With an inevitable economic downfall surfacing above the horizon, every business has resorted to putting their projects and growth strategies on hold. Instead, every business, regardless of its size is trying its best to figure out how they can keep themselves successful after the pandemic is over.
Unfortunately, amid all the business backlash, Software as a Service (SaaS) businesses are also facing the same dilemma. However, due to their unique business model, SaaS businesses can easily implement strategies to make sure they come out victorious over other businesses.
What is SaaS?
SaaS is a relatively newer type of business, which primarily caters to supporting needs of other businesses via an online available software. If you’re a soon to be SaaS business and looking for an internet service to help you along the way, then click here.
Now, what makes SaaS businesses unique over their present-day software developing counterparts is that everything it does is online. Clients don’t go through the hassle of acquiring the software, installing it, modifying it and then using it, rather it is easily used via an internet browser.
Naturally, every SaaS has to operate via a cloud server from where every client can virtually access the service in question. As for the service itself, it can be anything from a communication platform to a project-planning builder, the evolution of SaaS has been rapid and vast because it is so convenient that almost every business wants to jump and avail it.
Surprisingly, SaaS has not been around for a long time. Surely, a lot of software has turned out to be the tools for businesses to meet with their day to day tasks, but the idea for those tools available via the cloud is as recent as 2006. The reason for its popularity is not only its ease of access along with its low costs but also the fact that businesses don’t find themselves dealing with hefty disk space consumption, since everything that SaaS entails, happens on the cloud.
Hardened in the Battle against Crisis
Experts say SaaS businesses will no longer be sustainable. The answer behind this notion can be found when we crunch some numbers from the most recent and most devastating economic crisis that took place in 2008. The SaaS business model is sturdy but not bulletproof, like any business. SaaS businesses took a serious dive during the great recession. If we observe closely enough, we’ll only find that the growth rates of the listed SaaS companies at the time, went from a healthy 40% to a mere 10% by the end of it. On top of that, SaaS businesses were quick to bounce back to recovery of 30% soon after and it continued to be like that for the coming 3 years. SaaS businesses were found to be similar to other businesses in the case where the highest growing ones faced the greatest fall in their growth, whereas luck was in favor of smaller ones since they were better off without much trouble.
However, unlike other businesses, SaaS businesses were found to be least affected by the external economic environment. It was almost as if they had immunity to it, this is primarily because as soon as other businesses started to recover or set up again, they required the help of SaaS. Before we knew it SaaS businesses were booming again.
The Pandemic: A Blessing in Disguise?
In the wake of the current worldwide situation, SaaS businesses, like all other businesses are faced with a crisis once again. However, things are very different now since they’re in favor of SaaS businesses. First of all, this is an era of lightning-fast internet, with the widespread availability, optic fiber connections, cloud services, and introduction of 5G doing business online and using online tools is more efficient and cheaper. Speaking of blazing-fast internet, Spectrum is known for the internet it offers and with Spectrum Gold Packages, you can get a lot more than just high-speed internet.
Almost every other business, especially Small and Medium-sized Businesses (SMBs) is keen on using SaaS the most. Even during the COVID-19 outbreak, these SMBs rely on SaaS to reach out to customers, even if it is to get their feedback and assure future business.
Studies show that over 70% of SMBs use SaaS for various purposes and with the lockdown in effect and people forced to work from home, this number has surely gone up. During these hard times, SaaS is serving as a raft for these businesses to stay afloat and avoid the icy depths of failure. For SaaS businesses, this is a great opportunity to innovate their services and ensure that even in uncertain times like these, they can reap benefits, unlike others.
Strategies to Improve
Apart from building specific strategies during the Pandemic, there are some basic factors that ensure growth to SaaS businesses.
- SaaS businesses must realize that they do not sell products, but services. Therefore, it is their duty to make sure their customer gets the required service provided.
- SaaS businesses must maintain a relationship with the client. Maintaining communication and getting feedback should be always on the lookout for an opportunity to serve the client again and generate revenue out of it.
- SaaS businesses need to invest in ‘Customer Success’. Simply abide by one rule, successful client = successful SaaS business. If SaaS businesses ensure that their clients are successful, their clients can spread the word and that will get you a lot of new clients.
In a Nutshell
SaaS is the most recent and unique way of doing business. It makes the best use of the latest tools at hand, particularly the internet; to give its clients tailored services for their business needs. It is a curious yet promising fact that the internet is the reason why SaaS stands tall and immune even amid this global crisis. Also, if SaaS businesses are to capitalize on that advantage and make sure that they are in the constant cycle of innovation, they can surely endure many more crises to come.