Case Study – Healthcare Industry-based Small Business Implements SaaS

This client was looking for a customised application for patient membership. In particular, they were in need of an application that could perform third party data integration, data analysis and reporting.

Goals

Create database and design user interface to capture data
Regularly upload third party data into new application
Perform extensive data analysis
Carry out various business reporting on this data
Manage user-based access
Secure online access with SSL encryption

Challenges

Prior to adopting SaaS, this client was using Excel spreadsheet software for data storage, calculation and analysis. This posed a few challenges:

Changes in one spreadsheet forced changes in several other sheets
The volume of data was unmanageable within the spreadsheet
It was difficult to view all the relevant data on one screen

Approach

The client had originally planned to use a PHP/MySQL-based solution to build this application.We proposed our solution in the Cloud, and this was chosen as the preferable option for its quick development time, ease of use, and several in-built features; including data integration, security, reporting and charts. The table below demonstrates how our solution compares to PHP/MySQL technology.

Benefit	PHP/MySQL	Our SaaS Solution
Quick development time	It would have taken 1-2 weeks to build the application using this technology.	This application was built in 2 days.
In-built reporting facility	Developer needed to build a separate module for reports.	In-built reporting facility with the ability to choose output in several different formats: PDF, HTML, Excel, etc.
In-built data upload facility	Using this technology, the developer needed to create additional upload and download script. It could take 1-2 days to develop this solution for uploading data from spreadsheets with multiple columns.	Our in-built file upload capability, with simple and intuitive user interface,achieved this in 15 minutes.
In-built responsive layout	In PHP, the developer would have had to write several lines of extra code to make this application accessible from both mobile and desktop devices.	In-built facility makes the application easily accessible from mobile devices.
User management	The developer needed to build a separate module to incorporate user-based access management.	In-built user management feature with various role-based access permissions.
Security	A secure socket layer would have to be configured at the server level, and this would involve finding a hosting service that offers this feature.	In-built facility to use SSL. It also supports single sign on and LDAP credential authentication.

Results

80% reduction in development time
1/10 of the cost of using PHP/MySQL
Cost savings on hosting services
Time savings of several hours per week of hosting management, maintenance etc.