Going Green (and increasing profitability) using SaaS and RIAs

Posted by Paul Giurata

Several years ago, we developed a web collaboration application, primarily for use by our own distributed teams and a few select clients.  This application allowed us to share project files, and coordinate team activities online. One immediate benefit was that it cut down on the volume of email back-and-forths.  All documents that required review or approval were simply posted online in a team or project workspace. This also made it feasible for employees to telecommute.

In the last year or so, we have been making an active effort as a company (and individuals) to go green and reduce our impact on the environment. We are working to be certified by the City as a green business, doing the standard reduce/recycle/reuse things including using CLFs, buying recycle paper, composting, using low-toxic cleaners, encouraging public transportation, etc.

As part of this green effort, we started tracking how our our web collaboration solution was reducing our carbon footprint by replacing the need for air travel and local commuting. The initial results, based on just our own staff and a few clients, were so encouraging that we decided to enhance the web collaboration solution and provide it to our entire client base.

We knew that our clients would be intellectually supportive of a green initiative. But reality was that they were already familiar and comfortable with email, face-to-face meetings and hard copy documents. If we were going to be successful at getting them to adopt web collaboration as a preferred way of doing business with Catalyst, we would have to provide a better user experience and enhanced productivity as compared to the incumbent solution.

We redesigned the application as a multi-tenant SaaS giving each client their own team space, with 24-hour, anywhere access.  We also developed a user-validated RIA interface that minimizes the training requirements, provides high performance, and is natural to use. Clients can configure their team space to incorporate their own branding, as well as their own industry-related terms and language.

We deployed this to seven clients located throughout the US, as well as our own employees. Then we tracked our travel, monthly expenses and billable hours compared to previous months.

After implementing the new SaaS RIA web collaboration solution, Catalyst was able to reduce business travel and commuting across seven clients to achieve an average CO2 reduction of 21,000+ lbs per month. (roughly the amount produced by 3 US households in one year). In addition, in one month alone, Catalyst saved 70% in travel costs and increased billable activities by 20%.

We are excited by this initial data and will continue to enhance our web collaboration/team space solution.  Needless to say, we will use it automatically with all new clients as well as our growing staff.