“Software as a service (SaaS) -based content delivery offers product companies and service organizations a cost-effective way to disseminate better and timelier information to the field.”

A recent blog post by IDC Analyst Sheila Brennan (“Service Information Delivered as a Service Improves Quality”) validates what we’ve been saying about the importance of getting accurate service and parts information out to the field. In her blog post Brennan echoes our thoughts:

1. It pays to pay attention to the aftermarket; companies can (and some do) make a lot of money on parts and service; Brennan backs up this argument with an interesting stat: “47% of Caterpillar's $32 billion revenue in 2009 was from sales of parts and services.
2. Technical information is important for providing excellent service, to maintain brand image and capture market share.
3. Delivering the most up-to-date, accurate and configuration-specific service and parts information to technicians in the field reduces costs.
4. Without detailed technical information, service operations suffer from low first time fix rates (FTFR) and high no fault found (NFF) rates, which increase not only repair time and cost but also spare part inventory related costs.
5. There’s great value in offering parts and service information via The Cloud, or in a SaaS-based offering. It’s good to see that others recognize the value of software-as-a-service (SaaS) offerings in this space. There are not many to choose in this category: Enigma’s SaaS EPC solution is one of just a couple of them out there. The benefits of a SaaS offering appeal especially to the SMB market because it improves customer and dealer support with minimal impact on back-office IT resources and budgets, and reduces server hardware and maintenance costs. Brennan predicts that more companies will embrace Cloud-based content as the market and technology matures; we agree.

On the subject of aftermarket service/support, Brennan’s post hits the proverbial nail on the head. The facts speak for themselves, in sync with what we’ve been saying for a very long time. But don’t take our word for it; read Brennan’s blog post here to get the perspective of an independent analyst.