Software as a service (SaaS) is something that you need to utilize for your business. Moving into 2018, SaaS is a growing industry that business owners all over the world are taking advantage of. You can grow your company, automate operations, increase your marketing efforts long-term with shorter-term input, and keep financing costs low with vendors.

Today, we’ll look at the 7 things you need to know about SaaS. As a business owner, understanding software as a service can bring you to prosperity and profit. But first, let’s tackle what SaaS means today and how to use it profitably.

What is SaaS?

It's a type of product -- think of it as software delivery -- where all you need is the internet and place to browse to take advantage. This is not something new, but does stand to take over what used to be extensive hardware, heavy internal investment, hosting, IT, and more. All of those things (& more) will be taken care of by your SaaS vendor, the expert on the software because they do more than just use it, they build it.

SaaS allows you to grow your set of tools that allow your business improve without you fronting the time or resources internally. With SaaS, you typically own a license (or a number of them) and permissions are given to access the product. You can use these platforms among departments, subcontractors, remote workers, and executives because locale isn’t a limitation with the cloud and real-time updating.

What Does It Take to Adopt SaaS?

All it takes to adopt SaaS is a leap-of-faith. Making decisions can take time and sometimes they need approval but with SaaS, you want to move fast. The IOT is a fast game, but lucky for your business, it’s also a long-term game. Software engineers are in high-demand as companies like Apple, Microsoft, and Adobe have paved the way for SaaS to better business by finding better ways.

Aside from WiFi and your PC, adopting a SaaS product successfully means putting in the work for setup and developing a cadence. Once you learn how to get the most value from the software and create a process, they typically run for you. They’ll help grow your business, automate the process, and after you put the time initially, using your software will be easy and low-cost with returns that offer peace of mind and business growth.

Virteom is here to educate and lead your business into the future. We believe the future of business operations (especially for small to medium enterprises) is SaaS. If you have any questions or a topic you’d like to see us cover in the future, please comment your suggestions below or contact us.

Here are 7 things we think you need to know about SaaS as a business owner.

1. SaaS Automates (It’s Technology)

Because SaaS is technology, most products have the latest in tech implemented. Most are able to connect to and work with calendars, social media, email, and other tools (like Google or Microsoft) to help automate its service, free up your time, and relieve your worry of keeping up.

SaaS creators often have multiple products that feed into each other too. For example, Virteom CMS and TouchConvert connect form submissions to the CRM and can even have subscribers automatically added into email lists upon sign up.

2. SaaS is a Science

Have you heard the expression “it’s a science” used for something that requires expertise? Well, in the case of SaaS, software engineers, architects, and SaaS creators take on their products like a science. The solutions are researched, tested, and tweaked more and more to ensure that they have the best product out there at launch and the development never stops there.

SaaS is a good bet because engineers approach it like a scientist, trying to find the perfect chemical combination. You’re using a product created and constantly updated by a team with great resources that’s dedicated to the solution because their job is finding solutions and creating them to work for everyone. 

3. SaaS Grows Itself

We all know Windows didn’t start on Windows 10, there have been TONS of updates to get it where it is today, and we know they probably aren’t done yet. SaaS products continuously get updated and vendors are releasing new versions all the time. If you are ever frustrated with a SaaS product, talk to your vendor and see if they aren’t working on a new version.

Most of the time, new versions and updates are always in progress as engineers are constantly working to have their products top-notch. This is great news for you because products like these tend to stay ahead of the curve.

4. SaaS Grows Your Business

It’s a fact: as your business starts to grow, you outgrow certain operations. You resources get stretched too thin and you either have to increase labor, start to outsource, or find a SaaS solution.  SaaS products are consistently-priced tools that you spend on to help increase efficiency and grow your company. They’re the perfect thing to aid you as you scale up your business.

Many SaaS tools are created to help businesses grow too! How do you grow a business? Increasing your sales revenue and decreasing your costs where you can. SaaS is the way to optimize this equation to grow. There are tons of tools that allow you to create for customers and for your own business.

5. SaaS for Marketing

One of the largest areas for SaaS is marketing tools (this is where revenue growth occurs). TouchConvert and Virteom CMS both feed into marketing efforts. Tools like these are there to help you achieve brand awareness, engagement, new content and more that all feed into your marketing efforts (both online and off). There are products out there that help you create graphics, infographics, content, email campaigns, design comps, icons and stickers, chatbots, and more.

We could seriously go on forever. Many businesses, especially SMEs, often struggling with a marketing budget but SaaS makes that easy. These products are often low monthly costs that include support or flat rates for licenses with additional support costs. If you haven’t invested any time into finding marketing SaaS tools that work for you, it’s time to start.

6. SaaS for Operations

This area is where the cost control comes into play. Another prominent area full of great SaaS products and solutions is operations. Tools for workflow management, project management, task management, list creation, document and file sharing, memo creators, calendar managers, and more. We could go on forever in this area too.

Products like this help streamline internal processes and management to make your business run more efficiently. This helps your bottom line. These products are often able to connect team members internally as well as be shared with clients. Creators work to make these as versatile and connected as they can to optimize your operations.

7. SaaS for Everything

“If you build it, he will come”. We all know the line from Field of Dreams, but with SaaS it’s the opposite. If you come and ask for it, it will get built! Software engineers and SaaS creators are always looking for new ideas to build into tools. Most of the features and benefits you see coming from SaaS products come from comments or suggestions from users. Make sure you’re always talking to your vendors or posting your most common problems because it may turn out to help tons of people one day – as a SaaS product.

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Virteom Is a creative tech and development company. We specialize in SaaS for web and mobile, and are the creators of TouchConvert. We offer free knowledge and support and we regularly publish content on our blog. Make sure to subscribe and contact us today and see how we’ll take your business into the future with SaaS.