The last two years affected by the pandemic may have negatively impacted a lot of industries, but it helped SaaS trends get a boost on the market. In Vietnam, SaaS is still at the beginning when I left in the late 2019. It’s New but amazing tool to standardize business process. However, when every 11-staff company adopts at least one CRM. SaaS, therefore, is worth digging further to understand which SaaS CRM trends outweigh from 2023 to 2025.
As my work is more about digital marketing/sales development, especially lead generation, sales funnel management; customer satisfaction management, this note is more about marketing SaaS. Other sectors might requires different features.
From horizontal to vertical trends
According to Deloitte analysis in SaaS Industry Outlook till 2025 (Deloitte, 2021) the M&A trend in the global SaaS industry is changing from horizontal to vertical, especially in developed countries.
Pre-pandemic witnessed the volume growth of SaaS significantly, with a compound annual growth rate of 22%. Post-pandemic the expansion of remote scenarios led to a distinct cloudization trend of software applications. In the report, the number of SaaS M&A is relatively stable from 2011 to 2015 with horizontal SaaS dominating the marketing and accounting for 68% of the total M&A. After 2015, a new trend towards vertical SaaS emerged with a strong growth momentum.
Simply, vertical CRM solutions are specifically crafted to cater to the unique needs of a particular industry. Instead of a bunch of features, these systems come with a high degree of verticalized customizations for a specific industry. Whereas, horizontal CRMs are built to cater the core requirements of any standard business, irrespective of industry type. A vertical CRM may be having a higher price tag, however, customers save tons of money & time that they would otherwise have to configure themselves or via third-party vendors. A vertical CRM is tailor-made for the nature of one business.
Mobile first development
Since the very early days of CRM, some businesses have struggled to get employees to adopt to use the software. However, with increasing use and dependence on mobile technology, SaaS producers start to change. Along with the soaring demand for SaaS products during the pandemic, many providers optimize their existing products to provide an up-to-date mobile experience.
One of the biggest trends in the future will be mobile-first development in which new products are developed first for smartphone accessibility and then adapted for PC – the opposite of how it’s mostly been done up until now. This approach is crucial for companies wanting to stay in business over the long haul – especially since nearly three-quarters of internet users (3.7 billion people) are expected to access the web solely via their smartphones by 2023, with PC-only access trailing very far behind 69 million people.
AI integrated CRM
CRM continues to grow more advanced, thanks to technology such as artificial intelligence. The integration of AI into CRM is not exactly new, but it’s something that’s expected to significantly influence how businesses do CRM in the future. The AI-enabled CRM market is expected to be worth $73 billion by 2023 (Infoholic Research LLP).
One of the most important benefits of integrating AI into CRM involves AI’s ability to quickly sift through and assess high volumes of unstructured data. The technology can identify patterns and trends in consumers’ buying behavior, segmenting customers in new ways. Moreover, AI can make recommendations at different points of the sales funnel, helping businesses make data-driven decisions. For instance, some advanced CRM systems use AI to analyze customer data and make predictions on lead sources, Other CRM also uses AI to offer automated assistance via chatbots.
Before, AI-integrated CRM has been used to generate written content mainly for financial reports, databases, and data insights. But nowadays AI also can create written SEO-optimised content for social media, emails, and blogs. Over 84% of marketing leaders use AI in their content marketing software.
API Integration between CRM
SaaS integration represents the capability of the app to be linked to other systems to share information like clients, status, quantity, price, payment details, etc. Integration capabilities of SaaS apps remain an essential aspect for a high-quality SaaS company to consider when launching such an app. A SaaS program with good integration capabilities will eliminate the need for a third party, as the SaaS application will offer opportunities by default. Proper integration also reduces the possibility of human error occurring and uses automatic procedures to support the user’s needs.
Security will stay the Top priority for SaaS vendors and the top concern for users
Along with GDPR concerns, security is a priority for both SaaS vendors and users, this trend will stay for a long time. SaaS security is not a matter of the provider’s responsibility or the user’s responsibility. It is rather a collaboration between these two parties in which the SaaS vendor creates security tools that the user can choose to use or not.
Among the reasons for using a SaaS solution, 27% of businesses named increased protection for their data (Sumatosoft). . As SaaS solutions grow in popularity among all industries, hackers are targeting these apps more as well. This increased risk is pushing SaaS developers to invest in new security aspects such as SaaS Security Posture Management, known as SSPM. The SSPM is checking constantly for potential mistakes in the cloud such as configuration shortcomings or scoped permissions.
Analytics features will need to be a CRM’s strength
In my experience, reporting and analysing feature is already added to SaaS but they can be improved. More data collected, more insights about customer behaviors. With sophisticated analytics at their fingertips, organizations are in the best position to identify problems, solutions, and opportunities (Hubspot). Companies recognize this — and are increasingly looking for powerful analytics tools to process and report on their data in real time. CRMs must offer advanced analytics, too. Organizations want the most accurate view of how their sales pipeline is performing, how happy customers are, and what’s contributing to churn. Although not all organizations are ready for sophisticated stand-alone analytics platforms, more SMEs are viewing CRM analytics as a must-have, not a nice-to-have.
Norwich Dec, 2022
Handpicked by Kate N.