SaaS-the place to be for entrepreneurs and small businesses

To be a start-up entrepreneur is a lifestyle, but being the CEO of a start-up requires an even deeper focus on the company’s vision, mission and goals. Starting a business can be an exhilarating yet intimidating challenge. Everyone has a dream of starting up their own business and being their own boss, and for most people it always stays a dream due to the many obstacles faced in keeping it running and profitable. Hundreds of new businesses are started every other day across a range of industries. However, the dissatisfying fact is that start-up businesses have a very high failure rate, with as many as 1 in 3 failing in their first three years.

Having 100% confidence in your business idea doesn’t guarantee commercial success in the long term. Do not let your excitement of starting a business overrule the basic task– conducting market research to avoid common pitfalls that you should be aware of.

Behind every successful business came a handful of errors so do not be put off if your small business is experiencing a downturn in its initial years. Identifying the start-up challenges is one thing but coming up with contingency measures will increase your odds for success.

Historically, companies were required to buy, build, and maintain their IT infrastructures despite exponential costs. But today Software as a Service (SaaS) which  is a software distribution model in which applications are hosted by a vendor or service provider and made available to customers over a network, typically the Internet, gives start-ups an alternative to overcome some of their typical problems. Now, start-ups can plug in and subscribe to services built on shared infrastructure via the Internet. The SaaS model has flourished in recent years because of the many benefits it offers to businesses of all sizes and types. Here’s what’s driving entrepreneurs to take advantage of SaaS solutions and to solve their problems.

Solved problem – High initial costs

SaaS applications are subscription based. No license fees mean lower initial costs. Having the SaaS provider manage the IT infrastructure means lower IT costs for hardware, software, and the people needed to manage it all.

Another advantage is that the customer base can be increased since it allows small and medium businesses (SMB) to use software that otherwise they would not use due to the high cost of license. Maintenance costs are reduced as well, since the SaaS provider owns the environment and it is split among all customers that use that solution

Solved problem – Time to deploy

With SaaS solutions, all you need is a web browser and internet access, and you’re ready to go. Whereas traditional software can take weeks or even months to deploy, SaaS solutions don’t require any software to be installed and so you are able to access your new software immediately.

Solved problem – Need for Professional IT staff

Your cloud service provider deals with hardware and software updates, removing a significant workload from your in-house IT department (whose extra human bandwidth can, in theory, be released for different tasks, such as integration with existing on-premise applications).

Solved problem– Quality of collaboration

Inspired by the success of online social networks, many SaaS applications offer features that let its users collaborate and share information.

For example, many project management applications delivered in the SaaS model offer—in addition to traditional project planning functionality—collaboration features letting users comment on tasks and plans and share documents within and outside an organization. Several other SaaS applications let users vote on and offer new feature ideas.

Solved problem – Need for increased mobility

A browser and an internet connection is all that’s usually required to access a SaaS application, which can therefore be made available on a wide range of desktop and mobile devices. SaaS applications are available from any computer or any device—anytime, anywhere. Because most people are familiar with using the Internet to find what they need, they can access apps whether they are in the office, at their home or just walking around.

Solved problem – Business scalability

As your business grows and you need to add more users, rather than investing in additional in-house server capacity and software licenses you can adjust your monthly SaaS subscription as required.

Solved problem – Disaster recoverability

Because the IT infrastructure, and your data, resides in the cloud service provider’s data-center, if some form of disaster should strike your business premises, you can get back up and running relatively easily from any location with internet-connected computers.

Solved problem – Location of marketplace

If you have built a good product and clearly defined your market, you can now sell your product to anyone on the planet (previously with packaged software, you were often limited to selling to a local prospect base because often you were limited to places where you could set up the hardware and install the software)

SaaS, the place to be

As we go through an era of tremendous potential for cloud-based enterprise software, SaaS it’s now increasingly being seen as the place to be for entrepreneurs. And as the acceptance of the SaaS model grows around the world, opportunities abound, offering great potential.

Adhering to capital efficiency, lean start-up and customer development methods present a great opportunity to grow an enterprise SaaS business – at the end of the day it can be extremely lucrative for entrepreneurs