Business in the Era of Everything-as-a-Service (XaaS)
By Eiji Ota, B2B Sales and Marketing Director, Canon Central and North Africa (Canon-CNA.com)
The ‘as-a-service’ model, whereby businesses can subscribe to a service or offering without the need to pay upfront, has revolutionised B2B operations forever. It was initially introduced, with Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), a pioneering business model for accessing software through the cloud. SaaS helped businesses offer a standard, distributed solution at a lower cost of entry. This new model also meant that customers no longer needed to worry about large installation and ongoing maintenance costs.
Two decades on from its mass introduction, and the SaaS model no longer exists solely within computing, but now touches every industry. While software industries have been spearheading the as a servi...