Techaisle Blog

Techaisle’s detailed SaaS adoption survey tracked the current and planned buying journey of cloud CRM, ERP and other SaaS applications within SMBs and Midmarket firms. Cloud orchestration & digital automation have become essential ingredients for business transformation. Techaisle analyzed the extent to which use/intended use of each of these cloud applications is connected with other applications and whether they are part of a conscious effort for digital transformation. The two sets of figures below show past and planned CRM and its adjacent SaaS applications adoption journey.

The research reveals a very stark difference between the past cloud CRM adoption journey and the intended path after adopting cloud CRM for the first time. The past adoption patterns were seemingly random reacting to a specific point of pain, but planned adoption is deliberate keeping in view the business issues & IT challenges and taking giant steps towards a connected digital business.

Techaisle’s upcoming detailed survey report on US SMB & Midmarket SaaS Adoption Trends shows evidence that connected cloud applications really matter for SMBs. 16% of SMBs have already connected SaaS applications across the enterprise and another 10% are on their enterprise-wide connected SaaS journey. These SMBs are getting the benefits of business growth, enterprise agility, corporate efficiency, collaboration and alignment.

Cloud is the agility platform and SaaS offers a zero-friction option for automating processes. The first entry point to cloud in many SMBs is the purchase of a specific business application by a business user. A typical example is of SMB marketing acquiring a SaaS application to help with social presence management, or sales, as is often the case, acquiring a cloud based CRM to track opportunities. Each of these disconnected siloed SaaS applications do provide real & immediate benefits in terms of enhancing individual productivity and enhancing morale and helping with recruitment of tech savvy new workers. However, where cloud starts to differentiate itself and create meaningful impact for SMBs is in connected automation across related activities and applications categories.

Techaisle’s US Enterprise Cloud survey conducted with senior IT decision makers shows that Cloud actually opens the doors to increased IT investment. For all the trepidation about the negative impact of cloud on IT budget and authority, data from the Techaisle US upper-midmarket/enterprise (1,000 employees to 10,000 employees) cloud survey indicates that advanced use of cloud actually drives higher IT spending. In 92% of US enterprises, IT has a voice on the board and helps drive the direction of the business rather than business deciding IT needs. There is also a great deal of near-term opportunity for a variety of SaaS providers in the US enterprise market: ten diverse application categories are included in near-term plans of 37%-41% of respondents.

Cloud adoption maturity & IT staffing impact

Survey data shows that cloud maturity does not correlate to reductions in IT staffing levels. The most and least mature cloud user segments have an average of 19.0 and 20.3 users per IT staff member, respectively. The two groups between the extremes have an average of 16.6 and 16.2 users per IT staff member. The roles may be different, but the survey data finds that absolute employment in IT shops does not decline with cloud use.

Techaisle’s cloud adoption trend data shows that within US SMBs the SaaS penetration increased from 27% in 2011 to 58% in 2014 and reached 73% in 2016. It is expected that the figure will reach 94% by the end of 2017. Unweighted data analysis shows that SaaS adoption within US SMBs is already at 86% and will likely reach 96% adoption within the next one year. Even at the worldwide level, survey data shows that 76% of cloud-SMBs are currently using SaaS applications.

This view of SaaS as a deepening force within the SMB market raises an important, related question: what is the current benchmark for SaaS within SMBs? How many SaaS applications are in use today? And how many new applications are expected to be added?