From Clarity On-Premises to a Cloud Solution: All Stakeholders Can Benefit

Are you running an on-premises Clarity, but do you feel like you might be missing out on the benefits of a potential SaaS solution? Perhaps you are already convinced of the merits of Clarity SaaS, but not all of the stakeholders at your company see it that way. You are not alone.

This article will give you various arguments that you are going to need to be able to promote an informed decision when it comes to your internal company’s “SaaS versus on-premises” debate. They are tailored in particular for your Clarity PPM. Our experience has shown: All roles at your company will benefit from itdesign Clarity SaaS.

Benefits for Clarity Users

Continuous Innovation Thanks to New Features

Software like Clarity is continuously being developed by the manufacturer and expanded with new features. But are you taking full advantage of this innovation potential at your company? Experience has shown that on-premises installation upgrades are laborious and time-consuming. That is mainly due to the ongoing bottleneck in IT. Upgrades are usually only performed every few years. The result: Your users have to make do with outdated software, and they complain about missing features. They cannot take advantage of the innovation and best practices that the manufacturer has developed for the benefit of your company.

When you operate Clarity in the cloud, such as by utilizing the Clarity SaaS solution from itdesign, you will always have access to the latest software version with a simple click of the mouse. You still have the flexibility to decide when and how often you want to upgrade to one of the four new versions that are released annually. But the effort is significantly reduced. Your service provider will largely take over the testing and necessary modifications. You are no longer solely dependent on your internal IT capacity.

Upgrades are also already included in the price — so there are no additional costs. On the contrary: Not only do you save the opportunity costs of missing new features by continuing to operate an on-premises installation. You also receive access to these product innovations much faster.

Best Possible Performance and Availability

With on-premises solutions, Clarity performance may not always be the smoothest. And if the system is not available at all, it can take your IT staff a long time to fix the problem. These operational restrictions result in dissatisfied users and can sometimes entail considerable costs.

The benefit of leaving everything to a specialized service provider is that if something does not go according to plan, they will take care of it immediately. With itdesign Clarity SaaS, we promise you only the best possible performance and availability. Thanks to our active monitoring system as well as automated processes and self-healing, your Clarity remains stable and high-performing at all times.

Thanks to the use of innovative technologies, deliveries can even be made several times a day, without restricting your operation. In contrast to the on-premises solution, you will not experience any downtime due to version upgrades. Automated tests ensure smooth deliveries.

Rapid Support Thanks to Lean Processes

Do your users and administrators always get the support they need? The situation may get particularly tense when your internal expertise is no longer sufficient and you have to contact software support. In addition to linguistic and geographical hurdles, such as time differences, for example, the fact that the support employees are not authorized to make a decision can also make it more difficult to reach a solution. Decisions, obtaining reliable statements, and problem solving often take a long time. Your users will have to be patient until their concerns are addressed to their satisfaction.

Thanks to the itdesign Clarity SaaS solution, you have a reliable and competent support team at your disposal in Germany, in English as well as German. Our lean support processes and hierarchies make it possible for the support employee who receives your ticket to quickly and independently make a qualified evaluation and process your request. Your users can work optimally with Clarity at all times and also receive the correct support they need quickly.

Benefits for Users at a Glance

• Access to new features thanks to regular and faster upgrades
• Leveraging software innovations and best practices
• Using the software to its full potential
• More efficient operation and greater acceptance
• Best possible performance and availability
• Secure deployment without having to disrupt operations
• Fast and reliable support from Germany

Benefits for Your Internal IT Staff

Relieving Your IT Employees

Most companies have found that their internal IT department has become a bottleneck. IT employees are constantly overloaded, and new projects progress at a slow pace. If, as the application manager, you are concerned about something or you are planning a version upgrade for your on-premises Clarity, you may have to wait a long time.

With itdesign Clarity SaaS, you kill two birds with one stone. You can shift the responsibility for the operation of Clarity to an expert outside your company who will ensure that your Clarity runs optimally at all times. Your users get what they need faster, and your IT staff can finally focus on other important issues that will move your company forward.

Streamlining Your Internal IT Department

In addition to the ongoing situation where IT departments find themselves constantly swamped, most companies are being encouraged to save costs by making their processes as lean as possible. With an on-premises installation of Clarity, however, your IT department has to constantly update hardware, databases, and operating systems, as well as the system itself. And it also has to provide access for your service provider. Otherwise, it can be difficult for external parties to track bugs, for example. But that can also generate costs. There are also the personnel costs and internal expenses from having to host and operate Clarity yourself.

Your IT employees, who are responsible for the system, have built up very specific know-how about Clarity from having operated it. But this also makes your company dependent on individual people and their knowledge. But what if that one colleague who possesses all of the relevant expertise is about to retire or gets sick. Or what if he or she becomes no longer available for some other reason?

With itdesign Clarity SaaS, your internal IT no longer has to worry about these types of issues. Your system always runs on appropriate hardware, and you have a specialist at your disposal who is responsible for your Clarity. Thanks to our experience in hosting and operating Clarity day in and day out, we have been able to improve our processes on an ongoing basis, and we promise to continue to do so. Because the challenges of keeping the system up and running are not new to us, we are able to take efficient advantage of economies of scale and solve challenges quickly.

Benefits for IT at a Glance

• Relieving the IT employees and resolving bottlenecks
• Freeing capacity to be able to focus on other strategic issues
• Outsourcing operational responsibility to a service provider
• Saving costs thanks to fewer investments in hardware

Management & Organizational Benefits

Highest Security Standards with Your Data and Service Provider in Germany

When it comes to cloud solutions, the issue of data security is a key concern for many companies — it is typically the CIOs or CDOs who have to handle this topic. Where is our data? Who can access it? Who guarantees the security of it? It is not easy to give up control over your own data. At the same time, you want to be able to take advantage of the cloud. Often companies develop an explicit cloud strategy. Though, some may have no clear stance for or against the cloud.

