Operational Efficiency

SaaS, in many respects, is about scale. In a multi-tenant environment, we’re highly focused on continually growing our base of customers without requiring any specialized resources or teams to support the addition of these new customers. With SaaS, you’re essentially building an operational and technology footprint that can support continual and, ideally, rapid growth. Supporting this growth means investing in building an efficient operational footprint for your entire organization. I’ll often ask SaaS companies what would happen if 1,000 new customers signed up for their service tomorrow. Some would welcome this and others cringe. This question often surfaces key questions about the operational efficiency of a SaaS company. It’s important to note that operational efficiency is also about reacting and responding to customer needs. How quickly new features are released, how fast customers onboard, how quickly issues are addressed–these are all part of the operational efficiency story. Every part of the organization may play a part in building out an operationally efficient offering.

Innovation

With classic software models, teams can feel somewhat hand-cuffed by the realities of their environment. Customers may have one-off customizations, they may have a distributed operational model–there could be any number of factors that make it difficult for them to consider making any significant shifts in their approach. In a SaaS environment, where there’s more emphasis on agility and putting customers in a unified environment, teams are freed up to consider exploring new, out-of-the-box ideas that could directly influence the growth and success of the business. In many respects, this represents the flywheel of SaaS. You invest in agility and operational efficiency and this promotes greater innovation. This is all part of the broader value proposition of the SaaS model.

Frictionless Onboarding

SaaS businesses must give careful consideration to how customers get introduced into their environments. If you are trying to remain as agile and operationally efficient as possible, you must also think about how customer onboarding can be streamlined. For some SaaS businesses, this will be achieved through a classic sign-up page where customers can complete the on-boarding process in an entirely self-service manner. In other environments, organizations may rely on an internal process that drives the onboarding process. The key here is that every SaaS business must be focused on creating an onboarding experience that removes friction and enables agility and operational efficiency. For some, this will be straightforward. For others, it may take more effort to re-think how the team builds, operates, and automates its onboarding experience.