These SaaS trends will define the market in 2021

SaaS is a method of software delivery giving customers access to applications over the internet rather than requiring physical media and custom installation. SaaS is successful since the software is centrally hosted and maintained by a provider with automatic and instant updates.

Therefore, it's worth investing in SaaS application development to make the apps user-friendly and highly competitive as well as gain accessibility and scalability.

The traditional software delivery model differs from SaaS in two key ways. Firstly, SaaS deployments don't require extensive hardware, which allows users to outsource most of the IT responsibilities that are usually needed to maintain the software products in-house. Also, SaaS systems typically follow a paid subscription model, while most other software is usually purchased through a perpetual license.

As SaaS matures, customer and investor expectations will only rise. A subscription-based model and a product hosted in the cloud are only a bare minimum. To succeed in the SaaS space, companies should offer a streamlined as-a-service delivery experience, fresh functionality, and at least some hint of growth, which is especially important during this period of uncertainty.

Therefore, we've gathered the hottest SaaS trends of the VC financing and engineering ecosystem to help you build a relevant SaaS solution, out-innovate competitors, reap all SaaS benefits, as well as come prepared for any possible market turbulence.

Powering almost every department at work and a fair share of household activities, the Software as a Service industry is currently an insanely active market boasting the highest innovations and valuations. Proof? In Q3 of 2020, we counted 25 SaaS unicorns compared to ten in Q3 of 2019. Never mind the fact that Shopify now trades at 51 times forward revenue, Zoom — 37 times, and Twilio — 20 times.

Snowflake's unexpected success suggests that public cloud market investors are watching high-priced shares and have a great desire to pay for growth. This can be applied to the private investment market as well. The interest in growth-focused SaaS means that investors believe in the steady long-term growth of software and are always looking for opportunities, with the money ready.

Still, not all founders are given the upper hand in the race for those funds.

If you look at Forbes' Cloud 100 list, it's obvious that some sectors are objectively COVID-depressed (retail, travel, etc.) but some managed to catch the tailwind. Capital is flowing into the shares of databases, automation, developer tools, fintech, and vertical SaaS (see more on that further in the article).

Besides, cybersecurity is increasingly drawing investors' attention as it moves to the cloud. Such privacy regulations as GDPR, CCPA, etc. created new security and compliance needs to focus new, potentially profitable businesses on. HR and customer support solutions will also attract more investments because more legacy apps are transitioning to the cloud and SaaS.

According to Blissfully, companies use 3x more free than paid apps, so companies with the try-before-you-buy approach have leaped industry in 2020. After all, Zoom and Slack have a free tier in their apps, and do you remember what blockbuster IPOs they had? So, if you're seeking to use upsells for expanding, go ahead.

On the other hand, sales solutions, being SaaS market trailblazers and including Salesforce and all sorts of CRMs, show the slowest or almost no growth.

Finally, if you're choosing the sector to start a business in, then great news: every sector is ripe, and the future of SaaS is brighter than ever. Even though there are millions of apps on the market, there are still millions if not billions of dollars in opportunities, especially considering the continuing digital transformation and a dearth of technology in health tech, insurance, security, e-commerce, and more.

Whether you're about to make important SaaS investment decisions or choose how to diversify your SaaS offering, it's important to understand in what direction SaaS is heading. Here are the top SaaS development trends to watch in 2021.

Due to technological limitations, for the past few years, SaaS has been focused on a computer-first approach, leaving mobile devices behind. However, thу situation has recently changed because mobile devices are becoming increasingly sophisticated and are widely used in various industries.

According to App Annie, smartphone users are using nine apps per day and 30 apps a month, on average. As a result, more SaaS firms are launching SaaS mobile apps that are recognized for their availability, security, analytics, and robustness.

Over the past several years, online security has come into focus in quite a large number of industries due to a series of major hacks; in the past years, several companies, such as 7-Eleven, WhatsApp, and Fortnite, reported numerous security breaches that could have potentially exposed millions of customers' data.

Unsurprisingly, users expect SaaS providers to keep their data secure and respect their privacy preferences. Most SaaS models are known for their enterprise-level security, as artificial intelligence and machine learning significantly enhanced threat identification and mitigation with the help of built-in self-recovery. That said, your business's data is safe regardless of a data breach or system failure.

Over the last few years, analytics has become a growing focus point in SaaS solutions, and more businesses are likely to adopt specialized analytics tools like Cumul.io and Tableau that deliver reliable numbers. In fact, industry experts believe that investment and value in analytics-centric SaaS models will rise by 23.3% by 2022.

The centralized nature of SaaS models will enable users to access data from any device, at any time, discovering hidden insights by utilizing modern solutions such as performance dashboards.

In such a fast-moving industry, Software as a Service representatives with ambitious plans must spare a seat for artificial intelligence and machine learning solutions in their tech stack. You wouldn't mind some super efficiency in high-volume manual processes and a hyper-focus on customers' needs, would you?

There are several areas where AI/ML can be deployed specifically for SaaS organizations. These include analyzing historical data to predict customers' next steps, customer support automation, pricing optimization, and talent sourcing, to name a few.

Furthermore, the IT security industry is large and still growing, so AI can make cybersecurity more effective, affordable, and widely accessible. With the implementation of AI technology, it's possible to accelerate threat detection, identify common threat patterns, as well as de-risk cyberattacks long before they reach software systems.

