It truly is a more competitive world out there. Businesses know that to be at par with the competition and to grow at a rapid pace, they need to drive innovation within the company and find partner organizations that are cutting edge and would help them dominate the market quickly using practical, simple and cost effective methods.

Rob Purdy, CEO of Carlton Group, a leading edge technology provider, said that in 2011, the IT Channel Planet reported on an IBM survey which said that "mid size businesses are shifting investment priorities more towards innovation and growth and a significant portion of resources are likely to be allocated towards "SaaS" computing. About 70 % of the respondents intended to work with a local channel partner to help meet their technology objectives."

What exactly is Software as a Service or "SaaS" Technology and why has it become important for businesses?

Information technology research and advisory company Gartner describes SaaS as software that’s managed, delivered and owned remotely by providers which could be one or more. The infrastructure and the IT operations that support the applications are also outsourced to the vendor or a different provider. The application that the vendor delivers is an application that’s based on one set of data definitions and common code which are then consumed in a one-to-many model by customers at any time. If the software needs to be installed on-premises using the company’s infrastructure, that is not SaaS technology.

A Gartner Group estimate put the 2010 sales of this technology at $10 billion and the 2011 sales at about $12.1 billion. By 2015, the IT advisory company estimates that sales figures for SaaS will double the 2010 numbers.

Purdy, citing the Wikipedia definition, said that Saas is "a software delivery model in which software and its associated data are hosted centrally and accessed by users using a web browser over the internet."

Why are more and more companies choosing Saas? Purdy said the following reasons:

1. He said that many large performance improvement companies have made the decision to migrate their client solutions to SaaS technology because it is much more affordable than traditional software to maintain, faster to implement and in most cases can be fully managed by the end customer.

2. SaaS technology delivers secure, affordable, scalable and easily accessible method to deliver employee recognition performance, loyalty training and even global reward management solutions all on a global scale.

3. SaaS keeps companies competitive. Purdy said, "Companies stand to reap massive rewards by incorporating SaaS solutions into their offerings. Performance improvement companies who do not offer SaaS solutions are less competitive simply because most enterprise level organizations are already using or considering using SaaS technology.

4. Software as a Service or "SaaS" Technology delivers simplicity. "In the words of Martin Henry Fisher, knowledge is a process of piling up facts," Purdy shared. "Wisdom lies in their simplification. And nothing speaks volumes like simplicity to your customers."