Software as a Service (SaaS) offerings consist of a host of elements and layers. Each and every element that goes into a SaaS model plays a significant role in creating a successful SaaS product. From performance to security, SaaS can put you on the right track to success.
Here are some of the elements that make a successful SaaS product:
- Software as a Service, or SaaS, is a software application delivery model where a software application is hosted and operates over the internet. The SaaS product is a sharable, standardized and repeatable offering. End users of the SaaS product are not required to purchase or own the software, but instead pay a monthly subscription fee for the use of the software via the SaaS platform.
- Typically, in a SaaS model, no application code is required to be installed outside the SaaS provider. The application is hosted and managed from a central location rather than at each customer's site, enabling customers to access the application remotely via the internet. However, in an extended SaaS offering, where an external mobile device such as a PDA or time clock is used, software may be required for handheld devices.
- In a SaaS model, many of your customers are hosted on a load-balanced farm of identical instances with configurable metadata that provides a unique user experience and feature set for each customer. This allows the SaaS service provider the ability to keep end user costs reasonable while providing redundancy for the solution.
- Authorization and security policies ensure that your customer's data is kept separate from that of other customers; and from an end user's perspective, there is no indication that the application instance is being shared among multiple tenants.
- Within a SaaS model, the number of servers and instances on the backend can be increased or decreased as necessary to match demand, without requiring additional recoding of the application and increasing costs.
- In a SaaS offering, SaaS application runs securely and remotely while being available to a variety of users and companies wherever internet is available.
- The SaaS delivery model, typically, is a 'one-to-many' (single instance, multi-tenant) architecture rather than a 'one-to-one' architecture.
- Licensing is held by the ISV. It is then 'leased' to the end user on a monthly subscription basis.
- The SaaS delivery model supplies a stable revenue stream; the pay per user pricing model keeps your revenue-to-cost ratio in check. This results in the delivery expense growing proportionately with the revenue.
- In a SaaS offering, the SaaS platform is centralized for feature or code version updating, which eliminates the need for downloadable patches and upgrades. Code fixes, changes and upgrades can be rolled out to thousands of your tenants easily and efficiently.
- SaaS applications are generally priced on a per user basis. Additional fees may apply for extra bandwidth and storage, when required. With SaaS, the vendor is provided with recurring revenue that is initially lower than with the traditional model but can greatly exceed the total revenue per customer with customer retention.
Now that you understand more about the elements that make up a Software as a Service (SaaS) offering, hop aboard the Wizmo train by contacting them today and let their team of engineers build a SaaS product that will keep your company competitive in today's high speed business world.
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