White-label SaaS refers to a fully integrated, tested, and vetted product produced by one company and then bought by another one to sell under its brand. White labeling is a way out for many small businesses (those who would like to kick-off their marketing automation, task management, e-commerce, etc. platform should listen closely), and especially startups, that try to compete with the likes of Shopify, Slack, and Dropbox. When done right, an entire brand can be built around a SaaS white-label product, particularly given the constantly emerging tech advances.

Building a SaaS product focused on a specific vertical is a surefire way to become a successful SaaS company. This works because when SaaS business targets the customer group sharing the same activities or interests, it can go deeper into core workflows and spend fewer resources on marketing and sales.

Additionally, some verticals that are still struggling with legacy software (such as logistics, construction, transportation, and local government) will become more open to modern SaaS as technology evolves and enters the economy.

According to Andreessen Horowitz, fintech is perfectly positioned to scale vertical SaaS, as most revenue now comes from financial services. When SaaS firms add financial services alongside the core product, they get 2-5x increased revenue per customer, and this is just the start. So, fintech will likely drive the next era of vertical SaaS, open new vertical markets, and improve different business models.

Low-code or no-code means creating new applications with minimal coding requirements, often using development toolkits, drag-and-drop interfaces, reusable components, and more.

According to Forrester, half of the surveyed developers have already adopted or plan to adopt the low-code tooling. Moreover, Q1 2020 VC funding for no-code/low-code startups was around $80M, while in Q2 we can see at least $140M. No-code/low-code companies are expected to raise approximately $500M by the end of 2020, and the growth will be no less spectacular in 2021.

In the context of talent shortage and increased demand for innovations, no-code and low-code platforms will help businesses deliver mission-critical apps faster and at scale, clear up backlogs, improve team productivity, and respond to changing user needs effectively, to name a few. Moreover, this rather inclusive trend will allow regular folks to create full-fledged apps, without incurring heavy costs.

The "bigger is better" approach isn't about SaaS. Customers are demanding more customized experiences, which is where unbundling comes into play. This approach presupposes selling software in the form of an API instead of a fully packaged product.

This could be highly beneficial to both SaaS companies (particularly, startups) and their clients. Unbundling empowers vendors with a competitive edge and niche offering while allowing users to determine their own experience beyond rigid UI. Another "small" bonus is that users pay only for the functionality they'd like to use.

This SaaS industry trend has largely the same roots as the previous one: the need for customization.

Whether it's IaaS, SaaS, or PaaS, there's no universal solution for all companies. Still, PaaS, the least mature type of cloud computing yet no less promising one, allows customers to build add-ons to the core product that they initially acquired. This makes PaaS a highly scalable and flexible alternative to SaaS that brings a more personalized experience while sparking better growth and customer retention rates.

SaaS connectivity limitations are the top reason why companies adopt and then expand API integration projects. If SaaS isn't integrated properly, it's just silo as a service.

Since any SaaS solution must operate faultlessly in today's increasingly complex IT mix of on-premises and SaaS applications, blockchain and other technologies, the trend of seamless integrations and connections has gained traction in the past few years. More vendors include automated API integrated features in their offerings to enable customers to perform integrations more effectively and with better time to market.

At Vention, we always keep up with the times staying in the loop of the latest SaaS trends to provide our clients with high-quality, market-successful apps.

For instance, in partnership with , Hydrodgen, a global SaaS platform that makes it possible to integrate financial components into any business quickly and easily, we introduced a comprehensive kit of UI components and functional improvements for Hydrogen's four web and three mobile (iOS and Android) applications. Our top-notch SaaS developers connected the platform with Plaid, Yodlee, Saltedge, MX, and other third-party services for online payment transactions, via REST API as well as with Adobe Sign to automate the process of providing e-signature. We also introduce document generation for E-sign to streamline document management and language localization of the apps.

Our team implemented SaaS products in many other industries:

Tourism

We fine-tuned the SaaS web solution for Rocketrip, an innovative corporate travel solution that helps companies reduce existing travel spend.

Healthcare

For CareDox — a care coordination platform that automates healthcare information collection to improve child safety, our engineers developed a compliant Student Medical Record system used in over 25 states across the United States.

E-commerce

Vention's dedicated team seamlessly integrated with the onsite team of the hiring solution YunoJuno, and added new functionality for recruiters so they can find freelancers, connect them with employers, and earn commission.

Marketing

While working with the sales enablement platform DataDwell, we delivered analytics that helped their users discover how recipients interact with sent files (opens, scrolling, views, etc.).

Digital administration

Vention cooperated with TimeTool, a Software-as-a-Service solution that helps craftsmen tackle all administrative tasks of their business, to build a web app divided into the five main modules: invoices, appointments, projects, customers, offers.

As per Deloitte, 93% of CIOs in the SaaS industry reported plans to adopt cloud SaaS. So, the market transformation towards SaaS and cloud is inevitable, and the subscription economy is overtaking the traditional way of doing business.

The SaaS revolution will bring huge growth potential, more new businesses, greater interest from investors, and more cost-effective technologies — software will no longer be an enormous expense, but rather just a part of operating costs.

The future of SaaS will also depend upon businesses' ability to integrate and partner with peers to refine products and services. Being a real challenge and a great chance at the same time, interconnectivity will define the SaaS market's winners.

And we hope you'll be among them.