The Ukrainian software industry is a fast growing glo- fied as their Western colleagues. For many however,
bal market that develops slowly and unsystematically. their potential remains unrealized because the State
The country is an importer of software and a lot of soft- does not provide favourable conditions for national IT
ware development is outsourced. It is not profitable for industry development.
national software companies to develop software prod-
ucts for the Ukrainian market and distribute it widely; it Finally, the absence of proper IPR protection resulted in
is considered more attractive to work with international a particular international image of Ukraine. The country
software vendors. The main reasons are the same: is associated with an unfavorable business climate and
weak protection of IPR and lack of awareness of the poor development conditions for businesses related to
threats caused by the use of counterfeit and pirated intellectual properties.
software.
The list of sectors with counterfeit and pirated software
According to experts from the National Academy of problems is not comprehensive. It is certainly enough
Sciences of Ukraine, the country has a lot of technical to consider the exceptionally high piracy rate of 83%
potential as well as qualified personnel needed for the as an urgent problem requiring nationwide attention.
successful development of the IT industry. Every year Unfortunately, the government has not paid enough at-
leading Ukrainian technical universities train thousands tention. The situation requires systematic and planned
of qualified IT specialists who are as skilled and quali- resolution on a state level.
SAAS (SOFTWARE-AS-A-SERVICE) IN UKRAINE
By WorldAPP, Inc.
www.worldapp.com
Why Bother SaaS ? all SaaS application are built using multi-tenant
back-end, where one applications serves hundreds
SaaS (software-as-a-service) being on a hype in United or thousands of customers. So SaaS providers are
States and Europe is still a new, even unknown product leveraging enormous economies of scale in the
for Ukrainian B2B technology buyer. You can search deployment, management, support and through the
the net for all types of definitions of what SaaS is and Software Development Lifecycle allowing end-user
find mostly technical one. Still the ever-growing popu- enjoy a much lower cost of ownership.
larity of SaaS products are explained not by tech-fash-
ion, but by clear business indicator: SaaS is a tool that Other distinctions of SaaS products are scalability and
allows leveraging the corporate resources smart way. interoperability. Running on providers’ hosted servers,
there is no limit to how many users, how many proc-
All your typical software, be it individual like word esses, applications or whatever else you may need.
processing or corporate like CRM, help desk, call More over, as many SaaS products are built with inter-
center or data collection, can be delivered using SaaS operability in mind they can seamlessly integrate with
models and with considerably lower price tag. Anyone your current and legacy IT systems, including other
with access to a browser can use SaaS products. Be- SaaS products. This in turn opens enormous capabili-
cause they are web-hosted, there is nothing to down- ties to change, adjust and improve business processes
load, nothing to install, no maintenance and no admin- without the need to build form scratch.
istration.
The added benefit for most SaaS product is ubiquitous
For any business manager it means that you free trial – it is like a software test-drive with no obliga-
can skip the lengthy and costly deployment and tion to buy. Usually the free trial period is long enough
installation process and you do not need to make to properly evaluate several products available at the
any capital investments into the hardware, user market and make the right purchase.
licenses or seats. The only price you pay is a
subscription fee and you can start using the tools SaaS benefits
right away. The obvious benefit for SaaS-provider is
that subscription fee has to be paid every year. Still So, long thing said short SaaS products have a set of
even across several years it is usually considerably districts benefits and advantages compared to tradi-
lower that traditional software licensees, because tional software.
36 Uniting Leading Companies from over 50 Nations Across the Globe
• Lower Costs - the corporate buyer does not need to the overall penetration of IT technologies (including
pay a single (usually large) license fee. He only needs internet) is 4 to 6 years behind United States, for ex-
to pay recurring (usually lower) subscription fees. He ample. The biggest deference is about the fact that
also does not have to inverts into hardware, addition- Ukrainian SMBs are not aware of it:
al IT resources and maintenance.
• “traditional” IT mistrust – as customers data resides
• Accessibility – all the end user need is a web-brows- on SaaS vendor servers, many potential customers
er, so the corporate buyer doesn’t have to worry as to just do not trust it;
how many installation he has to purchase and how to
manage them assuming regular employee turn-over. • lack of awareness – SaaS advantages are about low-
No matter the number of location in the country or er cost of software ownership, availability, scalability
around the world they conveniently use one and the and business process optimization – issues still dis-
same application. regarded by many Ukrainian SMB;
• Scalability – corporate buyer don’t have to worry • low level of IT skills – a lot of SMB personnel are not
about picking the wrong license of paying for users he confident computer-users, less so internet technology
don’t have. The end-user need not store software or users;
data stored on his computer so he doesn’t need large
data storage facilities. There is also the convenience • price – domestic SaaS solutions are almost non-
of not needing to constantly backup data - storage is existent, and the price for others maybe too high for a
the responsibility of the SaaS provider. The applica- local SMB especially if combined with lack of localized
tion growth with your business and provides corpo- versions and thus potential language barrier.
