SaaS (Software as a Service) has gained increasing prominence recently. Business analysts predict a market size of 307.3 billion dollars by 2026 due to smart devices' proliferation and public/private cloud services. Cloud-based SaaS applications are popular due to its cost-efficiency, flexibility, personalization and automation additional features.

What is a SaaS Application?

Software as a Service (SaaS) has existed since the 1960s; however, its first applications appeared only at the turn of this millennium. SaaS stands for software as a service; instead of buying licenses directly, you pay a subscription fee. Another significant distinction between SaaS apps and traditional ones lies within accessibility: SaaS apps can be accessed remotely through mobile phones or browsers for access via mobile access or browser-based delivery methods.

Thanks to cloud infrastructure, SaaS applications provide easy and flexible access, no matter their physical location; users can utilize them virtually anywhere while developers work on updates. Cloud technology enables SaaS apps to become increasingly accessible; when developed and deployed onto it, they remain accessible regardless of the physical distance between you and their creation/deployment locations.

The Benefits of SaaS Applications

Ever wondered why has the traditional SaaS software model fallen behind other models? It is because the SaaS application model has many benefits for both the providers and the end-users. Let’s look at the benefits of SaaS applications:

No Setup Required

Configuring conventional apps requires making changes on both software and infrastructure related sides. As your workload expands, additional computing, storage and network capacity may become necessary. SaaS apps offer greater resource efficiencies by not needing configuration or setup procedures at any point in time.

Scaling on Demand

Cloud infrastructure can easily scale to support an increase in users. Cloud-based SaaS applications can easily adapt to meet your business requirements without additional infrastructure upgrade costs. Cloud fees may rise, yet upgrades won't need to occur as there won't be a need to purchase additional server storage capacity or add storage devices.

Flexible Payment Model

The purchase of enterprise licenses typically falls into the capital expense category (CAPEX). Subscription costs to SaaS providers, however, represent operating expenses that should not strain your budget if you no longer require these apps. You may opt to discontinue paying if you are also no longer using them.

Access Anywhere, Anytime and From any Device

SaaS applications run in the cloud environment, freeing users to work anywhere they please - not only from their desks but multiple devices. Traditional desktop-only apps simply cannot compare.

Quick Upgrades

Traditional software upgrades often involve purchasing upgrade packages; however, with SaaS, customers can enjoy ongoing improvement, quick access to the new features in the cloud-based SaaS application to the latest application updates.

Security

SaaS apps must always be designed with security as their top priority, given their use by multiple tenants who share one platform, where data integrity must remain paramount. Developers also take great care when developing SaaS applications - protecting them against misuse or cyber-attacks is imperative; multi-factor authentication measures provide essential protection.

Enterprise Software

CRM sales software and enterprise software applications can prove to be helpful to businesses using software-as-a-service (SaaS). SaaS apps' cloud capabilities enable access without installing software to these apps directly on a server or laptop computer.

Reach the Market

SaaS applications are open and accessible to users and businesses of any size or niche, making their benefits accessible and usable by all. G Suite, Dropbox or Adobe are just three services that do not cater exclusively to certain markets; anyone can utilize them and reap their advantages.

Analytics and Data

Every business should assess its performance and processes to identify areas for improvement and where special consideration should be paid to certain processes or functions. SaaS gives businesses this insight by collecting and assessing pertinent data sets.

Types of SaaS Applications

SaaS applications serve a wide range of functions and are divided into multiple categories:

CRM Software

SaaS applications designed for customer relationship management enable businesses to effectively maintain and organize their customer databases, manage marketing campaigns, and create forecast sales forecasting dashboards and reports on activity in sales activity.

Project Management Software

SaaS solutions have quickly become the industry standard in project and workflow management. Accessible anywhere and perfect for remote working situations, these cloud-based apps make software project management a breeze.

Apps for eCommerce

As more brick-and-mortar stores move online, SaaS software has become increasingly sought after.

ERP Software

SaaS applications have quickly become the go-to solution for enterprise resource planning software. Cloud ERPs feature sophisticated data analysis tools designed to assist businesses in processing large volumes of information. At the same time, SaaS apps utilize machine learning algorithms and artificial intelligence algorithms for an accurate view of any given business.

Payment Software

SaaS billing solutions represent one of the more lucrative opportunities in technological developments. Cloud accounting software helps companies manage multiple transactions online while helping digital marketplaces facilitate mass payments.

Collaboration Tools Based on SaaS

Regardless of our feelings about remote work, its presence will only become more widespread over time. Businesses worldwide increasingly use SaaS collaboration tools like Zoom for global communication purposes, such as keeping dedicated teams informed during the COVID-19 lockdown period.

