Business development of enterprises is going on at an unprecedented pace. New business models, products and services are appearing on the market, the commercial success of which depends on a number of factors: rapid implementation, adaptation to the market environment and, finally, satisfaction of customer requirements. How to reconcile these elements while keeping costs in check? Читайте в статье о SaaS promotion.
Digitization of products and services
– Consumers are accustomed to the ubiquitous digitization of services and products. Until a few years ago, the implementation of a large part of the systems consisted of a dedicated service. This implied a long implementation time of many months or even several years. Today, when the pace of market change is high, a similar approach can result in low flexibility, says Tomasz Gutkowski, Head of Business Development at Unity Group.
SaaS and Paas – how do these models work?
Today, companies are no longer doomed to the “old” methods of operation. In counterpoint to the old approach is the SaaS or PaaS model, which allows the use of ready-made products operating in the cloud, available to be launched almost immediately after the purchase of a subscription or license. How does this work in practice?
SaaS is a model of providing software and digital products as a service for a subscription/subscription fee. PaaS, on the other hand, is a model in which an IT system/tool is made available in the cloud, allowing companies to reduce costs associated with maintaining, hosting and administering the system, as these activities are left to the software provider/developer.
Products in the SaaS model have been on the market for many years, but their popularity was initially widespread among small companies that did not have relatively large budgets to implement their projects. Examples of such solutions include the Shoper, Shoplo or IdoSell platforms, where customers receive a set of ready-made tools for setting up and managing an online store. Due to the low flexibility of this solution (low susceptibility to implementing changes for specific companies and low propensity to customize applications to meet individual business needs), it has become a popular trend for e-stores to move from SaaS platforms to dedicated or open-source platforms once they reach a certain scale and are able to finance more advanced systems, customized to the needs and business context of the company.
However, technological changes in recent years have lifted restrictions on the development of SaaS software for individual business needs. Today, companies can opt for SaaS software that allows the introduction or addition of dedicated features to the platform’s base functionality (known as core). This gives companies tremendous value in the form of a much shorter deployment time, rapid go-to-market with the service (go-to-market), significantly lower implementation and application maintenance costs.
Wide spectrum of applications
The possibilities of SaaS are almost limitless. Already most classes of systems supporting business processes are made available in this model, among them such types of software as: ERP, WMS, CRM, Business Intelligence, price engine, marketing automation and many others.
Another area of SaaS application is product information management in information systems (PIM). Interest in this class of solutions is growing rapidly and this translates into an equally rapidly growing number of applications available in the SaaS model.
More and more software vendors are making products available in the PaaS (Platform as a service) model, allowing companies to deploy systems leaving the issue of infrastructure maintenance on the vendor’s side, which leaves all hardware support to the vendor, reducing this layer of costs to a minimum for the customer.
Consumer perspective
The model of offering services and products in the cloud is ubiquitous for digital resources and goods. Very often, when shopping online, consumers encounter the use of SaaS software without being aware of it. An example? A sudden increase in traffic due to promotions (Black Friday) or the inclusion of a large number of new products in the store’s offer do not generate crises in stores today and frustration among customers about the malfunctioning of the e-store, as these processes are seamlessly handled by cloud resources.
