Companies using XaaS enjoy more scalability than traditional models, since they can rent and scale what they need on a flexible basis. They also save costs, by ditching capital outlays for IT and other products, and experience greater corporate agility.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But the Switch to XaaS Isn\u2019t So Simple<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Switching to a XaaS model, however, or even scaling up your existing services, requires changes across your organization. You\u2019ll need to have the right technologies and integrations, an updated approach to customer experiences, and a new go-to-market strategy and the people to make it all work. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
And ultimately, you\u2019ll need a way to capture and process all the data about how customers use your services. This usage data is the fuel that drives your revenue growth, customer insights and experiences, and product innovation. In this blog, we\u2019ll focus on the data challenges, since that is what we specialize in at DigitalRoute. <\/p>\n\n\n\n XaaS pricing comes in all kinds of formats, including flat-rate pricing, usage-based pricing, tiered pricing, and per user or per feature pricing. Whatever pricing you offer, you\u2019ll need to keep track of how customers use your services in order to bill them correctly and make sure they don\u2019t use more of a service than they are entitled to. This leads us to the six data challenges for XaaS. <\/p>\n\n\n\n XaaS models are a direct product of the digital age. On the flip side, you must also deal with more data \u2013 at a faster rate and in higher volumes \u2013 than ever before. Whether you\u2019re a large cybersecurity firm or a retail startup, you\u2019ll have to process thousands or millions of usage events every minute. And you\u2019ll need to do so in as close to real-time as possible, otherwise you can lose revenue, miss upsell opportunities and deliver poor customer experiences.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n Data transfers between\u00a0legacy systems\u00a0increase the risk of lost, siloed and outdated data.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n Volume and speed aren\u2019t the only data-processing issues you\u2019ll face. The fact is, the more digital services you offer, the more varied the data sources you\u2019ll work with are, too. But you can\u2019t feed that into your systems. You\u2019ll need to transform it into something structured. And that\u2019s not all. Throw in handoffs between middleware and\u00a0legacy systems<\/a>, and you increase the risk of lost, siloed and outdated data.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n A combination of the above two issues results in\u00a0dirty data<\/a>. Unless you\u2019re equipped to deal with its components (an inability to handle data volume, speed and variety), you risk infecting your systems with incorrect, outdated information. Any effective XaaS model relies on accurate billing and zero\u00a0revenue leakage<\/a>. It also demands optimal insights and decision making.<\/p>\n\n\n\n No two customers share the same usage fingerprint. Acknowledging this is especially relevant in XaaS environments, given it informs billing accuracy, which can make (or break) customer experience and trust. Mapping the right data to the right service and customer is non-negotiable. So is the ability to show customers how their consumption impacts their costs. A lack of data precision can quickly kill your XaaS business.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s all\u00a0too\u00a0easy to overlook or miss records when data arrives out of order<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n Data sequencing can leave XaaS businesses scratching their heads. Incoming data must be checked and any gaps accounted for, and then resequenced before being passed to your billing systems. It\u2019s all too easy to overlook or miss records when data arrives out of order. That\u2019s a fast route to sloppy billing, leaked revenues and frustrated customers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Even the most forward-thinking companies still rely on a blend of legacy IT systems they can\u2019t afford to migrate. And this makes handling data challenges harder, not easier. When it comes to XaaS, you\u00a0need<\/em>\u00a0to be able to integrate your systems in order to attribute specific data records to specific customers. Otherwise, you\u2019re liable to misinterpret the data that makes your \u201cas-a-service\u201d format a success in the first place.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n We already mentioned that if you control your usage data, you control the outcome. The trick is having a solution in place that can do that without adding to your problems. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Too many would-be XaaS players try (and fail) to build their own platform to process all that usage data. Most of those scenarios end badly. Manually adding an XaaS-based model to your revenue system results in huge costs \u2013 not to mention massive revenue leakage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n At DigitalRoute, we\u2019ve spent decades helping companies make the switch to \u201cas a service\u201d models. Our Usage Engine software automatically collects usage data from any system or device, processes it into clean data records, then sends them to your billing and business systems. It also has built-in error correction and can even send data back to systems and devices to control consumption in real time. <\/p>\n\n\n\n XaaS models provide mouthwatering potential. They provide untapped revenue opportunities and reflect a growing desire among customers: to pay only for what they use. Making the switch to XaaS, however, comes with major data challenges. Learn what they are and how to overcome them. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":39778,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"off","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"2880","inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"industry":[83,72,71,73],"topics":[78],"class_list":["post-34916","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog","industry-manufacturing","industry-media-entertainment","industry-software","industry-telecom","topics-business-models"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.digitalroute.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34916","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.digitalroute.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.digitalroute.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.digitalroute.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.digitalroute.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34916"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.digitalroute.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34916\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.digitalroute.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/39778"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.digitalroute.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34916"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.digitalroute.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34916"},{"taxonomy":"industry","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.digitalroute.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/industry?post=34916"},{"taxonomy":"topics","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.digitalroute.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/topics?post=34916"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.digitalroute.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/3969-1024x576.jpg\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\n6 Data Challenges You Must Overcome to Win at XaaS<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
1. Dealing with increasing speeds and volumes of data<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
\n
2. Handling diverse data sources and types<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
3. Using dirty data<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.digitalroute.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/3457-1024x576.jpg\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n
4. Lack of precise data<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
\n
5. Complex data sequencing<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
6. Outdated legacy systems<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
A Usage Data Solution for Your XaaS Business <\/h2>\n\n\n\n
<\/ol>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"