E-Warehouse

e-Warehouse is an established provider of IT service-desk software, and has always made a point of listening closely to its customers in order to set itself apart from the competition. In late 2006, when an increasing number of users began asking for a Software as a Service (SaaS) version of its Oxygen software, Managing Director Richard Althorp knew he had to respond quickly.

Demand for SaaS has been growing rapidly given its obvious user benefits. Because SaaS software is delivered over the web, rather than being installed on local servers, users enjoy simplified deployment without the costs of installing, configuring, maintaining and scaling their own systems. Instead, customers benefit from the economies of scale that a SaaS provider can offer, and pay a predictable ‘utility’ price each month.

In 2006, SaaS products were already popular in areas such as CRM. But the IT service-desk market had no such pay-as-you-go offering, meaning e-Warehouse had the opportunity to create a world first.

Althorp knew that e-Warehouse had to develop Oxygen’s SaaS offering carefully if it was to succeed. Traditionally, software providers that experimented in the early days of SaaS, more commonly referred to then as ASP, failed to deliver because their applications were poorly suited to being delivered over the web and functionality suffered because of this. “We knew that Oxygen, as a natively web-based product, would be fast and stable. But I always say that there are two critical factors for SaaS customers: first, is the application reliable, fast and feature rich? Second, how well does the hosting infrastructure hold up?”

It was for these reasons that Althorp turned to NTT Europe as hosting provider for the new SaaS solution. “The NTT Europe name is very important in making our customers feel comfortable. We have blue-chip clients and an aggressive global growth strategy. That’s why we needed a global business partner – and there aren’t many providers around who could offer what NTT Europe offers.”

NTT Europe was to factor highly in Althorp’s ambitious plans for growth and service levels. “We know that the NTT infrastructure could deliver the service levels we needed, because it is built with tier-one equipment from vendors such as IBM, Sun, Checkpoint, Nokia and Cisco,” explains Althorp. “Speed was also a big part of our decision. The very low latency of parent company NTT Communications’ worldwide backbone means that we can grow to cover America, Australia or South Africa without worrying about compromising Oxygen’s performance.”

Equally important was NTT Europe’s attitude towards process and security. “Unlike other providers, we map our product to many business processes and frameworks including ITIL. Our customers appreciate the commitment to best practice in security and information management.” Althorp continues: “That’s why we need to be associated with like-minded organisations. NTT Europe’s ISO27001 certification for information security management shows that they share our commitment to doing business methodically, to the highest standards of security and data protection. It makes me – and my customers – feel comfortable.”

The SaaS offering became available from the start of 2007, and customers began signing up for pilot implementations immediately. e-Warehouse is initially running two servers with Windows and SQL Workgroup, with up to 20 clients per server. The first projects have gone live and are running without any problems.

Customers are starting to trust SaaS with their critical service-desk processes – and that trust is built by NTT Europe, as Althorp explains: “I know that NTT Europe focuses on business-class hosting and managed services, so it’s easy for me to trust my business to them. I know that we come across as a more credible provider for our customers with NTT Europe as a global ICT solution partner.”