## 7 Conclusions and Future Research  
The purpose of this study was to empirically assess the impact of software customization on the quality of software as a service. This involved the evaluation of the construct reliability and construct validity of software customization model for SaaS quality. A questionnaire-based survey was used to collect data from 244 software professionals with experience in the SaaS development life cycle. After rounds of modification through CFA, the required model fit, reliability, and validity were achieved. A significant relationship was found between all customization approaches and SaaS quality, but none between the integration approach and SaaS quality. Our ongoing research is to examine the effectiveness and usefulness of the presented model based on some success factors of software projects (e.g., reducing the time, cost, and uncertainty of customization assessment on SaaS quality).  
Whilst carrying out this study, several ideas and enhancements were considered as possibilities for future work. First, this study was restricted to customization types, practices, and quality attributes of SaaS applications that are the results of systematic mapping studies and experts' opinions [23; 24]. However, this work does not intend to claim that these are the only customization types, practices of SaaS customization, and SaaS quality attributes associated with customization. Future research could also be conducted to expand the model to include many different perspectives. Second, this study empirically reported the impact of each customization approach on SaaS quality, however; it did not consider the impact of each customization approach on each quality attribute of SaaS applications. Future investigations may explore these relationships--for example, the impact of composition approach on the SaaS security attribute (as one of the indicators of SaaS quality). Furthermore, though the impact of the integration approach (external change) on SaaS quality was statistically not supported in this study, an initiative to empirically investigate the relationships between integration approach and SaaS quality independently would be interesting. Third, an addendum to this study considering different methodologies (e.g., historical analysis of software changes or case studies) and replication are recommended to build upon and refine the reported findings of this study.  
The following are available online at [[https://www.mdpi.com/2076-341](https://www.mdpi.com/2076-341)]([https://www.mdpi.com/2076-341](https://www.mdpi.com/2076-341)) 7/11/4/1677/s1, A supplementary document that supports and enhances the analysis and findings of this study is is available online at [[https://tinyurl.com/OnlineSupSaaSCustQ](https://tinyurl.com/OnlineSupSaaSCustQ)]([https://tinyurl.com/OnlineSupSaaSCustQ](https://tinyurl.com/OnlineSupSaaSCustQ)) (accessed on 22 February 2021).  
Conceptualization, A.Q.A.; formal analysis, A.Q.A.; funding acquisition, A.B.M.S.; investigation, A.Q.A.; methodology, A.Q.A.; Resources, A.B.M.S.; supervision, A.B.M.S., A.A.A.G. and H.Z.; writing--original draft, A.Q.A.; writing--review and editing, A.B.M.S. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.  
This study was funded by Universiti Putra Malaysia.  
Not applicable.  
The authors declare no conflict of interest.