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SaaS is the acronym for Software as a service, which denotes the software delivered over the continuous service using web and internet.
The customer need not to download and install the software and he does not require the infrastructure to keep the system running if it is for the company. There are many popular enterprise mobility solutions used by companies.
Few prevalent SaaS products are Zoho, Mail chimp, Salesforce and Twilio etc.
The thought of developing an enterprise SaaS product is not a bad idea. However, having a SaaS product also shows the strong reasearch and understanding behind the curtain.
There are few things that your must understand beforehand. In this article, we will share some ideas for the SaaS software development and the things you must know before Enterprise SaaS development.
Before scrolling down to the practical details of the development, let's explore the benefits of SaaS for both SaaS product development companies and vendors:
Low Cost: The low cost of usage and development is the most viable advantage of SaaS product. The SaaS softwares make use of cloud capabilities, which saves from the cost of local infrastructure.
The software is thus capable of huge amount of data more effectively. In addition, the user of the enterprise mobility service is priced for usage, which saves the cost of features, which are not used.
Simplicity: The important advantage of the operation is the simplicity in operation. User need not to know the underlying intricacy of the tools.
User need not to worry about the update of the software.
Focus on core business: SaaS helps the user to focus on core business. Whereas for the traditional software, the user has to take care of the things such as updates, performance, reinstallation and load balancing etc.
Steps of the SaaS software development:
- Competitive analysis
- Prototype and Document Specification
- Research and Development
- Designing
- Frontend and layout development
- Backend Development
- Internal System and CRM integration
- Testing
- Launching
Among the SaaS, standard requirements are the privacy, Security, performance, compliance, availability, interoperability and data governance.
These are the integral part of enterprise mobility solution development.
For SaaS development companies, the SaaS model is the good source of revenue and the potential business for the growth in cloud based market.
This allows them to develop a long-term marketing and sales strategy. The industry has given SaaS a great advantage due to its reliable infrastructure and the Security added with the Scalability forever level of enterprises.
According to the research over market momentum, around 80 percent of the mobile startups will use SaaS by 2022.
The core idea is to provide startup with the online available tools for developing and maintaining the products without the need of service software development from scratch.
For the small startups, it is always possible to build the software in small budget using the cloud-based technology.
SaaS is the extremely probable business area in 2020 and it can overcome the competitive challenge. It is always recommendable to understand the cost-effective and highly accessible SaaS model.
The ready to use system has some of the advantages and the startups must know the below things before starting the enterprise SaaS development.
Checklist for building the SaaS application
The idea behind the SaaS based business is the maximum optimization of the available resources. With the target of maximum optimization, the startup and corporations can stay cost effective with the zero cost involvement in the custom CRM development.
SaaS vendors not only offer the readymade solution, but also involve upgradation in technology and tools maintenance and customer support 24/7.
How to start the SaaS software development?
The basic underlying process for SaaS business is similar to startups. It is essential to clarify the pillar points for prospective product and enterprise.
The crucial issues pertaining to the target audience needs, promotional mechanism, Monetization models and technology are considered to increase the decrease the success ratio.
The technical specifications are the significant factor in influencing the team and budget requirement. The SaaS application has its technical specifications, which must be kept in mind while enterprise mobility solution development.
The Single tenancy architecture is secure medium and multi tenant architecture is required for the large enterprises.
In addition, the data Security is concern, where the higher Security costs more and less secure model is generally considered when the budget is low.
Features:
- Enterprise mobility Service upgrades
- Service Integration with the existing API
- Monetization using subscription, custom packages and one-off payment.
Best practices:
Google Tools, Adobe, Microsoft and Shopify are the most prevalent technologies used by SaaS product development company.
The most influential way to become profitable and in-demand in SaaS business is to invest the time/energy in understanding audience needs, building the niche solution or SaaS products.
Below three steps are recommended to be taken to cover discovery project stage issue.
Market Research:
In 2020, there is a more influence over the use of artificial intelligence tools. The niche oriented strategy, and automation tools are the some of the contributing factors to gain the popularity.
In coming years, we can see the great upsurge in the use of machine learning tools, Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality.
Technical trends and niche solutions are the building ground for SaaS products. Therefore, it is always recommendable to look around and do the market research to know, what is happening around in the technical industry.
Know the target customers:
Marketing research tells about the market trends, but the customer is the king and the most magnificent contributing factor for the market shifts.
Knowing your customer is essential for the business. You cannot sell anything to the customers you know nothing about. In addition, for the highly competitive field such as SaaS, a deep analysis is must.
This requires the discussion with the prospective customers, the feedback of audience, and Monetization approach.
Usability of SaaS product for custom software Development Company:
There are always some competitive products in the market and the product, which offers the additional advantage essentially, wins.
Defining the competitive advantage of your products help customers in understanding the severity of the problem. SaaS businesses offer the solution for the businesses, and the business will choose your product only when your product has something exclusive with it to win its heart.
Read the blog- 10 Predictions For The Next Big Thing In SaaS Software Development
For the same you need to understand the problems of their business and the solution, they are currently using. Never shy away from appreciating the existing solutions and take the best from them.
Your focus is to provide the best business solution. Also, focus over the UI/UX and designs, because these are the most significant factor for the like of an enterprise solution.
The clutter free design makes less messy structure and offers the great ease in operation.
