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Hartford, CT – July 23, 2007 - Completion of usage analysis illustrates acceptance of SaaS by Fortune 500. The debate continues to rage on concerning the adoption of Software as a Service. While there are plenty of naysayers in a variety of industries, one software company has made significant strides in the area of acceptance. Software Impressions (SI) along with their product EthicsAdvantage™ has become a proven example for the value of SaaS.
Initially, the decision to deliver the EthicsAdvantage™ product suite, an Ethics and Compliance Software solution, through SaaS was based on the simplicity and efficiencies for SI. Says Ken Desrosiers, VP of Product Development for SI “We found we could control the platform, the security levels, maintain tighter quality standards, and ensure at upgrade time customers would experience an effortless transition.” Yet the greatest challenge was obvious; would customers be willing to allow such critical, private information, to be stored and maintained offsite by a managed hosting provider?
A recent analysis completed by Software Impressions illustrates that any initial objection to SaaS as a distribution model is not only a non-issue for users but the benefits of using a hosted solution can outweigh an in-house alternative. Not surprisingly, customers have realized the same benefits as SI expected themselves, but some additional benefits were discovered. According to Mike Salvarezza, Director, Compliance Systems & Records Management for the Altria family of companies, a $140 billion market cap enterprise. "Altria selected Software Impression's product because we believe it is the best software available to undergird our compliance and integrity case management system – a critical part of any ethics and integrity program. Moreover, we have realized other benefits from the Software as a Service model.” Mr. Salvarezza continued, “Altria did not have to implement costly, in house infrastructure to run the application nor did we have to rely on operational support of the system from our IT function. Also, when we have asked Software Impressions to modify the system to better suit our needs, we did not have to provide development resources to work on the application. Finally, relying on this model, we are able to accurately predict our costs, which assist in our ongoing budgeting and planning for the future."
EthicsAdvantage is a monitoring and reporting system used by companies to enhance their ethics and corporate governance programs. Given the nature of the system, security is of the highest importance. Tracking allegations of fraud or misconduct for example must be treated with discretion. These allegations are investigated and resolved over a period of time and could potentially involve anyone from senior management to personnel with simply an axe to grind. Having this highly sensitive information maintained outside the firewall, in a secure environment also reduces the risk of potential tampering.
Given the current business climate, the value of SaaS for critical applications is multi-faceted. Coupling the strengths of a powerful application such as EthicsAdvantage with the efficiencies of SaaS young, innovative software companies can offer customers an on-time, cost-effective and elegant solution to real-world problems without many of the headaches tied to traditional licensed software.
About Software Impressions
Software Impressions LLC helps corporate business practices and compliance officers to increase the effectiveness of their ethics compliance programs. EthicsAdvantage is designed to enhance an organization's capabilities related to the proactive management of ethics matters and corporate governance reporting requirements. Additional information about Software Impressions may be found at: www.softwareimpressions.com