SaaS Application Maturity Assessment Model

Abstract

Software-as-a-service (SaaS), as a software delivery model, has received substantial attention from software providers and users alike. In recent years, it has become one of the most promising service delivery models in cloud computing. Many existing companies are transferring their business into the SaaS delivery model. Network vendors also migrate to a SaaS business model by offering on-demand remote IT support. This increasingly competitive landscape and the variety in markets have imposed many challenges for SaaS developers and vendors and made it difficult to find a consensus on the factors contributing to the positive performance of SaaS businesses. This paper thoroughly explains the critical success factors in the SaaS application development process. The proposed SaaS maturity model evaluates the organizations’ current SaaS development methodology. The model’s framework includes an assessment questionnaire, performance scale, and rating method adapted from the BOOTSTRAP algorithm. The assessment questionnaire collects information about the organization’s current process, practices, and policies and calculates the organization’s maturity level based on the responses. This study considers four dimensions to access the maturity level, i.e. design, architecture, business performance, and overall SaaS organization. Consequently, this work formulates a comprehensive and integrated strategy for SaaS application development maturity evaluation.

Keywords

• Software as a service
• SaaS development performance
• SaaS maturity assessment
• SaaS design