we have made investments to accelerate adoption, improve reporting, and better manage delivery of knowledge to different user communities. This is a benefit because we readily make available learning from one organization to other in the S+S model. So for example, if a given customer requests a report that we believe would be useful to others, we write the report generically, once and provision it against all relevant parties. There is no co-mingling of data, but in essence, you have the ability to benefit from other people requests and ideas in a very cost effective way.
Cost
All Managed Services proposals are created on a customer-by-customer basis. For a discussion of what a given offering would cost you, please contact an Occam Group Representative.
Duration
The Occam Group is not an ASP (Application Service Provider). We define an ASP as a vendor providing a SaaS offering in a cohabitated or shared infrastructure environment. All your hosting and S+S customers enjoy dedicated assets. Hosting and support agreements come in several forms and can be as short as a few months or as long as several years. We have a customer loyalty program that offers substantial discounts for longer term commitments.