Shaklee Cleans Up with SAAS

As with any vendor, Harris said, it’s important to conduct reference checks before beginning a relationship with a SAAS provider.

He added that not all vendors that have SAAS offerings can be good SAAS vendors.

“It’s not just about having a solution that can be applied or delivered over the Web; it also requires a major change in culture from what tech providers have done in the past,” he said. “To be a good SAAS vendor, you have to have a model that says, ‘I never walk away from my customers. I have to provide a service, and I have to provide a standard of performance.’ Not all companies understand that because it hasn’t been in their genetic makeup.”

Green benefits

So, with Shaklee’s heritage—including the distinction of being the first company in the world to totally offset its CO₂ emissions and be certified as Climate Neutral—were SAAS’ power-
saving advantages any factor in the move to the cloud model?

In a way.

“It’s interesting,” Harris said. “Our first product, in the 1950s, was the first totally natural cleaning product, and all of our products since then have been all-natural. We didn’t go to SAAS because of green—I wish I could tell you otherwise—it only turned out that SAAS is more green because I’m not using nearly as much energy. I’m leveraging the capability of aggregation, which definitely has a positive impact.

“It happens to coincide with our original direction and mission, but it’s coincidental, not causal. But that’s part of the reason it was easier to sell.”