XaaS: exploring characteristics, pros and cons.
The new business model that will involve service and goods companies.
Table of content
Introduction
Main characteristics
Pro
Cons
Conclusion
Introduction
The breakdown of “anything as a service” doesn’t sound something new or disrupting at the dawn of 2021.
In 2018, a Forbes article quoted Ranjit Bawa, principal of cloud technology at Deloitte and this made us think a lot, and even smile. He said: “We already have TV-as-a-service, if you think about it. Without content, you essentially have a dumb terminal.” Yeah, it’s a fact.
The concept of “As a Service” seems to be bound to the IT world but exploring the concept of XaaS we can easily identify a lot of different services and products delivered “as a Service”. Thanks to the foresight of the new generations, all those things we thought you should “own” nowadays seem something that can surely be rent under a subscription model.
Young people, moving forward from the parents’ generation, assimilated the concept of “as a service” very well in their life also thanks to their will to be sustainable as consumers.
Characteristics
Nowadays, the XaaS are well applied to the IT world (Saas, PaaS, IaaS, DaaS), but also to the HR, mobility and creativity. In general, it’s a simple business model that can be applied to all those services, software, platforms and goods that can be outsourced.
If you want to rely on this business model for your company, here are the main characteristics of XaaS can be bullet into the followings;
- Pay per use: it means that you pay for what you need at that moment and that fits your needs. If you need more or less for the desired service (unless you’re paying for the minimum version of the service) you can always decide to do so.
- Subscription: usually you pay a fixed price per month and you know the amount of the fee from the beginning.
- The provider manages all the part of the service: (server, operating systems, libraries, languages, frameworks, data storage,…)
- Interface: all the XaaS provides an interface to use the service from any device and any localization.
Pro
One pro for XaaS is surely the pricing: most of the time they’re more convenient than buying the service or the product. Also, the fees are fixed from the beginning.
For companies, the XaaS business model is speeding up the digitalization of processes. Thanks to outsourcing, you can have a perfect “anything” already tested and well working for your company.
Also, the fact that you can have different levels of service is a benefit. You can start integrating only some module and then grow by your needs. We like also the agility that this kind of service offers.
Cons
Well, what can be a good thing for someone can be an obstacle for others. For example, outsourcing doesn’t have the same values for all companies. Privacy and internal data storage can be something essential for enterprises, especially the bigger ones.
The lack of total integration with other services and infrastructures is a drawback. Also, sometimes, since every aspect of the service relies on providers’ management, they can crash and so they can cause performance issues.
Conclusion
We think that this business model can give a lot of advantages either for providers and users. People are ready and prepared for receiving services and goods in this way. XaaS is giving the opportunity to enhance sustainability, boost digitalization and innovation and most important thing for us, spread collaboration. We are very firm on the concept that “software are capable to ignite debates between users and developers”; extending this idea to all the services and products that can be offered on a subscription bases, we think that a lot of improvements can come from this vision.
