Why a SaaS Based Commerce Suite is Better Placed to Boost Business Growth?
The Software-as-a Service (SaaS) delivery model must be doing something right. In a survey conducted by IDG Research and Unisys, 53% of respondents (IT leader’s at large organizations) said they plan to up the spending in SaaS and cloud based applications.
Does this mean SaaS only helps large businesses? Not quite, even small businesses can thrive on SaaS. The truth is with all the benefits that SaaS brings to the table, there is absolutely no doubt that a SaaS based solution is good for you, whatever the niche. If you are a products based business and see yourself unable to manage its growing needs especially from the sales perspective, there is no beating a SaaS based Commerce Suite to improve business profitability.
Why SaaS?
The answer lies in the nature of benefits that a SaaS based solution brings to the table. SaaS delivers cost savings, real time decision making, better collaboration, seamless and integrated marketing and a whole lot more!
Here’s a no holds barred look at how a SaaS based Commerce Solution is an idea whose time has come for your business:
(1) A Disruptive Solution
Even the fiercest critics of SaaS won’t deny that it is a disruptive technology, which has thrown open the doors of innovative cutting edge solutions. This delivery model has helped developers come up with tools that are changing the way we do business. They are pushing the envelope and coming up with solutions that are more in line with a business’s growth strategy. Simply put, businesses can get hands on technology that is more aware and aligned with their needs.
(2) Your Business Becomes the ‘Anywhere’ Business
Think of a scenario where it is imperative for you to travel at all times and the hands-on person you are, makes this an extremely difficult proposition. You’ve a Hobson’s choice in front of you. You can’t avoid the travel, but still want to be on top of your business’s sales activities and manage your business operations. But wait! With a SaaS based Commerce Solution you can take charge of your business from anywhere. Whether you’re travelling for meeting dealers/manufacturers, building more sales channels, attending trade shows, all you need is an internet connection to handle your business’s activities from wherever you are.
And this, without letting go of your ‘hands on’ approach towards business management! Today, not being in charge is a choice that you shouldn’t have to make.
(3) Incremental Scalability
A Commerce Solution needs to be picked keeping the growing needs of your business in mind. Your business might have hundreds of consumers today and caters to a certain geographic market, but in the event you want to expand and add to your customer base, will the solution keep pace with your needs? It will, if you ensure the solution subscribes to a concept of incremental scalability. A growing business means you’ll need to add new sales channels; you’ll also need to explore niche opportunities for targeting different demographics. The pulls and pressures that a growing consumer base exerts on your sales processes are immense and your Commerce Solution must help you handle them.
For this to happen, you need a solution whose structural framework isn’t etched in stone. It is something that must grow with your business. But it’s not only your customers who will grow but also your employees. So, you must also be able to keep adding users into the system. To put in a nutshell, the solution needs to adapt itself to the changing needs of the business.
All this is possible with a Commerce Suite that leverages the advantage of SaaS.
(4) It Doesn’t Have to be Expensive
68% of companies invest in digital technologies to improve process efficiencies; astonishingly only 25% of them do it to reach new customers.
The idea is to pick a solution that allows you to do both.
The problem is – a comprehensive solution you want to use for your business might be prohibitively expensive. This usually keeps businesses from adopting cutting edge technologies.
But there is a solution to this problem in the form of the subscription model of SaaS solutions. The low entry point of these solutions means most businesses can use it without a significant increase in their overheads. As your business grows, so does your ability to subscribe for a more enhanced version of the SaaS Commerce Solution.
What’s more, a new upgrade doesn’t jack up your overheads because it doesn’t warrant a hardware upgrade or more bandwidth.
Competitive Advantage
By 2017, the global spending on SaaS is expected to reach $45.6 billion. While the implementation of a SaaS based solution is usually done to experience significant cost savings, the nature of SaaS is such that over the long run businesses also experience some ancillary benefits; the kind of benefits that give them the competitive edge.
- SaaS adoption improves the likelihood of increased collaboration across organization by 79%.
- Businesses that use SaaS are more than twice as likely to convert Big Data into actionable insights.
- Businesses adopting SaaS are twice as likely to increase innovation.
No prizes for guessing that collaboration, insights and innovation will make your business more competitive than it already is. Irrespective of the focus area of a SaaS solution (which in this case is commerce), if it is a part of your business’s ecosystem, your business will experience an across the board range of improvements.
To Conclude
Products based businesses have to battle it out to win consumer mind share. Consumers today have an extraordinary number of choices on offer, so the question is – why will they pick your products and not that of your competitors. They will do this only if you are able to make a case for your products with solid customer engagement, seamless front office support, best-in-class customer service etc. Your business should be the first thing your customers must think of when they are searching for the kind of products you are selling. This is a tough ask, but made all the simpler with SaaS. A comprehensive one-stop Commerce Solution is the way forward because it brings a wide array of functionalities to the table. Each of these functionalities is geared to improve business growth one way or another.
But the key to making the best of a SaaS based Commerce Suite is picking one that has a wealth of features that are in sync with your business’s growth strategy. So, take a close look at your goals, your strategy to achieve these goals and then pick a Commerce Solution that can act as a bridge between your business processes and your objectives. Make sure you pick a solution that is configured to deliver on your expectations and meet the growing demands of your target customers.
