The idea of software as a service is not new and in fact AssurX has offered its CATSWeb enterprise quality and compliance system in a hosted environment for over 10 years.  However, there has always been a certain resistance in business for utilizing this software model.  The reasons have varied from security issues to wanting to have control over the platforms to a perception that the data just needs to be in-house.  For several years, though, businesses have been looking to reduce their overall costs, including those involved with IT.  As a result SaaS has much more appeal as it can significantly help to reduce the overall cost of ownership.

One of the chief issues that have confounded IT, though, is system integration.  No system is the be-all-to-end-all.  ERP systems will generally handle most of the basic functions of a business, however there are aspects like complaint management, auditing, CAPA, etc., that are not fully covered by these systems – hence the need for multiple applications and the need to integrate.

The next argument from many is that if our systems are all hosted we cannot integrate them.  That is not necessarily true.  Systems that have Web service capabilities are fully capable of being integrated regardless of their location.  This was recently proven by a very successful hosted NetSuite to CATSWeb integration.  The requirement was to allow customer service to enter their initial customer complaint as a Support Case in NetSuite (which the customer runs as a SaaS) and have a corresponding transaction triggered in CATSWeb (which is also running as SaaS) where the actual complaint processing occurs.  This was all accomplished by using a simple call from NetSuite to the CATSWeb web service.  CATSWeb creates the record and sends a success or error message back to NetSuite, which then either stores the newly created CATSWeb Record ID in the Support Case for reference purposes or sends an email to an individual in the case of an error message.  Additionally, because CATSWeb returns the Record ID created to NetSuite, any further changes to the NetSuite Support Case can be sent to CATSWeb, which will update the record accordingly.

So is system integration of SaaS applications possible?  Absolutely. And depending the capabilities of the systems involved it can be relatively easy to accomplish.  CATSWeb offers a fully functional Web services API, which will allow any external system to integrate with it.  The location of the external system does not matter.  The bottom line is that Software as a Service is a viable business model which can greatly reduce IT costs and the idea that just because your applications are hosted at offsite locations is no reason why they cannot be effectively integrated.