Marketing Software

Marketing industries have quickly adopted software as a service (SaaS), with many tools designed to optimize promotion strategies. Content creators, marketers and all other types of users alike are taking advantage of it with SaaS tools designed for them, such as this content creator-centric tool for Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram that includes rich features for managing communication between content publishers, their target audiences and discovering preferences in real-time.

Management of Human Resources

Human Resources departments have many responsibilities when it comes to employee management. SaaS applications can simplify many of these duties for human resources departments - gathering employee data and overseeing job offers, tracking staff engagement levels, and monitoring employee performance evaluation and rewards.

Vertical SaaS Applications

Vertical SaaS apps provide tailored customer services that target specific industries to help players streamline their processes, increase efficiency and boost profitability. Suppose you want to tap the SaaS market for yourself. In that case, these ideas will get your started - we then proceed to practical instructions on developing such an app from scratch.

Step-by-Step Guide to Developing a Cloud-Based SaaS Application

How can you establish a SaaS application? SaaS development life cycle typically, involves these steps that should be followed when building a cloud-based SaaS Application:

Step 1: Design

The first and foremost step is to develop an intuitive user interface (UI) while meeting all user tasks as efficiently as possible. Remember, mobile-first SaaS trends will likely become one of the main programming developments by the end of 2023. Pay close attention when designing mobile mockups - 87% of companies prefer that employees access business apps on mobile devices for employee usage, so your future app must feature user-friendliness and extra security measures.

Step 2: Choose the Right Tech Stack for Your Engineering

Next, you must select the best language for SaaS development. This will form the core of your website; here are the most commonly-used technologies for SaaS development:

  • JS: Angular.JS is one of the premier front-end development frameworks for building web solutions and SaaS applications. Reusable technology makes development faster.
  • Ionic: Ionic, a hybrid framework, allows developers to rapidly build SaaS apps for the web, Android and iOS with just one codebase. You can even utilize Ionic for mobile-first development, increasing the development speed of the SaaS applications.
  • Docker and Kubernetes: Microservices rely on these technologies, making them the obvious choice when creating elastic infrastructures.
  • MongoDB: SaaS developers often choose DocumentDB because it allows data to be organized as documents instead of records and facilitates easier exchange between large datasets.

Engineering work comprises much of the SaaS application development process. Building from scratch usually takes months and requires a specialized remote team in respective areas.

Step 3: Partition

Divide your data into separate partitions to account for any future updates or performance upgrades and scale-out operational flexibility gains with simpler management by making each partition manageable without dealing with all at once. Each type of partitioning strategy brings its own set of advantages and limitations.

Step 4: Testing

SaaS testing involves verifying that software meets user needs before and after release, with as few bugs as possible. To conduct thorough SaaS tests, both automated and manual testing methods should be utilized; beta testers may help uncover use cases you hadn't considered in advance, and adding cloud security assessments further enhances this process.

Step 5: Deployment

Think of software deployment as opening your front door. All necessary elements should be available so users can utilize and easily reach you about using your software, find detailed documentation, and contact you immediately if any issues arise. To do this smoothly and on schedule, automated deployment must resemble production line automation so updates can be released directly after software completion. Faster and more flexible deployment allows smaller changes without impacting system stability as quickly.

Step 6: Monitoring, Managing, and Optimizing

Your solution's value and business impact are equally vital to its development and deployment. Once it has been thoroughly tested and optimized for launch, it must be monitored closely to meet client expectations quickly and adapt rapidly by getting user feedback as needs evolve. Any user-experience issues must now be corrected, while any possible security holes must be investigated immediately.

Step 7: Migration from On-Premises to Cloud

Assuming you were not born into the cloud, migrating a SaaS framework requires migrating it out of it and to a different server location. There are various migration solutions available depending on data size/type/volume as well as how much downtime can be tolerated:

  • P2V (physical-to-virtual)
  • P2C (physical-to-cloud)
  • V2V (virtual-to-virtual)
  • V2C (virtual-to-cloud)

Final Thoughts

SaaS applications offer several key advantages over conventional software solutions, including lower subscription costs and greater accessibility and availability with 24/7 technical support available to their subscribers. Establishing an in-house SaaS application management team takes several months, possibly costing your competitive edge.

Establishing a SaaS application setup can be challenging. It is very important to select an experienced SaaS cloud application development vendor and architect to plan the ideal tech stack and architecture because working with an established software developer with experience in SaaS development could provide growth in your business.

Please speak to one of our SaaS developers to add yourself to this list. We would be more than delighted to assist in building a SaaS app that meets both potential customer and business goals and getting customer satisfaction while being securely designed, protected and easily scalable.