How to Choose a Secure SaaS Provider: Key Considerations

SaaS has the power to drastically alter how an organization runs. For this reason, it's critical that you pick the best SaaS provider for your company. SaaS-related common business challenges often fall into three categories:

• Provider reliability 

• Suitability of a solution to match your needs 

• Security

When assessing a SaaS supplier, companies ought to:

1. Establish Credibility

The majority of SaaS suppliers take pride in being available 24/7, 365 days a year. High availability typically means they have implemented disaster recovery or fault tolerance to ensure service continuity during major disruptions. Uptime, expressed as a percentage (e.g., 99.9%), reflects how long their services remain operational throughout the year. However, planned maintenance or unexpected issues, like Internet routing problems, can still lead to outages. It's important to understand how these availability statistics are calculated and consider all factors that could affect your business. Incorporating SaaS cyber security measures ensures not only uptime but also the protection of your data during these periods.

2. Make a Service Level Agreement request.

Different performance and availability levels may be offered by SaaS providers at varying price points. One of the most important aspects of negotiating a price is talking about these levels and the associated cost. 

• Detailed descriptions of the services offered; 

• Minimum acceptable downtime thresholds and required availability for each service;

• Procedures for reporting any outage or interruption of service; 

• Requirements for notifications

You may wish to take into account other criteria in addition to those that might not be crucial for your organization. When assessing your SaaS provider's product, you can utilize it as a guide to have a conversation about it.

3. Examine the industry standing and reputation of the supplier.

The most valuable competitive advantage in the service industry is reputation. All providers aim to be in the best position among their peers. Choose a supplier with a solid reputation in the field. Examine their extensive service options, unbiased product reviews, and analyst commentary. 

4. Verify if the service lives up to your expectations.

The capabilities of SaaS are developing quickly. Today the market is saturated with a range of SaaS applications that not only perform well as services, but which offer greater features than traditional software. While some programs can be installed across the entire organization, others are concentrated on extremely specialized business activities. To make sure the service can live up to these expectations, think about the business problem you are attempting to solve. Think about your future intentions for SaaS as well. Can the application benefit the company in other ways?

5. Examine their security offerings in greater detail

When you use a SaaS model, your data is accessed online and hosted by a third party, raising several privacy and security concerns. It’s essential to closely examine a potential provider's security features. Do they have sufficient fault tolerance and redundancy for data storage? What SaaS cyber security measures are in place to ensure technical security? Additionally, consider their physical security protocols—how do they prevent unauthorized access? Can their staff members access your information? Lastly, evaluate the moral standards they have to protect your privacy, ensuring that ethical guidelines are followed throughout.

Security standards vary widely depending on the business and industry. Because of this, it's critical to think about what security aspects are most important to you and make sure your potential SaaS provider can meet those needs.