2015 Spend Matters Prediction: XaaS (More Acronyms – Get Used To It!)

First there was software as a service (SaaS). Then came platform as a service (PaaS). Now the entire world becomes “as a service” in the format of XaaS – that’s “everything as a service” if you didn’t guess it.

In 2015, XaaS will increasingly be applied to procurement organizations and third party providers/solutions alike – and both will continue their increased focus on a service orientation to create alignment and value. Having a service orientation is actually a good thing. Somewhat curiously, a thoughtful “service delivery model” of a procurement function, especially a progressive one sitting within a “Global Business Services” (GBS) group shares the same guiding principles and approaches as a coherent cloud computing model.

The former is a solid business architecture and the latter is a solid information architecture. With both, it becomes easy to provision external services, swapping what’s inside for what’s out – or swapping the outside for what’s in.

XaaS makes procurement flexible and malleable – a shape shifter that can meld and mold to what the business needs. But remember, without the X, you won’t exactly hit your market as a services delivery superstar.

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