Software-as-a-service or SaaS isn’t just another buzzword you hear in tech circles. It’s revolutionizing how businesses operate worldwide and how we interact with tech in our digital spaces. SaaS is shaking up traditional business models. And for one simple reason: it does more with less. It’s more scalable and more flexible but costs less.
Businesses leveraging SaaS have an edge over their traditional competitors. SaaS solutions streamline business operations. And with automatic improvements and updates, you always stay ahead of the curve and adapt to market changes.
SaaS frees startups and small businesses from the shadow of giants. They can access the same cutting-edge tools and resources industry leaders are using. [1]
For today’s businesses, mastering SaaS is no longer optional. Understanding and carefully implementing SaaS opens up new doors. Doors that lead to growth, success, and innovation. In this post, we’ll learn the ropes of SaaS.
Be sure to check out our in-depth guide to SaaS
We’ll discover what makes SaaS different. And what SaaS can do for your business. It’ll overview how to implement SaaS successfully into your business and scale it. Toward the end, we’ll also look into some basic risk management. Let’s learn how to master SaaS.
Understanding SaaS
Software-as-a-service is a model for software delivery. For everyday users, SaaS is a way to use apps through their browser, without ever installing it on their device. For businesses, it’s about accessing software solutions through a third-party vendor who hosts and manages the software.
Average users don’t have to worry about complex installation setups, running out of storage, or handling manual updates. All they need is a device with internet access.
But from a business standpoint, SaaS delivers so much more. Small and mid-sized businesses no longer have to invest heavily in IT infrastructure and maintenance. The SaaS provider covers all their tech needs. [2]
Scalability
With traditional models, you would need to scale your infrastructure and software solutions to keep up with the growing demand. It’s complex. It consumes time. And you always run the risk of disrupting your operations or performance when scaling up. But scaling with SaaS is painless.
SaaS is built on cloud computing, which delivers an easy-to-scale infrastructure. You can scale up or down as you grow.
Pay as You Go
And you pay as you go. Most SaaS providers offer different service tiers to cater to different budgets. You only work with the features you need to cover demand, no more, no less. It’s brutally efficient. [3]
SaaS for Every Business Need
There are SaaS platforms out there that cater to every aspect of your growing business — communication, collaboration, customer relationship management, HR, marketing, and anything else you can think of. You can incorporate as many or few of them into your daily operations. They’ll simplify the workflows and save on costs, freeing up resources for more important facets. [4]
How to Pick the Right SaaS Solution for Your Business
Armed with a basic understanding of what SaaS really is, we’re ready to choose the right SaaS solutions for your business. It begins with thoroughly assessing exactly what your business needs. Take a mental step back and ask yourself — what are the pain points I’m currently struggling with? Where’s the room for improvement in my tech stack? Can I streamline my operations further?
Conduct a Thourough Audit
If you’ve noticed dips in productivity or lapses in communication, consider a better project management system. It’ll help your team manage their tasks seamlessly, collaborate effectively, and track productivity with ease.
Maybe your customer interactions or support could use a boost. That’s where CRM platforms (customer relationship management) step in. These platforms become a central repository for all your customer data, streamlining communication with your customers. CRM services automate a lot of workflows too. Think scheduling, reports, and follow-up emails. It can even run and analyze your marketing campaigns for you. It’s essentially a mini marketing department that lives in the cloud.
Pick a Vendor
You’ll find dozens of easy SaaS solutions for whatever pain point you pick. So it’ll take some homework to pick the right fit for your budget and your operations. SaaS providers make that easy for you too. Many provide free trials or demos, so you can test drive the system before you commit.
They’ll also have varying pricing, features, and interfaces. Shortlist a few that catch your attention. You can also check out customer reviews to get a feel for a product before you put it on your list. Then all you have to do is evaluate your picks and select the best of the bunch. [5]
Evaluate Security and Privacy
Whether you plan on using the solution internally or for your customers, do consider security and privacy before you commit to a vendor. Reputable providers usually have robust security systems in place to protect your data. But it never hurts to review their backup and security policy. It also helps to check their certifications and ask about their general security practices. Questions like how often they audit their systems and what protocols they have in place to prevent breaches will strengthen your confidence in the vendor.
