By Guest IDC Blogger: Elaina Stergiades, Research Director

 

Over the past 20 years, organizations have rapidly adopted cloud infrastructure and SaaS applications to take advantage of their transformative business value. SaaS applications promise – and deliver – fast access to new features that can enable continuous innovation so business users can compete effectively in dynamic global markets. In addition, cloud infrastructure and SaaS applications can simplify and streamline the software update process, allowing organizations to implement these new features with minimal disruption. Businesses looking for flexibility and agility in their IT operations often look to SaaS and cloud infrastructure to quickly address changing market and customer requirements. And with new application models around the corner, leveraging generative AI and agentic AI to transform the enterprise software experience, organizations need to update workflows and business processes as well as train key users to adapt to this fast-paced, evolving technology landscape.

Value realization for SaaS and cloud infrastructure remains challenging

While the benefits of SaaS and cloud infrastructure are well established, the rapid pace of change inherent to the SaaS model means CIOs and business managers often need help to fully realize the value of their complex SaaS landscapes. Constant updates arrive with new features and functionality, sometimes as often as once a month, making it difficult for IT and business users to know which innovations matter most. Business managers want to make sure they prioritize adopting the key strategic innovations that can enable them to achieve the desired operational and business outcomes. Many organizations also benefit from support that connects implementation and onboarding activities with ongoing operations to ensure a smooth transition across the business.

For organizations to fully realize the value of SaaS applications and cloud infrastructure, they need to accelerate access to innovations that can drive results and achieve the desired operational and business outcomes. If CIOs and business managers cannot adopt new innovations quickly, ongoing change management can be an uphill climb. IDC believes organizations are looking for solutions that can help accelerate the adoption of the most relevant new functionality specifically tied to desired outcomes.

New solutions can help organizations achieve business outcomes

To help customers achieve the outcomes they need from enterprise software, support and success services providers are investing in solutions to help accelerate adoption, knowledge transfer, and value realization. These solutions typically include tools to build project and engagement road maps that highlight key features across the software life cycle, both in current implementations and future releases. Feature adoption is prioritized specifically for the organization and tailored to the operational and business results in its success plan. While a number of support and success providers offer standalone tools that can help with adoption and knowledge transfer, the most comprehensive solutions offer an integrated approach across the life cycle from implementation, through adoption and operations, with a focus on tracking value realization across the product suite.

Robust solutions should also provide access to technology experts and full integration with learning capabilities that can ensure proper implementation configurations and improve adoption success. To improve value realization, advanced providers include shared views of project milestones and objectives, paired with data insights and industry benchmarks. During implementation, these comprehensive solutions feature pre-configurations tailored for an organization’s industry, as well as access to best practices for updating business processes and role-specific workflows and walkthroughs.

Key considerations to help improve SaaS and cloud infrastructure engagements

Companies should leverage these solutions early and often throughout any engagements with SaaS and cloud infrastructure providers. Specifically, IDC recommends the following:

  • Allocate the necessary time and resources to set up success plans and road maps across the engagement life cycle
  • Invest in the necessary IT and business resources to adopt ongoing updates that align with the organization’s configurations and business objectives
  • Expand access to knowledge transfer capabilities across business super users to speed adoption
  • Implement value realization monitoring and tracking through these platforms to ensure key milestones and objectives are on track

Finally, companies should look for support and success service providers with demonstrated capabilities and continued investment in leveraging these tools and solutions during implementation and as part of adoption and ongoing operations support – with reference customers and case studies that include measurable, tangible results. By leveraging these solutions throughout SaaS and cloud infrastructure engagements, CIOs and business managers can be more proactive about maximizing the value of their IT investments.

Message from the Sponsor

Thanks to IDC for the insights. At Oracle, customer feedback aligns closely with these recommendations. Oracle Cloud Success Navigator exemplifies these critical capabilities by offering centralized, AI-enabled access to guidance, best practices, and collaborative planning to guide you at every stage of your cloud journey. Learn more about this free interactive platform.