Preconfigured SaaS MS Project PPM

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Situation: You're in a MS shop, looking at PPM SaaS options.

Many organizations ask "Should we go with MS Project Server or a SaaS solution?"  The folks at SharkPro Software are in the business of giving you both.  Recently we spent some time with Greg Bailey, SharkPro Software's CEO who clued us in on where he sees the industry going.  Whether you are pro or anti Microsoft, I think you'll find his answers interesting.

Q.  Is the future of PM and PPM software in house or in the cloud?  Obviously everything has been moving in the cloud for a while now.  Is that where it all ends up?  If so, when?

Most of PPM will end up in the cloud, and relatively soon.  Even large businesses with well-established IT departments while leveraging their existing infrastructure for some on premise applications will opt to tie into the cloud and get the benefit of both.  Organizations handling financial, medical, or intelligence information may opt for a “private cloud”.  We’ve found the more agile small and mid-sized companies are moving towards SaaS solutions at a faster rate as evidenced by the success of the early PPM SaaS vendors.

Where does sit end up?  With more vendors looking ahead to more open and cross platform technology standards like HTML 5, companies will be able to “turn on and off” and only pay for the features they need on demand.  So whether on the PC, the Web or a Mobile device they will only pay for the capability they need throughout the lifecycle of a project.  Project ramp up may require more of the initial feature set but as a project goes live they will just need more of the update and collaboration capability.  Users will also have a choice to select best of breed features from multiple vendors all seamless to the end user.  As businesses realize the security, accessibility, as well as the ability to rapidly get access to the latest features and capabilities only as they need them, the benefit of cloud solutions and the economics are irresistible. 

Q.  Fast implementation times are a key selling point for SaaS PM and PPM offerings competing against Project Server.  The idea is that they give you "just enough" of what you need, without extensive customization.  Generally speaking, what is the functionality or type/level of customization that you can't get with Project Server in the cloud (whether it's with your company or another) and why?

I agree that fast implementation has been one of the SaaS vendor’s value proposition’s when positioning against Microsoft.  Microsoft Project and Project Server are tremendously successful with over 20 million Project Users and 10,000 larger companies using Project Server.  It still is one of Microsoft Top 10 products so the investment in new development is huge.

Although Project Server has been available in a hosted environment for years, there has not been a “pre-packaged or ready-to-go” version that did not require at least some initial configuration.

When developing SharkPro Projects we decided to leverage the power and popularity of Project and Project Server 2010 as a platform but provide a completely new way to deploy and experience Project Server.  Available via SaaS in minutes or installed on premise in a few hours   It is pre-provisioned and has a fresh web interface so users are ready to go, just like the early SaaS products.  The difference is SharkPro Projects still has all of the new Microsoft Project 2010 and Server capability available as needed.  A company can grow into the more advanced features without having to migrate to another tool later.

The limitations we have seen so far have to do more with architecture deployment decisions rather than features. For example, a large employment agency was looking at SaaS initially but also wanted the option to bring on premise to leverage existing infrastructure when ready.  Typically not an out-of-the-box solution with SaaS only vendors and requires more thought and planning to deploy.  For global companies there are more laws and regulations related to where the actual data resides.  Some have compliance requirements that require that servers and data are physically located in the host country.

Q.  Do you see many IT shops strictly using MS Project Desktop at this point?  Are there specific industries or company sizes that are more likely to be using stand-alone software?

We still see a tremendous amount of MS Project Desktop.  Many still use Project Desktop even when they have selected other SaaS or higher end tools.  Desktop is still great for just learning project management or if you are a project manager managing a large capital construction project and there is not a need to share that information on the web.  We also see Project terrific for off-line work when you may not always be connected to the cloud and are on a plane or very remote region in the world such as an offshore platform.

Q.  At what point do you see an enterprise needing an EPM solution?  Is there a particular set of attributes or pain points that you typically see in companies at that stage of maturity?  Is there a particular situation in which a Microsoft-based solution is best?

Individual project managers are usually successful running their projects using a tool Like Microsoft Project. Companies often realize they have a problem when they start trying to optimize resources across multiple projects or need to understand and optimize the “demand” of all the requests coming in.  Companies also need to be able to support multiple workflows and work streams and need to better communicate and collaborate across teams. I have always felt that the tools did not take into account the likely user scenario or “workflow “and how people interact on a project.  Most tools do fine as a big repository of all the project data but forget to take into account the likely “use case” scenarios of how the information needs to flow within a team or organization.  That’s a good time to use Microsoft Project Server either from scratch or to start with SharkPro Projects.

Q.  Without saying "all of them", what company sizes and industries is your software MOST useful in?  Why is that?

SharkPro Projects is ideal for the upper mid market.  Companies, government agencies or departments within each that have between 250-1500 employees.  They typically would like a “ready to go” solution they can start with due to budget constraints and in house expertise but would like to make sure they have the flexibility to grow with the tool and be able to still do some configuration to their specific needs.

We have seen 3 types of early customers.  Those that started with the early SaaS or SharePoint tools but have started to outgrow them, companies that want to upgrade from earlier versions of MS Project but would like a “ready to go” Project Server to get them started and lastly companies that started with a higher end tool that may be too complex for a specific department to tie into. 

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