BUSINESS OPPORUNITIES || SAAS || NASSCOM

WHAT IS SaaS? 

• Saas is a software distribution model in which a service provider hosts applications for customers and makes them available to these customers via the internet.
• SaaS is one of the three major categories of cloud services, along with platform-as-a-service(PaaS) and infrastructure as a service(IaaS).
• SaaS companies offer a variety of business applications, including customer relationship management (CRM),   email and collaboration, sales management, human resources management, billing/payroll processing, financial management,  enterprise resourcing planning (ERP), database management, content management, and document editing and management.

GLOBAL AND INDIAN SaaS MARKETS

• The global saas market is valued at $100 billion with more than 12000 saas companies.
• Top 5 SaaS companies-Microsoft, salesforce, adobe, and oracle.
• Indian saas revenues growing at 30% annually  with $3.5 billion in 2020
• Key domains adopting SaaS: BFSI & CPG, Healthcare AND Wellness with BFSI being the highest.
• Six major SaaS companies in India -Zoho, Freshworks, Druva, Icertis, HighRadius, and Postman—and is expected to see the emergence of many more by 2025
• The industry is also seeing an increase in investor sentiment from key Indian and global investors. SaaS funding in India has grown by 15% CAGR over the last 3 years.
• The Indian SaaS industry today has more than 1,000 companies with 150+ companies generating an annual recurring revenue (ARR) greater than $1 million and is on the way to become the global hub for SaaS

Strategy for the playbook for India SaaS 

Indian SaaS Companies need to have a strategy that is a combination of price, GTM, and product which solves many purposes.

• Ensuring business continuity During times of crisis
• Engage with customers and evaluate partnerships
• Invest in sales and marketing and create flexible pricing
• Drive thought leadership & employee engagement and look for inorganic growth
• Enhancing the existing value proposition
• Product enhancements and Build domain expertise.
• Use digital technologies to build user-friendly and automated products.
• Develop multi-lingual capabilities and build domain-specific innovation centers.
• Utilizing Emerging opportunities
• Customize GTM strategies and identify growth opportunities
• Drive innovation and comprehensive growth strategy

Artificial Intelligence a Key component of SaaS feature

• Personalization
• By analyzing customer behaviors, AI can enable companies to create customizable user interfaces.
• Enhanced security
• AI can be used in SaaS products to enhance automated threat detection.
• Increased efficiency
• AI can be used to automate internal code deployments and also to minimize code errors

Future of SaaS by 2025

• Government and MSME as adopters
• Digital transformation of MSMEs through Indian SaaS
• Strong Government push for procurement of Made In India SaaS products
• Strong Funding Pipeline
• 3-4X annual funding, required to grow India SaaS market by 6X. 
• Short term financial support to maintain business continuity in the short-term
• Build the SaaS India Brand
• Build Brand India for SaaS through marketing, visibility, and trust • 
• Promote tier-II/III and non-metro locations to develop SaaS companies in India; develop SaaS to be a geo-agnostic solutions provider
• Shape the Next Gen SaaS Companies
• Robust non-VC funded model required to grow current SaaS industry base by 2-3X
• The government can dedicate 30-40% of the Fund of Funds for start-ups to promote entrepreneurship in SaaS
• Create awareness among start-ups to develop and register Intellectual Property (IP) as a requisite item