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Out of many IT tools which moved to the Cloud, the Project Collaboration and Management tools have been one of the first tools to be available as SaaS within the dominions of the Cloud Computing phenomenon. It would be appropriate to say that this was inevitable because of the ubiquitous nature of the internet and that the subscription based IT services could be possible because of the internet. The internet made it possible to provide IT services as utility at lower prices. But the fundamental for any product or service to succeed is that it has to provide value beyond the price factor, as reducing price is not a sane business proposition always.

The greatest value that SaaS products in the cloud add is that they remove the headache of owning the IT and leave the user with only utilizing the IT as needed in the organization.

The visionaries of the IT world understand that the future of IT products is online. This has prompted many companies to switch from services to providing subscription based SaaS, PaaS or IaaS and in effect create a more alluring buzz-word of Cloud Computing. In simple terms, cloud computing is providing IT services through the internet; internet is the cloud.

The economic advantage of opting for SaaS on the subscription basis was a big reason which caused the far and wide acceptance of IT tools, such as the Project Collaboration and Management tools, in the form of SaaS in the cloud. There are other advantages also that the project management in the cloud has to offer as a service. Some of the key ones are listed here:

Cost Distribution Over Time & Faster ROI:

This type of cost advantage is as much true to Project Management in the cloud as it is for any other SaaS, PaaS or IaaS in the cloud.

Being in the cloud helps distribute the costs over a duration into future, as the companies do not have to pay hefty amounts upfront for setting up hardware and installing the software. The companies subscribe with the service provider and pay only for the services that are used. Depending on their growth and expansion they can subscribe for higher usage of the collaboration services in the cloud.

Also the companies do not have to bother about support services, maintenance or upgrades for their software as the service providers automatically upgrade based on their judiciousness. The collaboration and management tool in the cloud overall brings in less economic investment. It reduces overhead and operating cost, brings immediate availability of service and hence leads to quicker ROI.

Benefits for the SMEs and Startups:

Extrapolating the cost advantage and the necessity of project collaboration and management task in any organization, it becomes obvious that project management tools in the cloud benefit the small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) and the cash-crunched startups. With no software installations and hardware set-ups, the startups can reduce their time to go to the market. Furthermore, subscription based service allows collaboration with extended team of customers, vendors, associates and employees. It avoids in-house management as the organizations can now consider work-from-home options more for their employees and save on overheads further by reducing the usage of the office space.

There are many other features in the subscription based model, which help to ease out the collaboration and management problems within a project especially for the SMEs and startups:

• Managing multiple projects with dashboard, ticket management and access controls for each project
• Managing documents online with proper versioning and back-ups
• Task-level time tracking of the team to ensure proper allocation of resources
• Creating detailed invoices
• Generating reports with pre-defined templates

 Easier Scalability:

When the organizations grow and expand their operations, scalability becomes easier with a few clicks of a button, again without high investments in hardware and software. The transition is smoother because of the subscription based collaborative IT services.

Applicable in every vertical:

No matter what is the nature of a business, it will need project collaboration and management tools to co-ordinate tasks among different teams. Whether a business falls under manufacturing, healthcare, IT outsourcing or logistics verticals, project management tools in the cloud are of great utility. All that organizations have to do is subscribe for the service and get started with minimum upfront costs, no complicated installations and minimum time-to-execute.