Cloud-based spending has grown rapidly in recent years, and now accounts for nearly half of all IT spending, a number predicted to reach 60% by 2020.
To save you time and trouble, we're sharing some strategic shifts your business must undergo to develop a SaaS product that performs. We've acquired this wisdom over nearly two decades of guiding software companies successfully through the SaaS migration process.
With the SaaS model, customers invest in your company as much as in a particular product. Unlike on-premise solutions, the focus of SaaS goes beyond the product itself. Customers are subscribing to the promise that your company will provide fast, reliable and safe functionality today while continuously delivering valuable enhancements.
Traditional software companies typically spend at least a year creating, testing and distributing each new version of their products. They must ensure their new version will work on a wide variety of customer hardware.
Unfortunately, it's far too common for customers to avoid implementing updates because they're afraid something will break, costing them valuable productivity. (We've all been there before and know what it does to our blood pressure.) But as a result, these users aren't taking advantage of the application's latest software features and enhancements.
The SaaS model changes all of this. Gone are upfront software costs, deployment, and maintenance costs. Everything is included in one predictable fee. This also ensures that every customer benefits from the latest upgrades.
And so...the nature of your product development process needs to change. The long cycle culminating in a significant upgrade once a year no longer works. Instead, the focus must be on maintaining a continuous build/deploy/support cycle geared to deliver a stream of high-value functionality on a frequent basis.
No high pressure sales or hyperbolic promises.
Just real people with smart answers who want to help.
