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SaaS is relatively not a new concept. SaaS (software-as-a-service) allows data to be retrieved from any device or platform. In the most simplest terms, with SaaS, you pay for the use of apps by subscription or according to the level of use.

It helps in quick organization at minimal costs. After so many years, many companies have seen unsuccessful results, but the companies that have benefited from this model have revolutionized businesses and brands.

With such success stories, SaaS is not going to dissolve anytime soon. As new companies chime in, old companies are changing and evolving. Companies are switching to subscription- based business models, seeing the switch in the consumer demand.

Features such as scalability, data security, seamless third party integrations and customer retention are adding to the popularity of SaaS and making it ‘relevant’. Let’s discuss some successful SaaS based companies, their challenges, their strategies and how they overcame those.

TravelPerk

A SaaS travel management and booking platform, founded in 2015, in Barcelona, Spain. Currently, it is ranked as the 1st among 216 such competitors. With this information established, let’s delve in deeper, and go through the minutiae of this company and understand their strategies that led them to become a unicorn.
Industry

What is TravelPerk?

TravelPerk acts as an aggregator, combining various travel related providers at one place, such as AirBnb, Booking.com, Expedia, etc. This makes planning the trip a whole lot easier, with every detail available at a common place. Bookings, payment, reports are all delivered on this platform. This was revolutionary at the time as it saved time and money. Now, their one distinctive feature is that they brought in a wave of simplified, modern yet efficient corporate travelling. Giving that flexibility to companies, to book classy yet cheap travel, set them apart from similar businesses. Technology was used wisely, a simple idea was converted into something extraordinary. Their keyphrase and focus has been on establishing human connections.
And a stream processor that receives and sends data streams thereby executing real-time application analytic and logic

Reasons for TravelPerk’s Success:

• Adaptability

Post-pandemic most industries have changed, the travel industry being the most drastic. But, TravelPerk was able to adapt to the changes quite successfully. Business travel was neither done that often nor was it the same. The vision and goal of this company was very clear. They believed in one-on-one human interaction, business connections and the need for collaboration. Keeping this vision in mind they planned the years ahead, modified their goals based on the world situation but strongly supported their cause.

• Products

Now, we know that they were adaptable. But, what steps were taken by them to help them sustain in this changing environment? Launching new products that will meet the requirements of the post-pandemic world. They launched TravelCare- provides information and support regarding safe travel, reducing risks of contamination and infection, Green Perk- a platform for customers to compensate for their carbon emissions, Travel Safe API- platform where travel providers could add pandemic related information, Travel Perk events- helping teams working remotely to come together and made their Flexi Perk feature available across various regions such as, EU, USA, UK, etc

• Improvements

Most companies in this industry went into a ‘lockdown’ during the pandemic. But Travel Perk used this time to roll out improvements, bring in new features and make their platform top of the league, working on their growth strategy.

• Acquisitions

They beat competition with acquiring companies during the pandemic. In July 2020, they acquired Albatross (API Start-up), in January 2021, Next ravel (rival player), in July 2021, Click Travel and in September 2021, Sunterra.

Veeva Systems

This is a cloud based software solution provided, catering to the life science and consumer product industry, established in 2007, in America. It currently has more than 5000 employees and a revenue of approximately USD 185 Cr. It works with SaaS in the life-sciences industry. Veeva became the first publicly traded company that converted to a public benefit corporation in 2021

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Let’s go in depth and understand the goals of this company that led to its success and growth:

What is Veeva?

Veeva has become a globally trusted brand because of the companies they worked with and the quality of their solutions. Their highly efficient solutions have helped companies introduce new products to the market faster with no compromise in quality or safety. With top global companies choosing Veeva, it reached annual sales of $1B in the year 2019. In the year 2022, it was announced as the Too Remote Company by Forbes and was the Inc. Top 10 Best Led Companies. If we take the example of a pharmaceutical company, whatever your role might be in that company, a cloud solution is available specially made for you by Veeva. Their differentiator was that they targeted an untouched and unexplored industry. This gave them the competitive edge. They have Veeva commercial cloud, Veeva vault, Veeva vault clinical and so on.

Reasons for Veeva’s success:

• The industry they have targeted is very unique. There aren’t a lot of players in this industry hence, their needs are not met. With one very successful player in the league, expanding the business and creating products to meet the customers demands is easier and aids in scalability.
• They focused on being profitably growing. This approach is rarely seen by companies and entrepreneurs nowadays. They believe in being a growing and thriving company at all costs. That may be beneficial for some but to be sustainable in the future can be a challenge.
• Customer retention rate. The only factor that will pull customers towards a company and stick to that particular company, is the product. If the product is of high quality, fulfils the needs of the industry and is safe/reliable, the customer retention rate will always be high. In such businesses this acts as a key distinctive feature.

If we discuss a few facts and figures, in the most basic sense, we can get a clearer picture of Veeva’s growth. In the SaaS community, the subscription services retention rate higher than 120%, seem unachievable. But, Veeva increased this rate from 187% to 124% within just 7 years. If this doesn’t act as a distinctive edge, I don’t know what is.

