A significant number of businesses are turning to technology to manage their operations and to compete more effectively. Historically larger enterprises tended to purchase systems such as a customer relationship management software or an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system. Smaller to medium companies however struggled to fund the funds necessary to buy the application let alone the high cost of services that inevitably came with it.
The introduction of software as a service (SASS) or as it colloquially termed the Cloud has enabled any company to access software using the internet. There tends to be no huge outlay of funds initially as it is a user pays system. Another real benefit is that you do not have to train your staff to manage the software, nor do you have to purchase specific centralised hardware. Updates and maintenance too are not necessary as your system will always have the latest changes. All this is part of the Cloud service. What this really does is allow smaller companies to have access to virtually the same applications as the large enterprises.