Instead, they focus on attracting high-growth, small to midsize businesses that want basic functionality fast. Most experts say this will change over time as software vendors and ASPs develop improved management systems that make it less labor-intensive for ASPs to manage application variants. But some IT managers are skeptical that ASPs will ever provide the attentive service they need. For instance, Peter Strombom, CIO at Meriter Health Services, says he doubts ASPs will be economically viable in the health-care industry because the average hospital has 200 to 300 critical IT systems that must be managed around the clock. An ASP is more interested in volume of transactions.
ASPs are also vitally interested in getting clients provisioned quickly.
Based in Pittsburgh, EDMC is the parent organization to The Art Institutes International, which operates post-secondary art education institutes. The Art Institutes CRM system is used to create records for some 12,000 high school students that are contacted each year by The Art Institutes. From the moment we realized we had to do it, to getting it into production, it was about 90 days. The time line on the project was so tight, Sutton didn't have time to put out a formal proposal for the project. He looked instead for names and faces he was already comfortable with.