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In the near future, almost all software will be delivered by the cloud.

Software-as-a-service (SaaS (News - Alert)), which enables businesses to buy software hosted in the cloud instead of installing it on-premises, offers a number of benefits no matter the industry in which it is used. Customer care is no different in being able to take advantage of these benefits.

One of the advantages of the SaaS model is cost savings. The cloud enables businesses to scale usage up or down depending on need since the infrastructure is in the cloud and the software is a service. There’s no need for over-buying on software in anticipation of a future need, and when the use case changes a business also can cut down on usage easily. SaaS helps a business only buy what it needs at the moment.

The lack of maintenance also is an advantage, both from a cost perspective and also from a complexity standpoint. With the software being run in the cloud, it is the SaaS provider that needs to worry about hardware repairs and replacement, not the business using the service. This frees IT to focus on more important tasks that are particular to a business.

Upgrades are similarly easy. There’s no need to upgrade SaaS software, because the hosting provider handles that and rolls out upgrades on a gradual basis in most cases, adding features and fixing problems along the way. Businesses just use the SaaS-based software; they no longer need to think about software versions and upgrades to allow for the latest features.

The cloud also makes it easier to access the software, since SaaS solutions can usually be accessed from any computer, tablet or smartphone with an Internet connection. Geography no longer is an issue, either.

Since SaaS is software in the cloud, typically SaaS solutions come with better integration with other systems. Cloud-based software can pull from many other cloud services, and also feed these services data as needed. In our connected world, this is a huge advantage for SaaS.

Typically SaaS solutions also are easier to use. There’s a simple reason for this, too; since SaaS solutions are purchased on a month-by-month basis typically, there’s no product lock-in. This means that businesses can try software before they commit, which encourages easy to use SaaS solutions. Also, complex solutions that are not used can lead to a business just going elsewhere. So cloud solutions often are easier to master and relatively elegant.

There are other benefits, too, of course. But these are some of the key reasons that just about every industry is moving to SaaS solutions.