Choosing the right vendor is more than just picking the right service for your needs. It’s also about putting your customer’s data (and by extension your company’s reputation) in good hands. The right vendor will ensure compliance with data regulations, protecting you from legal troubles.
Implementing SaaS
When you’ve done your homework, trailed a few platforms, and picked the perfect tool for the job. it’s time to get it working for your business. Integrating SaaS into your business takes a lot of planning. You want to outline the roadmap — the timelines, the budget, the tasks, and any potential roadblocks you may encounter. A clear, transparent plan gives your whole team a clear direction, laying out their responsibilities. [6]
Sync With Your Existing Systems
The first hurdle you’ll probably encounter is syncing your existing systems with the new SaaS platform. SaaS solutions are designed with integration in mind. And they work best in a cohesive ecosystem. If it’s not gonna work out of the box, you’ll need to spend some resources tweaking your existing processes.
The SaaS vendor handles the hardware systems, the updates, licensing, and anything else you can think of. Many service providers will also offer to implement their SaaS solution for you, ensuring a smooth, disruption-free transition.
Migrate Everything
After your systems have synced with the new SaaS platform, it’s time to talk data. Work closely with the provider to manage the data migration. You’ll need to clean up the data and ensure compatibility before greenlighting the transfer. Don’t hesitate to ask for expert help, if needed.
When you’ve gone through those two steps, you should have a brand new SaaS solution, seamlessly integrated into your operations. And all your data should have neatly migrated to the new cloud.
Help Your Employees
But getting the machines working is only half the battle. The other half is the human factor. Change isn’t easy, especially if you’re implementing it on a wider scale. Be patient and understanding with the resistance.
Aim to turn it into a team effort, highlighting the change as positive. Explain the benefits and how it’ll make their work lives easier. Put together an extensive training program to get them comfortable with the new system. Roll out video tutorials, easy-to-access guides, and hands-on sessions to cater to all kinds of learning styles.
The more intuitive and user-friendly your new system is, the quicker your employees will adopt it, and with a minimal learning curve. The job of the SaaS solution is to simplify their work, not complicate it. So prioritize clear, intuitive, and easy-to-navigate interfaces.
Set up Monitoring and Internal Customer Support
Finally, make the SaaS implementation an ongoing project with clear customer support. Establish an internal support team for troubleshooting issues and guiding your employees. And remember to leverage the customer support services your SaaS vendor offers. Responsive channels to assist the team will streamline the whole process.
Once it’s all in place, regularly monitor performance and usage. Reviewing the system and optimize will ensure its effectiveness and maximum ROI.
Step | Action | Plan |
1. | Outline the plan | Develop a roadmap, complete with timelines, budget, strategy, and assigned roles |
2. | Sync the SaaS solution with your existing software ecosystem | Seek assistance from the vendor to smoothly integrate their solutions into your existing processes |
3. | Data migration | Clean up your data, create in-house backups of critical data, and ensure compatibility before migrating it to the new SaaS database |
4. | Create training programs and learning resources | Train your employees with a comprehensive onboarding and training strategy. Rollout resources in different formats. Set up internal customer support for guidance and troubleshooting |
5. | Monitoring and reviewing | Continuously monitor the system's efficiency, performance, and usage to ensure smooth operations and maximum ROI |
Scaling Your SaaS Solution
If you’ve successfully followed the steps laid out above, you now have a fully functional SaaS platform and a team well-equipped to run it. The operations are running smoothly and you’re providing services to your valued clients far more efficiently. And as your business grows, so does the customer demand.
It’s a welcome challenge. But it also means your system needs to scale up to keep up with your growing needs. That’s when you explore scalability options. Conduct regular audits of your SaaS solutions to examine what’s working and what needs expansion. Being proactive with scalability keeps you ahead of the curve, maintains your productivity, and streamlines the customer experience.
