Is SaaS PPM Right for Your Large Business?

 

Situation: You’re exploring Portfolio Management (PPM) software options. 

You’ve done your homework and come to the conclusion that there are essentially two options: on-premise installed software and software-as-a-service (SaaS).

PowerSteering Software provides SaaS PPM software for large enterprises, and their model has been gaining a lot of traction recently.  We recently spoke with their CEO, Stephen Sharp, and asked him a few questions about the benefits and pitfalls of this approach.  Here is what he had to say.

Q.  Most SaaS options appear to be designed for smaller companies or departments.  PowerSteering is unusual in that its SaaS offering is targeted at larger organizations. How does PowerSteering tailor its software to the needs of global enterprises with diverse businesses, functions and workflow?

The need for PPM flexibility is critical when you consider that the project lifecycle of a software development project may be quite different as compared to a new product launch which might require a strict stage-gate process. And to truly manage all work holistically, a PPM system must adapt to non-project work like routine IT help desk inquiries as well as the management of critical corporate assets like IT applications.  When all is said and done, work is work!

A popular misconception is that SaaS is limited to early-stage PPM deployments, departmental project management needs, or small to mid market companies because the software isn’t scalable or adaptable enough.  While this may be true for some SaaS vendors, PowerSteering’s enterprise class, highly configurable software is used by global organizations with thousands of users who need the software to accommodate different businesses, workflow, roles, project methodologies, and reporting needs.  And PowerSteering can also be configured to manage application portfolios and other non-project assets.

PowerSteering is unique in offering the best of both worlds: enterprise-class software with comprehensive and fully configurable PPM capabilities, along with the benefits of SaaS, including lower total cost of ownership, faster deployment, and better user adoption.

Q.  We’ve seen a lot of organizations who have more than one enterprise class PPM product in place.  Is that ever a challenge?  How do you work with that sort of situation when it arises?

It’s quite common for large companies to have a traditional IT PPM system that’s used for timesheets or cost management, but still need a more flexible SaaS option to address project and portfolio management needs outside of IT.  As a result, we made sure that PowerSteering supports non-technical, business users and seamlessly integrates with in-house systems to provide our customers with a single view of their consolidated project and portfolio metrics. 

Q.  You do a lot of work with companies who use PPM to manage project portfolios outside IT including Process Improvement, New Product Development and even Merger Integration which means you deal with more complexity and integration issues than most.  How does PowerSteering adapt to these situations?

We’re able to easily adapt our software to manage a variety of project portfolios that may use very different project prioritization models, project management methodologies, and cost/ benefit tracking metrics.  For example, an IT customer like Clorox is focused on capturing demand, aligning it with business strategies and resourcing it efficiently.  On the other hand, the Department of Defense is intent on consistent reporting of project financial benefits across the enterprise and the ability to successfully identify and replicate effective projects.   

Q.  In your demo, you talk about enabling executives to make value judgments about projects and how strategic organizational efforts are being addressed.  Can you give us an example of how this has worked at one of your clients?  What specific metrics do you look at that others might not?

A newly-appointed Corporate CIO of a diversified, global manufacturing conglomerate inherited a $500M IT budget, along with 29 divisional CIO’s who each had their own portfolios, priorities and budgets. The new CIO had no idea where or how effectively the IT budget was being spent. In just 3 weeks, he was able to create a project inventory across the global portfolio to assess the current status, projected ROI and budget of each active item.  A week later he cancelled 20% of the active projects and re-deployed the resources to more important priorities.  Each of the cancelled projects were either not aligned with the current strategy, targeted at systems to be retired, redundant with other projects, or so far off track that they needed to be
re-scoped.

The evaluation metrics included a priority score that measured multiple dimensions including the level of strategic fit, the probability of success, the financial value, the current status and the percent complete.

Q.  Do you see a point in the near future, where it’s all SaaS?  Why or why not?

Absolutely!  On-premise installed software isn’t really sustainable in the long-term when you consider how many implementations still fail to meet ROI objectives, are expensive and time-consuming to deploy and maintain, and impede user adoption. We’re eager to offer companies a practical enterprise alternative to outdated, inefficient and costly installed software.

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