India Poised To Become Global SaaS Capital | Experts React
Software-as-a-Solution continues to grow across the globe as businesses shift to cloud-based and digital intensive environment. From early 2000s to 2015, the services sector has had a massive growth. Similarly, the removal of complexity by giving the users updated and secure versions of a software has made SaaS the current largest technological advancement. Small products and solutions that add value to critical issues that businesses face are of high value, hence in the next 10-15 years, SaaS will see a boom like no other industry, across the world.
Next Global SaaS Capital
India is home to about 107 unicorns across different segments with an accelerated pace of entrepreneurship and is rapidly emerging as a hub for SaaS startups. In this race, India has a range of first-class providers, some of the leading ones are Freshworks, Amagi, Perfios, Zoho and many more.
The recent study by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) and EY, India: The next global SaaS capital highlights operational characteristics owing to which the Indian SaaS industry is growing at an accelerated pace. According to the study, over 80 per cent of the SaaS promoters feel there is the need to build a robust talent pool, 50 percent of SaaS providers feel driving greater awareness for SaaS products continues to be a prerequisite for customer acquisition. It added, India is poised to become the global SaaS capital over the next few years, mainly driven by Small and Medium Businesses with a focus on large enterprises.
The increase and acceleration in demand for going digital, businesses also realised the need to stay connected irrespective of the physical distance between themselves, their employees and other stakeholders.
Booster For The Sector
In the last 4-5 years, investors have become open to understand the product lifecycle, investments are available much more quickly for SaaS businesses. They have grown from traditionally handing out large cheques to B2C and D2C firms only. Horizontal as well as vertical innovation has been evident when the disruptive players have been witnessed emerging from sector-specific space to function-specific products.
“The mantra of growth in this sector is having a long-term vision coupled with investment in R&D. For SMEs, there’s a need for education around digital transformation, We've come up with initiatives to drive awareness and help SMEs with technology adoption”, Praval Singh, Vice president, Zoho Corp.
Customers are increasingly finding greater value in customizable, flexible, comprehensive, and unified solutions. They have realized that these unified solutions help them avoid multi-vendor contract hassle and lock-ins, plus it eradicates data silos. “While the number of SaaS players might keep on increasing, the market shall remain pretty much the same. Therefore, we expect to see consolidation in this sector”, Zoho’s Singh adds.
Challenges On The Way
“With the onset of the Great Resignation and Moonlight Trend, SaaS companies are often on the lookout for the potential talent that can efficiently do the right work”, Saravana Kumar, Founder and CEO, Kovai.co highlighted.
However, to be able to provide comprehensive solutions and service, SaaS providers need to be cognizant of nurturing their existing talent pool and not just focus on acquiring new talent.
Aditya Sanghi, Co-founder and CEO, Hotelogix candidly shared a couple of prevalent challenges, he said, “Indian market remains to be a challenge, especially in the SMB segment.” Below-given are the major complexities Hotelogix’s Sanghi mentioned.
Road Ahead
Current SaaS-based companies have placed its fundamentals right in place by building products for the global market. The companies are constantly trying to identify the right business problem to solve, so their products and solutions can bridge a gap that customers face. Developing the right product-market fit is key, and most companies struggle during this phase. Also, scaling the right way, expansion plans, inability to use funds the right manner are some factors that are under scrutiny.
