Raghu RajiIn today’s world, software as a service (or SaaS) has dominated the daily work routine. In recent years, there has been tremendous growth, particularly in the technology industry. One example is the increasing number of SaaS providers, products, and services.
According to PRNewswire, there will be a $104 billion growth expected in SaaS market by 2024. That means businesses were innovating and addressing more issues to benefit all types of businesses.
Let’s take a look at how these software providers can help every new business succeed.
Table of Contents
What is SaaS? (Software-as-a-Service) and Why Startup Should Consider Using It?
Software as a Service (or SaaS) is a method of delivering applications as a service over the Internet. Instead of installing and maintaining software, you simply access it through the Internet, freeing yourself from the complexities of software and hardware management.
Web-based software, on-demand software, and hosted software are all terms used to describe SaaS applications. Whatever the name, SaaS applications are hosted on the servers of a SaaS provider. The provider manages application access, including security, availability, and performance.
It has now become a popular business model due to its ability to streamline business operations at a low cost. Every day, businesses are becoming digitally inclined and seeing the importance of technology to their business.
A startup may benefits in many ways while utilizing SaaS’s different features suitable to every business model.
Let’s have a look into these more in-depth.
SaaS Benefits and How it Can Help Startup Business to Prosper
1. Affordable Cost (Initial Set up and Maintenance)
Because it is a subscription-based model, SaaS can provide significant cost savings because it typically resides in a shared or multi-tenant environment with lower hardware and software license costs than the traditional model.
Startups should also take advantage of its customer base scalability, as SaaS allows small businesses to subscribe and receive the same benefits as large enterprises when using the same software, which they would not use due to its high licensing costs.
2. High-End Accessibility
SaaS allows small businesses/startups to access mission-critical information and apps from any location, at any time. Improved access can lead to increased productivity, as employees choose apps that allow them to work smarter and faster.
One of the most significant advantages of SaaS is the ability of a global workforce to work from anywhere in the world. Many location-based requirements could be eliminated by remote work, resulting in more democratized and open hiring practices.
3. Seamless Support
The majority of SaaS companies provide their customer and technical support. Calls, emails, live chat, and even social media are all available to help with any customer concern. It may be accessible at all times a day, seven days a week via a website.
4. Vital Security
When considering any software, make sure to ask potential providers about their access and security standards, such as whether they provide end-to-end encryption. This will help business owners in selecting a partner with security protocols that are compatible with their own needs.
5. Special features to boost business productivity
With advanced features, every business can increase the productivity of its resources and run a company more smoothly. This is a significant advantage that SaaS provides to entrepreneurs. It means that your team members can concentrate on more important tasks rather than wasting time figuring out how the system will function after an update.
6. Free Trial
Although this may appear to be a sales pitch, a free trial may assist a startup in determining which tool to use or subscribe to. Most SaaS companies have these to see if their product will meet your needs and vice versa so you don`t need to spend a lot while choosing the most suited one.
Furthermore, the SaaS provider provides a demo and freemium model to test the Software, which means that before making a final decision, you can test the Software to see if it meets your business requirements.
SaaS Products Startups Should Use For Seamless Operation
i). For Customer Relationship Management (CRM)
1. Pipedrive:
Pipedrive is a customer relationship management tool for sales teams of all sizes. With 100,000+ paying customers in 179 countries, our CRM’s simple yet powerful design prioritizes usability above all else and attracts sales teams. Nothing falls through the cracks with Pipedrive, allowing your team to spend less time filing and more time selling with CRM software that is both agile and powerful.
2. Freshsales:
Freshsales is a comprehensive sales force automation solution for sales teams. It gives a salesperson everything they need to attract quality leads, engage in contextual conversations, drive deals with AI-powered insights, and nurture customer relationships. Freshsales, with built-in email, phone, chat, and telephony, gives sales teams more time to sell by automating the sales process and increasing efficiency and productivity in their daily activities
3. Salesflare
Salesflare is a CRM that small and medium-sized businesses that sell B2B enjoy using. It’s a sales pipeline tool that thinks and works for its users rather than the other way around.
