In SaaS (Software As A Service) – You’re Either Scaling Or Failing

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In SaaS (Software As A Service) Youre Either
Scaling Or Failing
Ever since the advent of cloud computing, SaaS
has transitioned into the default mode of choice
for digital services at enterprises, irrespective
of their size or domain. Cost of ownership,
flexibility, and broader options are some of the
significant reasons why enterprises have an
affinity for the cloud.
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If you look closely at the past decade, there has
been a steady rise in the number of B2C and B2B
platform companies in which the core business has
been modeled around a SaaS platform. But as
competition has intensified, the real measure of
success of an enterprises SaaS investments has
become dependent on how well it can scale in
terms of increased digital real estate and
ultimately support business expansion. Scaling
Is Not An Easy Task We have seen stories of SaaS
businesses experiencing major growth, especially
during the pandemic years. As more customers sway
their interests towards digital services, the
expected outcome will be an exponential scaling
of SaaS businesses. But this doesnt happen very
smoothly. SaaS businesses can be very tricky in
their outlook. Most companies operate and scale
not by their revenue but through an infusion of
capital by venture capitalists and other
investors. While this trend kickstarted the SaaS
boom a decade ago, the pitfalls are now clearly
visible as profit projections are near zero for a
good majority of SaaS businesses despite having
made a sizable presence in the market. Why Do
SaaS Scaling Plans Fail? In the quest to achieve
growth to drive up market valuations, the
fundamental understanding of running a business
often takes a backseat. Some of the major
reasons for the failure of scaling attempts by
SaaS companies today are ineffective market
study, poor customer experience, lack of
continuous innovation, poor choice of
technology, and limited fund-raising abilities.
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• How Can SaaS Businesses Scale Successfully Today?
• As the competition rises and market dynamics
  continue to pose significant threats to the
  expansion plans of businesses worldwide, enabling
  your SaaS platform to scale successfully
  requires a more holistic end-to-end focus and
  strategic direction. Here are three tips to
  ensure a sustainable scaling roadmap for your
  SaaS platform
• Do Your Homework Before The Launch
• Many business owners may have a great idea, but
  pushing it out into the market via a SaaS route
  requires detailed and strategic research about
  its intended growth trajectory.
• Identify how potential customers are behaving in
  the market
• Get insights into their actual needs
• Study your competitors
• Find out what technology works best for your idea
• Evaluate potential growth scenarios with actual
  numbers from reliable research trends and
  reports available in the market
• The essence of doing your homework before
  launching the SaaS platform into the market is
  to ensure that it fits well in the target
  customer scenarios and can quickly connect with
  customers needs. This will help create an ideal
  roadmap to scale the SaaS business post-launch
  in alignment with the markets needs, thereby
  guaranteeing success and ROI.
• Choose Your Technology Wisely
• Once the foundation of growth has been laid out
  with proper research, the next most critical
  element of guaranteed success for a SaaS business
  is the SaaS technology itself. You can either
  build your own SaaS platform or assemble one
  with ready-to-deploy 3rd party SaaS offerings in
  the market or go for a hybrid approach involving
  both.

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Irrespective of the choice, the platform
technology needs to be evaluated for suitability
with your potential growth roadmap as identified
in the previous stage. Find out if the
technology selected allows you to scale up in
storage, performance, computing, availability,
reliability, and other salient characteristics
that are benchmarks of successful SaaS
scaling. 3. Keep the Customer At The Heart Most
SaaS businesses run behind the revenue
opportunities that come with scaling. The
problem here is that they may lose focus on how
the increasing customer base is being treated
within their core SaaS business platform. Did you
know that 53 of customers will leave a website
if it takes more than 3 seconds to load on their
smartphones? Your SaaS application is no
different in this regard. If the consumer-facing
side of your app or platform isnt guaranteeing
a performance matching the scale of user growth,
the experience quotient will go down, ultimately
taking your business down with it. The tip here
is to always keep customer experience as the key
element while implementing any scaling
initiatives. In A Nutshell As the title says,
In SaaS, Youre Either Scaling or Failing. But
the deeper meaning of this statement implies
that you must scale but ensure that the scale is
sustainable, manageable, reliable, and efficient.
The single biggest entity that can decide the
success of scaling for a SaaS business is the
data.
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As such, it is critical to ensure that you select
the absolute best components and best practices
to leverage the data about customers and
partners to make the most informed decisions
at the right time. This is where an experienced
technology partner like EnFuse can be a game
changer. Get in touch with us to know
more. Read More Five Ways B2B eCommerce Is
Different Than B2C (And Why You Need A Different
Product Data Strategy)