Forrester recently announced the results of their third annual ITSM survey at Fusion 2013, a conference for IT Service Management professionals.  Summing up the experience there in a recent blog post , Forrester revealed that survey results showed that ITSM has largely maintained status quo through 2013 stating ‘no news…is news’.

Not everything was status quo though! Forrester said that the MOST significant change highlighted in the survey was in regards to SaaS adoption by service desk teams. In their own words “2013 is the breakout year for SaaS. ” When asked how they plan to purchase management and automation software over the next two years, for the first time ”Delivered via SaaS” rather than “Classic perpetual license” was the most popular choice.  “As most of you know, SaaS has been on a tear for a couple of years now – it’s neat to finally see that reflected in the data.”

To us , this is hardly a surprise. Ever since we launched ServiceDesk Plus On-Demand, the fully SaaS version of ServiceDesk Plus in late 2010, we have seen an encouraging adoption rate that only seems to grow each day. As the report suggests, we saw many of our own customers move from their installed service desks to ServiceDesk Plus On-Demand in 2013.

The On-Demand version of ServiceDesk Plus itself is the byproduct of ManageEngine’s extensive experience in the ITSM market and Zoho’s ( ManageEngine’s parent company). We think it combines the best of both worlds and apparently so do many in the survey.

Now why do IT service desk managers increasingly prefer SaaS based service desk solutions you ask? We think it is because of these 5 reasons.

1. Rapid Start Implementation: Without servers to configure or software to install, SaaS based service desk solutions can be deployed very quickly. By just subscribing to the service and accessing it via a web browser, IT service desk teams can reduce the time to market resulting in a faster return on their investment.
2. Zero Maintenance and Support Costs: With hosting completely taken care of by the vendor, customers of SaaS based service desk solutions no longer have to worry about server or application maintenance activity such as data backups, installing patches and application upgrades. The IT service desk teams can focus on delivering services to the organization rather than bothering themselves with maintaining the underlying help desk infrastructure.
3. Optimized use of Resources:  Users of SaaS based service desk solutions can scale their use of services up or down in response to rapidly changing business demands,  most times just at the click of a button. Not only do you save money on licensing costs, you also avoid costs of underutilized hardware as the service is hosted by the vendor.
4. Pay as you go Pricing: With SaaS service desk players offering flexible monthly, quarterly, biannual and annual subscription plans, customers can ensure that they pay only for what they use. Costs become predictable and the risk of going over budget is minimized.
5. Expert Security and Privacy: A SaaS service desk ensures that all security and privacy worries are outsourced to the service provider. Invariably hosted in world class infrastructure managed by experts, hosted service desk applications take the security burden off the customer’s shoulders.

Now that you know the top 5 reasons to make the move, check out ServiceDesk Plus On-Demand from ManageEngine and see for yourself how beneficial switching to the SaaS lane can be. We’ll even migrate your incident and knowledge base data from your current solution to ServiceDesk Plus On-Demand for free. Sign up for a free 30 day trial today.

You Can Learn More About the ManageEngine Product Line By Going to manageengine.optrics.com

The original article/video can be found at 5 Reasons Your Help Desk Should Get in the SaaS Lane