Get the Best ROI
SaaS is dynamic, not static. The SaaS ecosystem you’ve built will evolve alongside your business. And as such, it shouldn’t be an afterthought in your strategy. SaaS scaling should be an essential component of your growth plan to ensure you’re maximizing your ROI. This brings us to our next step: maximizing return on investment (ROI).
Alignment
To get a great return on your considerable investment, align the SaaS tools perfectly with your business needs. Every SaaS solution in your toolkit should add value. It should serve a clear purpose — boosting productivity, customer engagement, revenue growth, and the like.
Optimization
With a distinct purpose, every layer in your tech stack will take you one step closer to your business goals. But you can propel that journey with good optimization. Be proactive. Find gaps and redundancies in your operations. If you find repetitive, tedious tasks, explore how you can automate with SaaS. Simplifying the workflows with automation or streamlining will boost overall productivity and efficiency.
Metrics
Metrics are the last piece of this puzzle. They help you track your performance with KPIs (or key performance indicators), giving you clear measures of your ROI. Keep an eye on metrics like cost and time savings, revenue growth, customer satisfaction ratings, and other metrics unique to your business. Review the KPIs as regularly as you can, and use them to inform your future strategy.
In a nutshell, perfect alignment, good optimization, and measuring KPIs rigorously will get you the max ROI from your SaaS tools.
Be Prepared for Outages
Despite the endless benefits your business can reap from SaaS technology, it’s also true that outages and disruptions can happen. When they do, you’ll need a contingency plan to mitigate any risks. [7]
You can select alternative workflows and fallback on backup systems to make sure the operations stay uninterrupted. Devise a detailed plan that features workflows and communication protocols for unexpected service disruptions. You can occasionally run drills based on your contingency plan and find areas of improvement.
Regardless of how closely you work with customer data, it’s crucial to keep everything backed up. You can set up in-house backups to prevent data loss. Consider preparing for the worst too with clearly established data recovery measures. Even if the data is lost, the pre-planned recovery will allow you to quickly restore everything.
Outline backup and recovery protocols that assign tasks and responsibilities to individuals for effective disaster recovery.
Conclusion
As we’ve seen, mastering SaaS isn’t a single path. It’s just as dynamic as SaaS itself. Finding and implementing successful SaaS solutions takes thoughtful planning, careful execution, and a readiness to meet unexpected challenges. So while it’s true that SaaS can transform and revolutionize your operations, you’ll have to identify the right solutions and optimize them for your business to get the maximum ROI.
Security and privacy shouldn’t be mere afterthoughts. But kept at the forefront every step of the way. And you should stay prepared with a solid contingency plan in the event of unexpected outages.
References
[1] Turner, G. (2021, 12 1). How Technology Is Leveling The Playing Field For Small Business Underdogs. Forbes. https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2021/12/01/how-technology-is-leveling-the-playing-field-for-small-business-underdogs/?sh=6ae78dcada66
[2] The Benefits of SaaS: How On-Demand Software is Helping Small Businesses Think Big. (2022, June 21). Salesforce. Retrieved July 7, 2023, from https://www.salesforce.com/uk/blog/2022/06/benefits-of-saas.html
[3] SaaS – software-as-a-service. (n.d.). IBM. Retrieved July 7, 2023, from https://www.ibm.com/topics/saas
[4] Oetting, J. (2023, April 6). SaaS: The Ultimate Guide to Software as a Service. HubSpot Blog. Retrieved July 7, 2023, from https://blog.hubspot.com/service/saas
[5] Gray, P. (2016, August 1). SaaS checklist: Nine factors to consider when selecting a vendor. ZDNET. Retrieved July 7, 2023, from https://www.zdnet.com/article/saas-checklist-nine-factors-to-consider-when-selecting-a-vendor/
[6] Parashar, A. (n.d.). Top 6 Strategies for a Successful SaaS Implementation. Finoit. Retrieved July 7, 2023, from https://www.finoit.com/articles/strategies-for-successful-saas-implementation/
[7] What to Do When Your Software Vendor Goes Away. (n.d.). Maintenance Connection. Retrieved July 7, 2023, from https://website.maintenanceconnection.com/resources/blog-posts/what-do-when-your-software-vendor-goes-away
