In a statement: The SaaS world is looking up. Triggered by a renewed focus on contactless, cost-saving methodology for delivering results and true ROI, SaaS providers are seeing this glaring need for enterprises to digitize and find better ways of meeting the same expectations amidst a workplace that has been turned upside down by the current pandemic.
So what does this mean?
In some regards, this means that some organizations are looking toward products that reduce liability by replacing some human elements with more automation. That is not to say they’re getting rid of people, but rather aiming to provide more tools for collaboration between people beyond in-person communication. This highlights the bigger goal of reducing risk for people given the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic and its effects on the broader business environment.
Central Themes: Growth and Savings
In January 2020, there weren’t many people who could have predicted the way the world would change. Many predicted continued strong economic growth throughout the year, with additional investments in technology from a number of organizations across vertical market segments. Now, however, 2021 aims to be a lesson in recovery; both from the economic lull that took place over the last 9 months and the advancements that technology providers needed to put on hold to answer the demand by enterprise organizations for a different approach to how we work.
Therefore, the central themes of 2021 will be: growth and savings.
Growth. The SaaS market is increasing; there’s no getting around that. And this growth is tied to the very nature of SaaS development: the proliferation of comparable solutions that help automate processes and allow people with decreased mobility to continue producing the kind of results needed across an organization. In the physical security space, for example, this can be achieved within an operations center where multiple operators are required to deliver tangible results for safety and security. Augmenting a GSOC with SaaS-centric technology can provide more thorough communication and a centralization of information aimed at better meeting the demands of a security team. Going further, leveraging the growth of SaaS for outsourcing these roles in certain instances can help protect staff from unnecessary exposure in the case of a positive Covid-19 case, creating a redundancy that cannot be realized without a more service-based approach.
Savings. Automation breeds productivity in so many environments; and bringing SaaS innovation that delivers more automation to an organization can be used to save time and resources, which improves an organization’s bottom line. As organizations look at ways to streamline processes and set high levels of intentionality with the time of their team (and the solutions they deploy), decisions will be made with savings in mind, now more than ever. And it doesn’t have to necessarily be all monetary. Saving time and additional steps in the decision-making process can mean all the difference when aiming to provide more streamlined response. This kind of savings will be an added draw for organizations going into 2021 and beyond.
The Future Role of SaaS
For the most part, SaaS-driven companies haven’t been as rocked by Covid-19 as their counterparts as a result of how they’re fundamentally built and delivered — without a lot of face-to-face heavy lifting. From the sale to the development, companies that provide SaaS haven’t seen a large-scale shift in how they do business. What has changed is the demand for this model, as the demand for this kind of technology soars. People can go on and subscribe for a SaaS product and now, may be more incentivized to do so as a result of this technology’s core model of being able to implement from a distance, its focus on saving time and resources, and its ability to shift toward more automated business goals and outcomes.
The outlook for SaaS remains optimistic, as more and more businesses look for solutions that allow them to save money and strengthen their defenses. There are so many public companies that are posting losses for the first time in a number of years, so the added scrutiny will drive leaders to invest in any tools that are deemed as essential and allow for the digitization of processes to help their balance sheets. As SaaS developers and providers, now is the time to lean into how companies are addressing work now and into the future.