The typical architecture and components of SaaS is:
- Scalability
- Security
- Reliability
- Monetization
Technology for SaaS Architecture:
SaaS is cloud-based solution and it always stays up to date. The technical innovation is supposed to reflect directly in SaaS products.
The companies offering the powerful SaaS models work over the innovative technologies. The SaaS product development companies outsource their technical tasks using cloud-based services. They need to stay consistent with the tech research and experiments, technical innovations, resource optimizations, and user tendencies to stay competitive with their solutions.
The key features of the SaaS products depend on the product type, market research, developmental budget and the other crucial factors. Below is the general survey, which shows the popularity of following technology for SaaS application development:
Python Programming Language:
SaaS product development companies demands the powerful language, which can satisfy the current business requirement and development capabilities.
The expectation from the underlying programming language is high, therefore use of the high level programming language like Python is very much recommended by experts. The readability and flexibility of the language ensures the efficiency of the language.
MongoDB database:
Earlier, relational database were too popular, but for SaaS document, oriented database is recommended. MongoDB is the document-oriented database, which differs from the relational database in its size and flexibility to be used.
MongoDB offers the automatic sharding feature, which makes it the major database, because of being flexible, scalable and good at performance.
RabbitMQ Queuing system:
The backbone of the infrastructure is communication. The vertical and horizontal communication demands a faster and secure way, which needs to go through the powerful communication protocol.
This communication protocol is also known as queuing system, also known as the Message Queuing technology (MSMQ). The messaging protocol helps in sending and receiving the messages with the cooperation of APIs and third party tools.
The MSMQ system stores the system message and delivers them when it is possible.
Rabbit MQ is the most famous tool owing to its Scalability and robust set of features. The messaging system is open source, free for installation, can run on various operating system and programming language.
AWS cloud computing service:
The SaaS platform is the cloud computing service, which enables all the features. The underlying platform is responsible for the Scalability, upgrade vectors and the niche.
AWS also known as Amazon Web Service is the best possible option among all available platforms. AWS is widely used for SaaS development, and offers the enough convivial environments to develop test and host the solution.
AWS has high performance and integrated with the EC2 as the native element. EC2 architecture helps in reaching resizable computing capacity and scales the technical resources. Also, you can choose the EC2 server location. In addition, you need to choose CDN (content delivery network), which is a tool that server content of product.
Challenges for the SaaS development:
SaaS development is the constantly developmental field. It requires the continuous changes and the innovation. In the process, there are many challenges in front.
Knowing these challenges beforehand, helps in the development of successful SaaS application. The core concept of SaaS products is to offer the digital services. Ever software needs the update and without timely updates, buying any software on physical media is the stupidity in fast-paced technical world.
The SaaS software is the most satisfying approach for the developer and users.
Alongside, one commercial model is the subscription. The cloud services are given and distributed in subscription basis.
This helps in getting the software run without any need of extra hardware. A SaaS developer or the SaaS development company is responsible for keeping the services perfect and well working.
SaaS tools must ensure the data Security, risk failure management and save from client data corruption.
At early stages, there are four challenges that need to be confronted:
Scalability challenge:
The Scalability of SaaS tool directly correlates to the growth of business. The Scalability is always applicable to parties, the vendor and the users.
SaaS startup needs to have the scalable architecture because the tool must be scalable to withstand the load if it goes higher. Alongside, if the business is using SaaS service, the service must be able to handle the huge number of overload. The fear of system crashing averts the users from buying the subscription.
Read the blog- What Is The Best Platform To Build a SaaS Solution?
Opting for vertical model, there still lays an issue. The target audience size is a great factor to be concerned about due to the business maintenance bills.
Security:
Data privacy is the significant factor to consider. With SaaS applications, the user transacts the sensitive information such as bank details, personal data, and commercial assets.
The poor cloud Security may leak the sensitive information, which will make you lose not only the business, but also the enormous fine.
Reliability:
Cloud has evolved to be the reliable platform for custom software development companies.
AWS SaaS architecture is the reliable platform to be considered safe for data. The system operates using physical server, which also damages seldom due to some certain uncertain reasons.
Amazon Web Service ensures for the hardware Security and back up Security. The Scalability of the resources also results into the Security from website crashing.
Also, the user gets the surge protection and can scale up the server capabilities. There are also other optional platforms available, which can be used for SaaS service.
Monetization:
SaaS development companies always use SaaS model for the cost effectiveness. Not every business has an enough resource for the custom digital services, where SaaS approach share the technical development cost.
Vendors must stay away from putting the high costs over the users. They need to offer the sustainable Monetization scheme.
The Monetization offers include free service and advertisements, Freemium models, Subscription plans, and One-off purchases etc.
Cost of SaaS apps:
SaaS application development budget is determined over several phases, which include business analysis, design, programming servers, software monitoring, and client support.
Task outsourcing is the popular way for reducing the budget.
UI and UX design $15000 for main screen, profile, additional screen and interaction.
Server: $30-$8000 depends on the number of nodes.
Monitoring cost and tech maintenance: $3000
Development and Testing: $20000
Conclusion
SaaS model is the most trustworthy business field for vendors in 2020. SaaS market was expected to reach $157 billion in 2020 and due to the current pandemic; the market is though going down.
The business is likely to take an upward shift due to the decline in office culture. Alongside, AI and ML are also focusing over mobile-based culture, which opens up newer approaches.