rate buyers an easy way to control expenses
Still, this vision is not pessimistic. It is just indicative
• Integration Capabilities – SaaS products can seam- on the current level of IT technologies penetration in
lessly integrate with current and legacy IT systems, Ukraine. So the first task any SaaS vendor will face is
including other SaaS products. This in turn opens the need to nurture awareness and prepare the market.
enormous capabilities to change, adjust and improve The most expected early buyers are departments of
business processes without the need to build form major companies or consultant companies serving
scratch. them. Couple of SaaS products can be purchased
locally even now, for example, Microsoft product on
• Fewer Personnel – SaaS reduces the need in IT per- SaaS model, presented by ISS (saas.com.ua) or online
sonnel. Because it is web-hosted, there is nothing to survey software presented by WorldAPP Ukraine
download, nothing to install, no maintenance and no (worldapp.com.ua). Still, the second major wave of
administration. The SaaS vendor provider will handle SaaS products is highly unlikely to happen before
these tasks. 2010-2011.
• Free-Trial – most SaaS applications come with a free Survey software as SaaS or customer and
“test-drive” period so you can try before you buy en- employee retention is ever-important
suring that you make the smart purchase.
Given the current economic situation worldwide, data
SaaS in Ukraine collection, form and survey applications based on
SaaS model become a lucrative product for both SMBs
When we start talking about SaaS in Ukraine the obvious and corporate buyers.
fact is that the market is only emerging. It is explained
by the fact that the initial development of SaaS market Besides evident SaaS advantages described above,
worldwide was driven by small and medium businesses these tools can solve a couple of other major challeng-
(SMB) needs, who became its early adopters. es faced by the business today.
In United States as well as in Europe it was SMBs that Customer retention – with all the advertising and mar-
being more flexible and in dire need of spending their keting budgets being cut, and customers cutting their
resources smart, embraced the SaaS products. Then expenses the will known saying that “it is cheaper to
came the departmental-level buyers from corporate keep an existing customer than to find new one” gains
sector who were choosing SaaS products, because even more weight. Customer retention often depends
the associated costs were low enough not to be run on the quality of customer service. The better you in-
through lengthy approval procedures. And only during teract, the more customers you keep. However, every
the couple of the last years, major buyers are engaged time you fail to meet a customer’s expectations, you
into buying SaaS products on a corporate level. lose business. With online survey tools, you will ob-
In Ukraine the situation is determined by the fact that tain feedback in a timely and efficient manner. You will
www.chamber.ua
37
know what you do well and how you can improve. As In addition, Key Survey delivers the power of workflow
a result, you can make instantaneous decisions that with workgroups where you define user roles and assign
keep your customers coming back for more. permissions for certain functions and access levels.
Employee retention – however many employees you Key Survey offers a set of integration opportunities that
have, it is vital to efficiently find out what they think. On- will allow leading businesses worldwide to build new
line survey tool not only gives you a means to gather processes around online data collection. This is the
all kinds of information; it helps you focus on what is next successful step in product evolution towards the
valuable and relevant. Dynamic, web-based employ- SaaS 2.0 model.
ee surveys now play an increasingly important role in
both larger and medium-sized companies. Distributing In 2001, WorldAPP entered the online survey software
employee surveys online has proven superior to other market with the SaaS 1.0 ready tool, which offers the
forms of survey deployment for one major reason: in following key attributes:
online surveys, people express themselves more freely
because they have complete anonymity. • An optimized process of online data collection.
Data collection solutions on SaaS model • It is easy to use and allows really fast roll-out because
no learning curve is involved.
WorldAPP, the leader in web-based data collection
technologies, markets web based applications for col- • No IT skills are required for use.
lecting, managing and leveraging data throughout the
enterprise. • It has rich functionality, which extends its use beyond
just online surveys.
WorldAPP`s flagship product - Key Survey is an intelligent
survey technology that’s help businesses worldwide to • It has been configurable and has had flexible customi-
automate the online data collection process and ensure zation for application, integration, security, and per-
complete accuracy. Its intuitive user interface enables an- mission-based access.
yone to create and administer professional-looking online
surveys. “From the very beginning our goal was to develop more
than just an online survey tool. We wanted to provide
Key Survey enables you to create, manage, deploy, and our users with an instrument that would change the
dynamically manipulate your surveys in just about any way they collect online data,” said WorldAPP CEO
way imaginable. You can customize your respondents’ ex- Cal Brown. “The recently announced Salesforce and
perience using logic transitions, set-up workflow alerts to QlikView integration which is available out of the box is
improve reaction and launch personalized e-mail invitation a clear indication of the direction we are moving in.”
and e-mail reminders to improve response rates. You can
access survey results real-time and generate customized With all the robust application and data integration ca-
reports and analysis on demand. pabilities, along with improved workflow, Key Survey is
heading towards the SaaS 2.0 model. Now Key Survey
WorldAPP designed Key Survey multi-user solutions to users can go beyond improving existing data collection
meet the administrative challenges of the large enter- processes - they can start building new ones around
prise while retaining its renowned user-friendly interface. the technology available.
38 Uniting Leading Companies from over 50 Nations Across the Globe