Secrets of SaaS Software as a Service is driving disruption – it allows for innovation to develop at the speed which both the market and customers expect. Throughout my career I’ve held various leadership roles and seen first-hand how SaaS can positively impact business. CloudHealth is a sterling example of that – prior to being acquired by VMware last year, we were a 100 per cent SaaS-driven, born-in-the-cloud company. I’m a huge believer that the benefits of SaaS can have profound, long lasting impact on companies across many industries. Here are some of my own observations on all that SaaS has to offer, gleaned through professional experience: The right to innovate. With SaaS, businesses are able to focus on their core mission, without spending resources on buying, provisioning, running and maintaining infrastructure. User support also becomes simpler since everyone’s running the newest version of the same systems. IT becomes a strategic asset for growing the business, as opposed to a cost-centre. Collaboration. A business that wants to scale effectively must have fast, cross-functional interlock between teams. SaaS not only enables collaboration but makes it critical to the success of your business. The benefit? The company is silo-free, and every department uses high context and shows high performance. For example, I can get customer metrics at my fingertips that will tell me anything I want to know – from churn rates, MQL to SQL ratios, trial conversions, and customer acquisition cost to Net Promoter Scores. ·Agility. With SaaS, adding new technologies is seamless. There’s also the opportunity to try out various tools to determine the best for each task and integration with the wider business. Sometimes, a specialist tool won’t work as well as initially anticipated – not a problem! Switching it for something different is simple, and organisations are unlikely to be locked into particular vendors. (On the flip side, that means going above and beyond for your customers – forming lasting partnerships and creating true advocates for your brand.) SaaS gives you the ability to fail fast and scale at speed. Budget. Pit operating and capital expenses against each other, and operating costs usually win. The cost of an on-premise data centre and associated up-front license commitments can be difficult to take on if business profitability is uncertain. In contrast, monthly fees enable a business to scale up or down in line with commercial realities. Momentum. If you have an internet connection and a credit card, a whole business can access cloud-based productivity, CRM, finance and storage tools even before employees have desks to sit at. – Read more
Software as a Service is driving disruption – it allows for innovation to develop at the speed which both the market and customers expect.