In my last blog entry I listed a number of reasons “Why IT Now Sees SaaS As A Savior.” Dan Druker of Intacct, has done a superb job embellishing and expanding upon my ideas on his own blog.

Here’s another important reason why IT is embracing SaaS which I forgot to include in my last blog entry, but may supercede the other reasons I outlined long-term — SaaS enables IT to fulfill its role as an internal service provider.

The idea of the IT department serving as an internal service provider to corporate end-users and strategic business units, as well as customers and partners, was first suggested during the late 1990s when an explosion of external service providers (xSPs) emerged in response to deregulation of the telecommunications industry.

While the idea had plenty of theoretical justification and support, most IT departments were unable to fulfill the promise of this concept because they lacked the service management tools and were constantly distracted by day-to-day ‘firefights’ just trying to keep their systems and software up and running.

SaaS, and the associated evolution of managed services, now permit IT professionals to achieve a more stable software and system environment. With the challenge of simply keeping these assets up and running becoming less of a concern, IT can now focus on more effectively delivering the functionality their end-users, business units, customers and partners need to achieve their corporate objectives.

SaaS service management solutions are also emerging to help IT departments become internal service providers. If these IT departments succeed in becoming true internal service providers, they will also finally become aligned with their end-users, business units, customers and partners.