If you're in Environmental, Health & Safety Compliance -- we'll call it EHS Compliance -- and you're thinking about conversion to GHS, consider outsourcing the conversion and your HazCom materials data maintenance to a SaaS EHS Compliance provider.  

Here's why:  the greatest ROI and Net Benefit lies in Outsourcing, supporting documentation from OSHA and other case studies are below.   The fact is that these days EHS, GHS and regulatory compliance work is increasingly complex.  Outsourcing to a SaaS EHS Compliance provider saves time and money, because few in-house teams are equipped with the tools to keep up the regulatory requirements.  Spreadsheets and emails are not enough to manage the incredible amount of data.  There are plenty of examples of companies and universities who are outsourcing and finding value.  Recently, industry experts analyzed a case study and showed a 136% ROI each year for outsourcing just (M)SDS management to a SaaS EHS Compliance provider. 

Here's what EHS Compliance means and why it makes sense to outsource.

The real Work of today's EHS Department
The real EHS/GHS situation is well-illustrated by a recent comment from an Industry insider.  Monica Mathers is the Product Compliance Coordinator at American Refining Group in Bradford, Pennsylvania.  Mathers, in a discussion in a LinkedIn Compliance Group, talked about how she got into the field of EHS.  She stated what's on the minds of many Environmental, Health and Safety Compliance Professionals:  

"I started in R&D as a chemist," she says, "and was back-up for the MSDS author and Lab Safety guy. When an EHS department was created and the gentleman retired, I was the logical choice. Unfortunately, I do a lot more than just the MSDS and with GHS coming along and REACh, I am swamped."  Most EHS Compliance Managers these days can identify with Mathers' situation.

GHS
An article on GHS conversion, recently published by Industry Week, was written by a Professional Chemical Engineer / Certified Industrial Hygienist.  The article details steps to conversion to Globally Harmonized System of Chemical Classification and Labeling, or GHS.  The aim of GHS, the story goes, is uniformity.  As with mailing addresses -- but with more drastic consequences -- uniformity is critical to managing and routing information. 

The standardized labeling of chemicals and HazCom documents makes good EH&S sense as well as good dollars, and mandatory conversion is imminent.  SaaS solutions provide the most sensible way to get there.

SaaS: what is it?
SaaS stands for Software as a Service.  It's similar to "the Cloud," in fact, most use the terms "SaaS" and "Cloud" interchangeably -- even though they are different.  The Cloud is actually a very old concept (computing on shared hardware resources) that has been recently re-branded.

Salesforce.com is a popular example of a SaaS product -- salespeople love it because they can access the database and related tools and modules from anywhere they happen to be traveling; all they need is internet access and a password.  And you know how protective Sales organizations are about their Sales contact lists and Sales figures, so you know it's permission-based and trustworthy -- or no one would use it.  Imagine if you and your team(s) could access up-to-date (M)SDS, regulatory and HazCom materials anytime, anywhere, 24/7 as people do every day with Salesforce.com.  Hotmail, Yahoo! and Google mail are also proven database-driven SaaS platforms.  Turbo Tax is another example of a SaaS product millions use and trust.  Other well-known examples:  Most online banking portal software, Basecamp project management software, and Actio chemical management and supply chain communication software.  (Actio is a good example of how SaaS is also great for supply chain network communication -- because suppliers and customers alike can log in and update or use data, permissions-based.)

SaaS is an optimal solution for EHS data management and for outsourcing the work of Safety Data Sheets and HazCom materials such as authoring, product and toxic-substance data management, as well as maintaining supplier and regulatory information.

Why is SaaS the easiest, most cost-effective way to Outsource EHS work?
Mind you, we're all grateful for EHS controls, laws, procedures and limits.  But they do create more work.  In today's OSHA, TSCA and EPA regulatory climate -- outsourcing is the only way to do it right, and the fastest way to get the most up-to-date results the cheapest is to use a SaaS provider for EHS compliance. 

SaaS saves money.  SaaS provides top speed of deployment, program tweaks behind the scenes, and general performance as high as it can go -- because SaaS providers compete with each other to be fastest, most robust, and most secure.  Datamation recently enumerated ways SaaS saves money for SMBs; and certainly the points apply to Global 1000 companies as well:

• The 7 key benefits of SaaS

From Ray Wang, "Expect SaaS deployments to gain steam in 2010 as organizations finalize their SaaS apps strategies to take advantage of 7 key SaaS benefits:
   1. Richer user experience - SaaS apps bring Web 2.0 usability to the enterprise world through rich internet applications using Adobe Air, HTML 5, Microsoft Silverlight, and other tools.
   2. Rapid implementation - SaaS applications focus on configuration and integration, not hard core implementation.  Users can be up in weeks, not months.
   3. Frequent cycles of innovation - At present, most vendors introduce new functionality, enhancements, and bug fixes on frequent refresh cycles.  Some vendors provide as frequent as weekly updates, others - seasonal.
   4. Minimal upgrade hassles - Users focus on minimal testing scenarios and receive updates all at once.  In applications with significant regulatory and tax updates, SaaS applications reduce the cost of compliance by as much as 77%.
   5. Always on deployment - Organizations can expect average up-time levels at 99.95% or higher for most applications.  These results often exceed existing on-premise performance.
   6. Subscription pricing - Subscription pricing reduces the capital burden of common on-premise payment models.
   7. Scalability - Organizations can add or subtract users as needed without worrying about procuring new hardware and other infrastructure."

Converting to GHS: expect an 800% return - so let professional GHS authors do the work

For your reference, we've included OSHA's "Net Benefits of GHS" breakdown, which shows GHS's 1-8 cost-to-benefit ratio:

EHS Cost Centers can expect more than 8 dollars of benefit for every 1 dollar of cost -- according to the latest OSHA data detailed in the table.  That's the benefit of GHS conversion, along with the rather obvious safety and health benefits.

Outsourcing just MSDS Management to an SaaS provider: expect a 136% return $

That's 136% each year!  A case study for outsourcing MSDS management to a SaaS EHS Compliance provider shows an ROI of over 136% per year, conservatively, for outsourcing the work. 

That means you get money back for fewer headaches and more reliable data.  What's the catch?  There really isn't one!

The 136% ROI figure does not include additional pay-off benefits of SaaS outsourcing:
* risk management in avoidance of fines associated with outdated materials data or HazCom documents
* leaner processes due to just one central data hub with no need to store paper versions
* no product shipping issues around not having the MSDS or not having it in desired language
* no IT cost of building / maintaining inhouse MSDS data center

Wish you the best in SaaS and EHS Compliance.  If you'd like more information on how to save money while managing the EHS Compliance workload, fill out the simple form below and we'll contact you right away.  Or call the experts at Actio at (866) 522-8102, ask for Chris Nowak.

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