With recent breakthroughs in cloud computing, SaaS(Software as a Service) companies are capitalising on the software licensing sector. New businesses also benefit from the use of SaaS applications.
What is SaaS?
SaaS companies are companies that host service applications for its customers on a cloud-based platform, which is essentially a website. SaaS companies are incharge of maintaining software, databases, and server space for their customers.
SaaS companies earn their money by offering their services through a subscription-based offers. Customers are charged monthly or yearly, or even under specialized subscription schemes. They are also charged based on the computing capabilities required to host the customer’s application. If your website receives a lot of traffic or you have a lot of users, the subscription rate will be higher.
The primary benefit of SaaS is that business owners do not need to invest in expensive hardware and software to handle their online domain. Instead they can subscribe to a SaaS company, work with technicians and develop softwares for their business. They even offer server space and provide maintenance for your application.
An added benefit, is the business owners or users of the application do not need to update or install anything as everything is present on a cloud platform.
Here’s a list of the top SaaS companies out there.
1. Shopify
Shopify provides the tools for you to create your own website, while using their inbuilt shopping cart to manage, sell, and ship your products. Through this service, you can access their administration panel where you can access ‘store data’, add new products, and process orders.
Although this is a relatively new e-commerce website, it has gained lots of traction and is on its way to becoming one of the top contenders in the e-commerce industry.
2. Slack
Slack is a collaborative software that helps teams work together by communicating through the application. Slack offers functions that help make it stand out amongst the other collaborative softwares and establishes it as one of the top SaaS companies.
- Slack enables teams to collaborate in a straightforward and efficient manner. Each workspace consists of multiple channels which you can modify, creating an organized layout and enable effective communication.
- Slack provides options for direct and group-direct messaging. Group-direct messaging is when you can talk to upto 8 members outside your channel, so only those needed to be involved are included.
- Prompt notifications are a vital part of collaborative software. One missed or delayed notification bears the potential to set you back tremendously. Slack ensures that you get your messages instantly. You also bear the option of receiving them on your email, mobile phone, and desktop.
- There is also the added ‘@mention’ option, which allows you to include a specific member in the channel or send them a direct message.
3. NetSuite
NetSuite is one of the pioneering SaaS providers, with thousands of users spanning all over the world, and over 200 countries that have used its services.
One of its primary features is its cloud-based ERP(Enterprise Resource Planning) platform.
Components of ERP are:
- Billing Management
- Financial Planning
- Financial Management
- Revenue Recognition Management
- Global Accounting and Consolidation
- Financial Reporting and Analytics
NetSuite also offers other types of services such as:
- Analytics
- Customer Relationship Management (CRM)
- Cloud-based Global business management
- Human Capital Management
- Business intelligence
- Professional services automation
4. Workday
Workday is an application designed for Human Resource teams to help with their Financial and Human Capital Management, also known as ‘HCM’.
Workday’s HCM tool includes features that helps companies perform the following functions:
- Provide social experience across all devices
- Execute reorganizations
- Manage the worker’s lifecycle
- Manage business processes
Workday along with most SaaS companies makes sure that every customer uses the latest version of its software. This is done automatically as these applications are cloud-based, eliminating the need for users to manually update or install software.
5. Zendesk
Zendesk is a cloud-based service application designed to facilitate the communication between a company and its customers. It works extremely well irrespective of the size or number of agents involved. Even large businesses experience a lag-free platform. Zendesk also prides itself on its ability to integrate with an array of applications such as Magento, Slack, and Salesforce.
Here are some of the features Zendesk boasts:
- Open API that enables seamless integration with your business
- Flexible ticket management along with automated workflows
- Efficient reporting and advanced analytics
- Multi-channel support including email, phone, chat, social media, web and mobile support.
6. ServiceNow
ServiceNow provides Enterprise Automation Solutions enabling users to streamline their work and conversations in an organization.
The Now platform, as it is called, powers an organization’s product portfolio. The platform also incorporates products and features and digitizes its workflow.The platform consists of three primary components- Employee, Customer and IT workflows.
Here are some of its features:
- Demand Management
- Configuration Management
- Field Service Automation
- Facilities Service Automation
- HR Service Automation
- Service creation
- IT Governance, Compliance & Risk
7. Salesforce
Salesforce is one of the best CRM(Customer Relationship Management) cloud-based platforms out there. Salesforce enables companies to use their cloud technology to communicate with it’s existing and potential customers, and partners in an effective manner.
Some key features of this service are:
- Task Management
- Tracking
- Workflow Creation
- Collaboration Tools
- Customer Engagement Tools
- Mobile-Ready Dashboard
8. ProfitWell
ProfitWell is a SaaS organization that provides analytics, pricing, and retention solutions for subscription-based companies. ProfitWell’s software and expert personnel help both Business-to-Business and Business-to-Consumer companies increase their revenue. They do this by leveraging real time reports to identify their strengths and weaknesses, determine suitable pricing strategies for the market, and by reducing the rate at which SaaS subscribers cancel their subscriptions.
Founded in 2012 by Patrick Campbell, this platform was created to help subscription-based companies eliminate guesswork and move towards making better decisions.
For instance, instead of ‘guessing’ the localized price of a product in a foriegn or international market, you can get accurate figures using real data.
At present, more than 14,000 organizations across 100 countries use ProfitWell as their solutions-provider.
