The SaaS sector experienced unexpected resilience during the COVID-19 global pandemic. Though with news of a vaccine being closer than ever before, experts are wondering what the future of SaaS looks like beyond the current health crisis.
After Pfizer and BioNTech reported that their coronavirus vaccine candidate showed a 90% efficacy rate in preventing infections during a late-stage trial, stock for companies that have thrived during the lockdowns like Zoom, Amazon, Netflix, and Shopify dropped dramatically.
The SaaS market is forecasted to reach $116 billion in 2020, due to the scalability of subscription-based software. The overall demand, legislation, and compliance requirements—and need to protect worker data as businesses rapidly shift to remote work—are all factors creating a groundswell of demand for simple SaaS or SaaS-based offerings.
However, as companies prepare to return to in-person operations and potentially end the mostly remote-working landscape, experts are weighing in on what the next year could look like.
Some are unfazed, stating that SaaS will simply continue to grow. Phil Greenwood, the CEO of RedTech suggests that since SaaS companies have “no tangible product,” companies have an added advantage of limitless flexibility.
Studies show 40% of companies accelerated their move to the cloud due to coronavirus, and cloud infrastructure spending this year increased even when non-cloud tech spending went down. And while the acceleration of digital transformation was spurred by the pandemic, that doesn’t necessarily mean that it will consequently result in a departure from the cloud.
“Moving forward, I don’t suspect we’ll see folks leaving the cloud,” Daniel Newman, CEO of Broadsuite Media Group, writes for Forbes. “I do believe, though, that many businesses will need to retool the cloud infrastructure they put together at the start of the pandemic. It also means trying to simplify the complexities that a quick move to the cloud may have added to the tech infrastructure overall...Simplification should always be part of any winning tech strategy.”
Cuts, however, are being made. Marketing has been the first thing to go since the pandemic started, though marketers across the SaaS sector suggest that since it is essential to growth, new strategies will emerge.
It’s clear that SaaS solutions are here to stay, but just as unpredictable as the pandemic was, so too will be the aftermath. SaaS companies will need to take advantage of their inherent flexibility to maintain continued relevance in an evolving market.