Cvent

This SaaS platform makes the process of event management automated and efficient. They optimise the whole system, and all events be it, virtual, offline or hybrid, are made simplified and seamless. They cater to different industries and allow hosts to make the most of each event.

Industry

What is Cvent

They have challenged the traditional methods of planning events and add more value to the events and meetings. Established in 1999, its relevance is still valid in today’s day and age. More than 4,000 employees with 280,000 hotels/venues, they have a wide network for easy connections. Currently, Cvent is a leading global leader in marketing and management technology. They provide these management solutions for events of all sizes and types. They have been representing over 21.3% year-over-year growth. Their distinctive feature was to focus on a task that was human intensive and was highly manual, i.e., planning events. This idea was never conceived of before.

Oracle

Oracle is a database management system. It helps prevent security vulnerabilities, manage data efficiently and provides smooth access to applications. It was founded in America, in 1977. In the year 2020, globally in regards to revenue and market capitalisation, Oracle was the third-largest software company.
Industry

What is Oracle?

Oracle majorly deals with cloud engineered systems, software and technology and enterprise software products. Their revenue as of 2022 is approximately USD 42.44 billion. A cloud revolution was brought in by Oracle. This was done by what was seen as a ‘breakthrough’ made by the founders, i.e., they enabled their customers to use standardised software on any hardware. Further on, more indepth research was conducted, that led to various other path breaking developments. Bringing in new products, updating the past designs and improving every detail of their product was their differentiator. What helped them become one of the top companies in the world? Let’s discuss.

Reason’s For Oracle Success

• Partnering With Rivals

In the year 2019, Oracle partnered with Microsoft. As a result of that, Oracle cloud and Microsoft azure were connected enabling the customers of these platforms to store data as well as run software on both/either of these platforms. This posed a threat to Amazon web services, Salesforce and Google. With this step, they collaborated with one rival, at the same time endangering the others.

• Marketing Strategies

At a time when marketing was not even a concept, they used it to their benefit, establishing themselves in more than 50 countries by 1987.

• Upgradation and Innovation

The one factor that has kept Oracle sustainable, is that they have continued to develop and modify their products consistently incorporating new technology and challenging their competitors. They focused on the growing trends and needs of the markets.

Oracle received such fast and steady growth because of quick thinking, risk taking and by targeting the unknown.

ZenDesk

Zendesk offers SaaS products focused on sales, support and communication. Founded in 2007, it is an American based company. It has over 5000 employees and has surpassed $1billion in revenue.

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What is ZenDesk

Zendesk focuses on improving customer relationships. It elevates the productivity, efficiency and performance of the company. Irrespective of the size of the business, its robust cloud based help desk software improves reliability and credibility. It is relevant especially today because of the emphasis companies lay on customers, their needs and satisfaction. They got a competitive edge as at the time no other company was focusing on communication and support.

SalesForce

It offers CRM applications and software mainly based on sales, analytics, customer service and marketing automation. Based in America, it was founded in 1999.
Industry

What is SalesForce?

Salesforce made its IPO in 2004, becoming one of the largest companies in the world. In 2022, it became the largest enterprise software firm. It is currently valued at approximately USD 153B. It offers software and CRM solutions on a subscription basis, being a global cloud computing company.

Reason’s For Salesforce Success

• They worked their way up. From a very early stage they focused on small businesses, cost and risk being very low. This was unique at the time as most companies aimed high
• Marketing tactics. Their ‘no software’ tagline was quite famous and was drilled into the market over a span of several years.
• They focused on scalability. Now, most start-ups believe in their idea, vision and product. And to build a multi-billion dollar company that is important. However, one step that most entrepreneurs forget is ‘execution’. Executing the idea to create a good quality product is necessary.
• Quite early on in their business journey, they converted their product to a platform. That is more flexible, scalable and easily customisable

Anaplan

Anapplan is a web based platform used for business planning. It challenges the traditional methods of planning and running businesses. Headquartered in California, it was founded in 2006.
Industry

What is Anaplan?

Anaplan is a business planning software company that provides subscription based cloud business planning software which makes the overall process of managing, decision making and planning seamless and smooth. Currently with over 2000 employees, Anaplan has an overall revenue of approximately USD 592.2 million as of 2022.
There is a familiarity with SaaS as its functionality, features and benefits are very well known. With this comes the challenge to uplevel and scale. New trends and technologies stagnate businesses. But, with quick thinking, reasoning and practical application of survival skills, these challenges can be overcome. Most of these companies did not have a future just after a few years of beginning their journey. However, they all led different pathways to make their businesses not only profitable but also world renowned. For small businesses, start-ups or businesses facing crisis, these companies act as strong examples of displaying the skills and knowledge to survive/ thrive in an ever growing and competitive environment.

Metricoid Technology Solutions has over 14 years of experience in software development and consultancy. Our team of experts are deeply proficient in SaaS and developing SaaS platforms. We believe in a swift process saving time, capital and resources. With Metricoid, you get everything under one roof, Saas product conceptualisation, PWA, MVP, Product discovery and so much more. The SaaS developers at Metricoid will create a comprehensive, safe, and high quality SaaS platform that you can licence to your customers. Apart from these solutions, we help you navigate through the toughest problems of scalability, beating competition and being relevant.
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