When you are just starting your business, you should already be thinking about what ways you can scale in the future. Regular growth of a company means increasing the number of employees, clients, and orders and consequently increasing the profit generated.
Overall, growing a firm requires a comprehensive approach that involves many steps, tools, and methods. For example, one of the first things to think about is creating software. The decision to build a SaaS platform today is a trend followed by companies of different sizes these days. If you don’t already know what SaaS solutions are and how it works, you’ve come to the right place. In this article, we will tell you about the features of software as a service, in which niches it is used more often, and how it can help your company grow.
Exploring SaaS Model
Before we explore the topic of SaaS products, we suggest you look at the definition of the term. The term stands for software as a service and means that a program or application is leased. In simple words, a business owner signs up for a temporary software subscription instead of creating the necessary program from scratch.
SaaS solutions involve hosting applications on servers and users accessing the applications over the Internet through browsers. Some of the frequently used ones are email clients, collaboration platforms, CRM tools, HR applications, and others. The SaaS model offers economies of scale, where the companies subscribe for a fee that is most of the time based on the usage or the number of users. They are mostly managed through updates and maintenance by the SaaS provider.
For customers, SaaS lowers expenses and the pressure on IT departments. It allows for the easy scaling of users up and down. However, customers solely depend on the vendor to ensure that the application is always up and secure.
Areas Where SaaS Solutions Are Actively Used
In fact, this approach to using software has been popular among companies from all over the world for many years. For example, the largest corporation Microsoft was one of the first to provide such services for business customers. Surprisingly, in 2024, SaaS products are used in different spheres of business activities.
- E-commerce. SaaS applications are being increasingly adopted by e-commerce companies to handle various important functions. Marketing automation tools such as Salesforce and Zoho CRM include features that highlight customer behavior and campaign analytics information. Such tools as Trello, Asana, etc., are used to manage the work of staff and to keep track of their tasks and projects.
- Web design. Design agencies also often use SaaS solutions to work efficiently today. For example, think of such services as Figma and Canva. They allow users to create designs without downloading an app to their devices.
- Education. Schools and universities use SaaS to make learning more adaptive. Online learning platforms such as Coursera or Udemy provide cost-effective, on-demand courses on thousands of subjects.
- Entertainment. Media streaming services are currently revolutionizing entertainment industries on a massive scale. Netflix and Spotify are popular streaming services that offer on-demand streaming of movies, television shows, music, and other content.
- Data storage. Last of all, SaaS is widely used for storage and backups. The most popular tools for sharing files with your team are Dropbox, Google Drive and Microsoft OneDrive, offering a large amount of storage space.
These are just a few examples of industries that often use SaaS products. Of course, they are all very different, as different industries require certain functions.
What Are the Benefits of the SaaS Model for Businesses?
For many people, it is still a mystery how SaaS solutions allow businesses to grow faster and be competitive. To understand this issue in more detail, we suggest you take a look at the advantages of this way of using applications and programs.
- Low cost. The most important thing is SaaS doesn’t require the acquisition of hardware and software. Unlike the traditional models, which involved huge one-time license fees, SaaS involves much lower fees charged on a monthly basis depending on the level of usage.
- No need for software maintenance. The next benefit we must consider is unnecessary maintenance. Duties of application support and modification, such as fixing defects and security issues, fall under the SaaS provider. Companies do not provide their valuable IT teams to manage this themselves.
- Large number of offers on the market. The SaaS market is greatly saturated with solutions for most of the business requirements such as analytics, accounting, CRM and many others. Due to the fact that there are lots of vendors offering narrow specialization, it becomes quite simple to identify the SaaS products that will meet your organizational needs.
- Flexibility. When we are talking about SaaS solutions, there is no need to sign a long-term contract to use a specific product. If your goals and requirements change, you can easily cancel your subscription and switch to other digital products.
All these factors together allow businesses to handle different tasks more efficiently, get more orders and increase the speed of work.
Final Thoughts
Obviously, SaaS products can also have some drawbacks. As a rule, only custom software development is suitable for large companies with narrow specialization. In all other cases, software as a service is an option that helps companies overcome common problems and efficiently cope with daily tasks.