We have developed itdesign Clarity SaaS specifically so that Clarity customers with high security requirements can enjoy the benefits of a SaaS solution hassle-free. As a specialized Clarity hosting and operations service provider, we meet all the necessary requirements for keeping your data safe, and we work exclusively with service providers that do the same. These measures make your all-round hassle-free package as secure as possible:

• ISO-certified partner: Data security is extremely important to us, which is why our itdesign SaaS solution for Clarity PPM has been ISO/IEC 27001:2017 certified since August 2019.
• German data center: Because your data is stored at Amazon Web Services (AWS) in Frankfurt, it is subject to the data protection laws in force in Germany.
• Certified hosting provider: We host your data with the service provider Amazon Web Services (AWS), so you get the benefit of its tested security concept that has been certified multiple times.
• Premium support in Germany: Our support team in Germany can assist you in either English or Germany. Rest assured that your system will only be accessed from Germany.
• Technical and organizational measures: For your maximum protection, we keep our TOMS up to date and review them continuously.
• Highest standard security process: We have developed an automated and standardized security process that eliminates the possibility of human error. We are constantly working to develop it further.
• Encryption: We adhere to a standard of SSL encryption.
• Deletion certification upon cancellation: You retain complete control over your data at all times. If you want to cancel your system or hosting with us, we will delete all data at your request.
• Individual agreements: Depending on what is important to you and the relevant environmental parameters, we will be happy to conclude customized agreements with you to ensure the secure connection of your third-party systems, for example.

Supporting Your Cloud Strategy and Protecting Your Investments

Let’s face it: The cloud isn’t going anywhere any time soon. Perhaps your company has tested the waters and is already relying on a few cloud-based applications. The mere fact that you have read this article up to this point shows that you are at least somewhat focused on the topic.

As we already mentioned with regard to the benefits for users, itdesign Clarity SaaS gives you the opportunity to take advantage of software innovations more quickly and with added value for your company. Thanks to its expanded functionality, improved performance, and reliable support, there is a higher likelihood that Clarity will remain relevant for your company over the long run. Thus, you will be able to protect the investments you have already made in the software and reap ever-growing benefits as the application continued to be improved. You may even end up one step ahead of your competition.

Optimal Resource Utilization

One of the challenges with on-premises installations is that many roles in your organization will have to deal with topics for which they have no time and which are not part of their assigned job duties. Your users are hindered in performing their daily work either because they have to wait for urgently needed features to be deployed or because they do not receive reliable support. Your IT staff lacks the necessary capacity, and the requests that you or your users make are only implemented slowly. As an application manager, you spend a lot of time supervising operations or trying to find the right contact person for your concerns.

Thanks to itdesign Clarity SaaS, all stakeholders have the opportunity to once again focus on their own job duties: Users get access to better features, and they are even able to work better with the system. IT employees finally have the ability to handle general infrastructure issues and other strategically relevant projects. As the application manager, you can focus one hundred percent of your energy on getting the most out of Clarity. You can simply outsource all other operations and hosting-related tasks that have kept you from paying full attention to your work up till now.

Management & Organizational Benefits at a Glance

• Maximum security thanks to a comprehensive set of measures that go beyond the legally required minimum
• Supporting your cloud strategy and ensuring that you stay competitive over the long term
• Protecting your past and future Clarity investments
• Making optimal use of resources and internal bottleneck resource relief

Benefits for the Application Manager

One Dedicated and Competent Partner for Everything Related To Clarity

We have already talked about how collaborating with your internal IT department can be tedious and that things do not always progress as quickly as you would like. But even if you have partially or completely outsourced your IT, things do not always run smoothly. On the contrary, it can be just the opposite.

Having an on-premises installation means that you typically work with a number of different service providers. You have a database admin, network operator, infrastructure operator, server admin, and a user access point, among other things. Often when you have a concern, it is difficult to determine who to contact. Or worse: Nobody wants to take responsibility or nobody feels responsible. More often than not, the buck is passed to the next contact person. You have to go through a long rigamarole before getting what you need. In the end, it is still up to you to complete a lot of what needs to get done. Instead of getting the best out of the application and the projects at your company, you are also responsible for managing the operational side as well.

That is where, as an application manager, you can benefit immensely from itdesign Clarity SaaS: You can replace numerous contact persons and service providers with a single point of contact. itdesign takes over all the services related to the operation and hosting of your application. Thanks to our many years of experience implementing, further developing, and supporting Clarity, we are also available to help you with all other matters relating to your system.

Ensuring the Successful Adoption of Clarity at Your Company

At the beginning we talked about the benefits of itdesign SaaS for your users. As an application manager, your goal is to provide those users with software that they enjoy working with and, above all, to achieve success with.

New features, improved performance and availability, as well as more rapid support in the event of problems, helps you promote user satisfaction and increase acceptance. In this way you strengthen the presence of Clarity in your company while ensuring that the tool is willingly adopted by users to carry out their daily work. That is when you know you’ve done a good job: The software becomes established over the long run and becomes a success story inside the company.

Benefits for Application Managers at a Glance

• One single partner for all Clarity-related matters
• Faster and more competent support, as well as a clear division of responsibilities
• Efficient solutions and best practices from experts
• Assurance that Clarity will remain relevant for the company over the long term