By Preethi Menon, VP & Head – Practices, Clover Infotech

Running and managing a business is a constant struggle. A business needs to have various systems and software in place for seamless functioning of disparate departments such as accounting, human resources, and sales and marketing. However, building an in-house software for each function leads to wastage of time and resources and increases the costs. This is where, productized solutions can provide immense benefits to organizations by enabling them to use tailor-made-solutions without incurring additional CapEX.

The Rising Trend of Productized Solutions

Considering the plethora of benefits that this approach offers to organizations, many IT services providers are building solutions as products targeted for the mass-market. These solutions are usually a combination of software, services and infrastructure, and are ready to use right from the beginning. They may also be developed as a framework or platform and can be accessed on the cloud directly in what is popularly known as the ‘SaaS’ model. These solutions are developed to target different players in an industry and hence respond to the needs of as many users as possible.

One of the biggest advantage of using productized solution is that it tends to be cost-effective. However, there are other equally significant benefits of using such solutions.

Easy Implementation – Such solutions are ready to use and can be implemented quickly. If an organization wants to start instantly, they can use a piece of existing software that is ready to install and can have the upgradation as and when the need arises. This allows organizations to access a lot of features that are ready to use.

Plenty of support and knowledge material is available – If an organization does not have a specialized team of developers and programmers, then implementing productized solutions can be a great option. With such solutions, the organization does not need to hire a software developer or a team to build them custom made software. Productized solutions come with plenty of reference or resource materials and the software services firm is always ready with well-trained teams to offer the much-required support all through the journey. This enables organizations to focus more on their core competencies rather than managing issues arising out of technology applications and solutions that they develop.

Updates, Upgrades and Security – With productized solutions, organizations needn’t worry about migration to the latest version, updates, or upgrades. With a ‘SaaS’ model of the solution being made available, the solutions provider will ensure that the latest updates, and upgrades are made available over a secured cloud and organizations can focus more on their business and strategic initiatives rather than be constantly thinking about their application landscape and its maintenance. To add to it, with a productized solution, the security is also taken care of by the service provider and hence organizations needn’t worry about that vital part of any application. The result is that the organizations make well-informed decisions faster and also innovate and ‘go-to-market’ more seamlessly than they would have otherwise done. It is a shift that is imminent but happening fast. Organizations are happy to look at platforms and solutions which feel like a product and can be accessed over the cloud. With new-age requirements such as automation, data analytics, digital experiences etc., such productized solutions will take center stage in the years to come.