Samenvatting

This study is commissioned by OCLC to research the interest of customers of OCLC in hosted services. OCLC is a worldwide organisation that provides software and services to libraries in 170 countries. Libraries use these management systems to optimize their workflow. OCLC endeavours to satisfy the needs of the customers by innovating software and reducing cost for libraries. OCLC is known for having the world’s largest library catalog, WorldCat. Since 2011, OCLC introduced WorldShare Management Service (WMS) as a completely cloud-based library management system. In 2016 over 500 libraries use WMS.
The problem
Besides cloud-based systems OCLC sells local software systems as well. This means that the clients manage their software systems themselves. Examples of these library systems are BicatWise, LBS, BIBLIOTHECA and SISIS-SunRise. OCLC is moving to hosting and cloud solutions and wants to research if these customers are interested in hosted services. Germany is currently the biggest market with a total of 1,128 users of local software systems. The library systems that are used there are BIBLIOTHECA and SISIS-SunRise. 51% of BIBLIOTHECA customers already use hosted services and 33% of SISIS-SunRise customers. The other part doesn’t use hosted services. This will be the research target.
Main question
The objective is to respond to the needs of the target group relative to hosted services. The findings of this research will be considered by the management of OCLC to make a business case.
The main question is which factors have influence on the interest of BIBLIOTHECA and SISIS-SunRise customers that use local software systems relative to hosted services.
Research method
The method to answer the main question of this study is by desk research and field research. With desk research subjects such as segmentation of the target group, software and hosted services are handled. Sources of this information are for example Salesforce, marketing blogs, research companies, etc. Field research helped to research the opinion of the target group. The first method is interviewing hosted service customers and local software customers. The main goal is to determine the difference of opinions. After the interview, a survey was held to get measurable data. The response is 164 respondents on a population of 1,128 customers.
Results
The analysis is divided into three groups: target group, local software systems and hosting. The target group consists of 1,128 customers which could be segmented into academic libraries, special libraries and public libraries. Public libraries are the largest group with 83%. The target group uses two different library systems called BIBLIOTHECA and SISIS-SunRise. The difference between the types of libraries has to do with the type of information. Academic libraries focus on students and teachers and have a scientific collection. Special libraries are companies, hospitals and museums which have limited and specific collections. Public libraries focus on society and have literature and cultural collections.
The two local software systems are BIBLIOTHECA and SISIS-SunRise. BIBLIOTHECA is mostly used by public libraries. It is highly adapted to the needs of the customers. SISIS-SunRise focusses on academic and special libraries. Customers are very satisfied with the products and don’t have much problems with maintaining the soft- and hardware.
The last part is hosting. Hosting is moving data to an external location provided by a third party. Clients pay a monthly or annual fee for this service. Advantages are less long-term investments in hardware and knowledge. The disadvantages are privacy and less control of the software. There are three kinds of hosting infrastructures: IaaS, PaaS and SaaS. IaaS means outsourcing the hardware and remaining control of the platform and application. PaaS means outsourcing the hardware and the platform remain control of the application. SaaS means outsourcing the hardware, platform and application.
Respondents of the survey are not positive about hosting. To a scale on 1 to 5, respondents are willing to invest in IaaS is 1.94, PaaS is 2.01 and SaaS is 2.39. SISIS-SunRise customers score higher on average than BIBLIOTHECA customers. Factors that have influence on this are privacy and control. Privacy is rated as importance by SISIS-SunRise customers (4.93) and BIBLIOTHECA customers (3.47). Control of the software is rated on average (3.72). It is important that data is stored within the legal jurisdiction of Europe.
Conclusion
Privacy and security, costs, legal and control are factors that have influence on the interest of BIBLIOTHECA and SISIS-SunRise customers. Privacy is a great factor that can give a negative effect on the interest when this is not taken in concern by OCLC. OCLC is experienced in cloud and hosting systems providing the needed security. The control and legal factors have a lot to do with privacy. Legal factors make sure that customers are protected by hosting companies. Control is something that libraries rather don’t lose of their library system. It is an important tool that drives the processes. At last, costs are a factor that influences the interests of customers. When the costs are higher, the interest in hosted services gets lower. Eventually the costs of hosted services should be lower than the cost of local software systems.
Recommendation
At the moment, BIBLIOTHECA and SISIS-SunRise customers are not willing to invest in hosted services yet. The strategy is to maintain trust and profitability to transfer customers to hosted services when the time is right. There are some actions that can be done to realize this.
- Giving demonstrations about hosting. It makes sure that the customer is well informed and willing to invest in the future.
- Connecting current hosting customers with local software customers. Within the library market, libraries look at each other and copy success strategies.
- More research with BIBLIOTHECA and SISIS-SunRise customers. It is important to keep asking the opinions of customers with interviews.
- Focus more on academic libraries. Academic libraries are more interested compared to other types of libraries. The will be the first to use hosted services.