As enterprises increasingly become consumers rather than providers of IT, cloud computing—and software as a service (SaaS) in particular—offers a compelling alternative. By providing low-cost, on-demand access to state-of-the-art applications, SaaS-based solutions can help enterprises fast-track their technology modernization at no great expense to themselves.

In the financial services industry, like many, outdated legacy systems make it extremely difficult to create and launch new services, provide access to a mobile workforce, and accommodate geographically dispersed customers and partners. Cloud technology within the application layer helps banks increase their ability to rapidly deploy new services.

The financial services industry is among the fastest to recognize the value of using cloud-based services to adapt quickly to market changes and create new revenue streams. In a Bank Systems & Technology survey of 186 bank technology professionals, 73 percent pointed to the ability to meet user demands quickly and achieve scale as key drivers for cloud adoption.

While cloud computing has become one of the biggest talking points of the year, its benefits have been available to trade finance banks for more than 10 years with CGI Trade360®, CGI's global trade finance solution. This multi-tenant, highly-secure community cloud-based solution was originally developed in 2000 with significant input from banks that were seeking to achieve economies of scale by accessing a single trade finance software platform as service.

As discussed in this month's issue of Global Trade Review (http://www.gtreview.com/), as a cloud-based solution with centrally-managed software, CGI Trade360® enables banks to bring all of their branches across the globe onto a single solution, and to quickly roll out a wide range of functionality—from portal support and back-office processing to imaging and workflow, supply chain finance and even provisioning customer support. (You can read more in our SaaS cloud computing viewpoint paper.)

Whatever your software need or industry, here are some ways that SaaS can benefit you:

• Eliminate the huge capital costs of managing trade finance solutions
• Capitalize on up-to-the-minute software enhancements
• Introduce new offerings that keep them ahead of the curve in an evolving market

To ensure you achieve those benefits, make sure the platform and provider have the agility with which to continuously adapt the solution to keep pace with evolving market needs and conditions.