No more manual data entry is needed. Salesflare populates your address book and records all interactions with the people you contact. It collects information from social media, company databases, the phone, email, and calendar and presents it to you in automated customer timelines that tell you everything you need to know. You only need to send emails, make phone calls, and drink coffee.
ii) Customer Care
1. Zendesk
It`s difficult to provide support across multiple channels — but your customers don’t need to know. Zendesk enables your company to have natural conversations with its customers while hiding what’s going on behind the scenes. It is sophisticated enough to meet complex requirements while remaining simple enough to allow you to get up and running quickly.
2. Freshdesk
Freshdesk is a cloud-based customer service software that allows businesses of all sizes to provide exceptional customer service.
It helps converts email, web, phone, chat, and social requests into tickets and unifies ticket resolution across channels. It also allows you to automate workflows, provide self-service, manage SLAs, and measure metrics, allowing you to stay on top of all things customer support. Additionally, it also includes pre-installed features such as an AI-powered support chatbot, predictive support, and field service management.
3. Zoho
-If looking for the best yet simple project management, Zoho is the perfect software that enables everyone to streamline upcoming work and tasks within just a click.
iii) Tasks Administration
1. Click Up
-A cloud-based project management solution that offers incredible features while remains to be affordable and simple to use. It provides a team of collaborative tasks, complete with status and project updates on a real-time basis.
2. Asana
Asana is the most convenient way to manage both team projects and individual tasks suitable for startups and small businesses. From the smallest details to a huge project, Asana organizes work so that you and your teams know what to do, when to do it, and how to do it.
aightforward yet effective project management tool for managing all of your projects. It is ideal for striking collaboration to increase team efficiency. With complete transparency, you can track the workflow and planning stages of your project directly from the tool.
3. Trello
A visual collaboration tool that helps your team develop a shared perspective on any project in a fun, flexible, and rewarding way.
Trello allows teams to design and customize it to fit their specific needs and work styles, from sales and marketing to HR and operations. Trello is a living, breathing project hub of cross-team collaboration no matter where your work needs to happen, with over 100+ integrations with other key tools like Google Drive, Slack, Jira, and more.
iv) Templates and Process Management
1. BeSlick:
BeSlick eliminates the chaos of business operations, allowing teams to get it right the first time. beSlick allows you to design a simple yet powerful workflow process that converts into a checklist execution of business tasks. Business operations can be easily viewed to track success and process improvement opportunities.
2. Pandadoc:
PandaDoc enables over 40,000 customers to easily create, manage, and e-Sign all of their documents. We provide a digitized and centralized workflow platform that reduces inefficiencies and increases productivity.
PandaDoc allows you to concentrate on the important tasks at hand rather than being bogged down by time-consuming busy work.
V) Chats & Team Collaboration
1. Slack:
The widely used team collaboration tool Slack unifies all company interactions. You can track documents, share files and updates, and set reminders for tasks and meetings in addition to its well-liked chat and team communication tools. It is compatible with commonplace programs like Google Drive, Dropbox, etc.
2. Chanty:
Chanty is a cloud-based collaborative working platform that combines correspondence, project management, and automation to improve team collaboration. Chanty assists teams in increasing productivity and business communication. Unlimited message history, task management, file sharing, and powerful notifications help you organize and save time. In one location, you can effectively collaborate and communicate.
3. Microsoft Teams:
MicrosoftTeams is an Office 365 chat-based workspace. It brings together people, conversations, and content, as well as the tools that teams require to easily collaborate and achieve more.
Vi) Software for Marketing Automation
1. Hubspot:
An all-in-one CRM that is for everyone. From marketing, sales, support, and project management one team can work together. Its marketing hubs provide a project where in you can track all the files, and communications in one place and it gives you easy access to manage real-time notifications, results, and feedback.
