By 2022, organizations are expected to be running up to 75% of their workload on public and private cloud platforms.
Software as a Service (SaaS) has been an established business model since the 1960s. At that time, a software application would be loaded onto one mainframe computer with several mini-computers connected to it. This led to the rise of SaaS as we know it today, with Salesforce taking the leadership position – a company that started with SaaS in 1999.
How companies and customers benefit from SaaS
SaaS benefits businesses
Businesses benefit from SaaS in many different ways. The most considerable SaaS advantages are easy and fast implementation, scalability, mobile access, and ongoing support. Historically, implementing new software was a monumental task regarding time and money spent. It also required a team of IT specialists to upkeep. With SaaS, even smaller companies can have access to the same resources and pay for additional services when they need them.
SaaS benefits consumers
Consumers also benefit from SaaS. They can access services from anywhere without making any long-term commitments. Software as a service is commonly tied to low pricing, timely updates, and secure backups. But consumers have high expectations.
«Consumers today want more than automation. They expect brands to preempt their needs, communicating with them in the precise moment of the customer journey when they are ready to purchase or engage, with creative that delights rather than annoys.（ExchangeWire）»
A content discovery SaaS satisfies consumers’ needs for research, quality, speed, consistency, and novelty. Consumers are increasingly researching online while looking for quality products. They expect to get their questions answered right away, but they have to trust the company they’re buying from to make a purchase decision. Finally, consumers are always looking for the following great product or experience.
SaaS delivers a content discovery on all fronts. It provides trustworthy, up-to-date information in real-time – resulting in a customer who has done their homework and is ready to purchase.
The Growth of SaaS
Software as a service is here to stay. Even big companies like Microsoft have increased their cloud revenue, which made up 30% of overall revenue by 2018. Even more surprising is that small businesses are also embracing the cloud for SaaS deployments. SaaS adoption is reaching 94 percent for this market segment. And with the explosion of the Internet of Things (IoT), edge computing, the technology necessary to make IoT work, is quickly rising. Some suspect there could be a shift from cloud to edge computing.
Not surprisingly, internet and software companies are at the forefront of adopting SaaS technologies. But SaaS has found a home in many industries, including marketing and advertising, biotechnology and pharmaceuticals, real estate, healthcare, and education.
Determine where SaaS adds value
Despite the benefits of SaaS, there are some points to consider before jumping into an integration. Namely, SaaS integration can take time. Speed to market and business logic automation can be more valuable than a hyper-focused SaaS that requires time to integrate. Determining where the value lays early on is critical.
Theoretically, when it comes to SaaS integrations, the faster and more accessible they are, the better revenue growth is at risk. However, getting it right is costly, as highly skilled technicians are often needed. As Jamie Yap from ZDNet notes, «A poorly-planned integration could result in siloed apps that do not communicate with each other, which wipes out the benefits of using SaaS.»
And even if cost weren’t an issue, the time to integrate is often a long journey. Ganesan Periakarruppan, an ICT industry analyst at Frost & Sullivan, says,
«While some SaaS vendors claim their applications are easily integrated with on-premise apps, the general feedback from the industry has been negative, saying that even if it happens, the process flow tends to break along the way.»
Ganesan Periakarruppan, an ICT industry analyst at Frost & Sullivan
Although a quick integration is commonly desired, the reality is that a proper setup is often time-consuming. The Key is planning, developing a plan, and factoring in contingencies and delays.
SaaS adoption curve
Big companies are often slower to embrace change, but even Microsoft has jumped onboard the SaaS bandwagon – so much in fact that they have recently taken the lead ahead of SalesForce. Adobe, SAP, Oracle, Intuit, and many others are seeing astonishing growth.
Companies are now adopting SaaS to keep customers happy. Incidentally, using SaaS requires the business to ensure customer satisfaction because the customer can usually cancel – and will do so – if they don’t perceive the value of your service. Fortunately, using SaaS also makes it easier to build stickiness into the process and keeps customers retained and happily using the service.
Tangelo’s content delivery SaaS is built to keep customers happy because it provides solutions to their current problems. At the same time, companies receive a customer who is ready to purchase and doesn’t need to be convinced to buy.
