A combination of macro-market trends is changing the priorities of companies of all sizes. The advent of globalization and ecommerce are fundamentally reshaping the competitive landscape. At the same time, advancements in mobile technology are allowing employees to work anywhere.

This combination is forcing companies to seek more effective ways to leverage business applications to meet their corporate objectives and respond to their changing operational needs.

After struggling to deploy and maintain traditional, on-premise software applications for years, many companies are adopting or considering a new generation of "on-demand", Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) alternatives to satisfy their rapidly changing business requirements.

These SaaS alternatives offer attractive benefits including,

• Accelerated deployment
• Lower support requirements
• "Pay-as-you-go" pricing
• Flexible utilization models