2. Active Campaign:
Is a platform for email marketing and automation for growing businesses. With over 12 million customers worldwide who launch, build, and grow their businesses, they provide world-class marketing technology, award-winning customer service, inspiring content, and data-driven recommendations.
Mailchimp’s marketing platform enables customers to sell online, connect with and grow their audience, and confidently create effective multichannel marketing campaigns across email, social media, landing pages, ads, websites, and more—all from a single platform.
VII) Records & Bookkeeping
1. Xero:
Xero’s online accounting software platform serves as a foundation for businesses to build comprehensive business solutions. It connects businesses to their bank, accounting tools, accountants, payment services, and third-party apps, ensuring that everything is secure and accessible at all times and on any device.
2. Quickbooks:
Simple Online Accounting to Organize Your Finances. Use the #1 small business cloud accounting solution to run your entire business!
VIII) Remittances
1. Stripe:
A complete payments platform designed for expansion.
Time Keeping and Monitoring
1. Toggl:
Toggle is a time-saving app that can integrate with a variety of other tools to increase functionality. The instant overview of time and team growth, as well as offline time tracking, are two of its best features.
2. Time Doctor:
If you want to know where your team is spending their time while working remotely, Time Doctor is the app for you. This all-in-one time tracking and productivity tool is ideal for remote teams.
3. Timely:
Vikings in Norway created the world’s first automatic time-tracking app. Timely assists 5,000 businesses in 160 countries in staying connected with their workforce and accurately reporting on their business, including payroll, project management, team management, and capacity planning. Timely free teams to focus on the important work by automating timesheet administration. It is a tracking tool that employees trust because it is designed to provide strict user-level privacy.
Design & Images
1. Canva:
A graphics app that allows you to create visual materials without having to have extensive graphic design experience. The tool is typically used to create social media graphics, simple videos, presentations, slides, posters, and other visual assets — and it comes with a plethora of customizable templates and royalty-free images to assist users in doing so.
2. Pixlr:
Free, next-level, intuitive photo editing from your browser. There is no installation required.
Managing Socials
1. Hootsuite:
2. Sprout Social:
3. Social Pilot:
4. Buffer:
5. Sendible:
The Sendible platform centralizes all of your social networks and is the simplest way to execute a winning social media strategy for multiple brands at scale. As an agency productivity tool, you can be confident that your team will save hours!
Meeting Planner
1. Calendly:
Calendly is your one-stop shop for professionally and efficiently scheduling meetings, eliminating the hassle of back-and-forth emails so you can get back to work. Calendly, already known as the intuitive scheduling leader for over 50,000 businesses and 10 million people worldwide, now extends its capabilities for teams with powerful collaboration functionality,
Online Conferences & Video Recording
1. Zoom:
Zoom One combines team chat, phone, whiteboard, meetings, and other features into a single product. Zoom One is designed to work together and provides an intuitive user experience, simplify management, and deliver the communications flexibility required by today’s workforce.
2. Loom:
Language & Copywriting
1. Grammarly:
Grammarly enables individuals worldwide to communicate effectively and efficiently at every customer and internal touch point. Grammarly’s trusted AI-powered recommendations help improve word choice, tone, sentence clarity, and grammatical errors. Grammarly Business assists your team in producing work that reflects your company with polish and professionalism, whether they are writing emails, articles, or something entirely different.
Final Thoughts
Startups that use SaaS-based apps are looking to expand due to lower capital costs and rapid scalability. Furthermore, premium benefits such as automation and reduced human error are identified as key reasons. Startups will look for low-cost solutions that can compete with large corporations without breaking the bank.
About The Author
Shushal Kadel is the founder of KBA Web, a Darwin SEO Company and web design agency. He is a full-time entrepreneur and Full Stack Web Developer who is well-versed in HTML, CSS, JS, PHP, SQL, and Python, among other programming languages.