Is Hosted a way to go for the ROI conscious?

Is Hosted a way to go for the ROI conscious?

The dilemma of choosing between Hosted and a Premise-based solution becomes even more difficult when the ROI calculations are taken into consideration. Why should ROI calculations be so difficult? Well it’s often due to soft costs that are not considered in the initial consideration that can make such a big difference. The first costs that need to be indentified are the hard costs such as the hardware, licensing, ongoing support and professional services of the premise deployment, versus the monthly fee for the hosted solution.

Then there are the secondary hard costs: upgrades and building floor space costs, which include rent, cooling, security requirements and dedicated or specialist training (and re-training as staff move or leave) for minimum two IT staff to support the premise-based solution. Now compare this to the potential professional services fees from the hosted solution, provided if functional changes are required. 

Now we need to take into account the soft costs. This is where hosted saves costs, by contributing to business process optimisation in several ways. It allows the organisations to focus on their core competencies, complete projects faster, shorten the decision-making process, respond to customers faster, increase employee productivity and give more visibility of employees across the business. Whilst these "soft benefits" are sometimes difficult to quantify they cannot be overlooked whilst seeking the benefits of hosted versus premise on the overall ROI.  

                   - Silvio Marusic