Bottom-up approach to SaaS subscriptions - a way for Enterprises to innovate at a lower cost
Tags: saas, management, tooling
Published: 2022-05-29 11:26:33

Nowadays, large companies are looking for affordable high-tech solutions in order to manage their extensive workflows. Enterprises that operate with sizable budgets are in a position to purchase top-tier software from the expanding market; however, when comes the time to make, company representatives are debating their options, so the chances they will jump right in are extremely low. Instead, they will spend several months evaluating the best course of action. Should enterprises, however, be so cautious when it comes to on-demand software? 

When an organisation and its employees begin prioritising the same things, such as different methods of increasing productivity in order to improve the overall performance of the company, it is time to look for simple ways to improve performance while expending less effort, whether it is aimed at the employees' workflow or for the company itself. And that is when a SaaS subscription comes into question. With SaaS, businesses can eliminate the expenses and responsibilities associated with managing and maintaining costly in-house servers. At the same time, they can keep up with new patches and features more easily, accelerate their own software deployments and configurations, reduce their reliance on additional IT staff, and free up in-house professionals to focus on more strategic concerns.

The use of paid SaaS tools by employees of an enterprise should be made easier and experimented with more frequently than is currently the case. If you are not the end-user of the SaaS tools, it can be difficult to evaluate their usefulness. Top managers should keep in mind that in order for a solution to be considered successful, it needs to alleviate the problems experienced by all users. When it comes to making a decision about purchasing subscriptions to cloud-based digital tools, there should be much more trust placed in the hands of the end-users of value (employees) so that this goal can be accomplished.

As one would say, the reason humanity is making progress is that people are getting lazier, and the fact that we are so focused on finding the easiest and most efficient ways to complete our daily responsibilities is a major motivator. 

**What are the benefits of SaaS subscriptions for enterprises?
**
Here are some of the reasons why relying on a bottom-up approach with SaaS tool companies will ultimately lead to an increase in the organization's level of innovation:

- It would be best to provide employees looking for ways to ‘hack’ the system and improve their results while doing less with the equipment they require since the company can only benefit from an increase in productivity as well as the full realisation of the workers' potential. It is the perfect example of **increasing returns**, which means that a company can produce higher output levels with relatively lower levels of input. If a worker were able to accomplish a particular objective not only in the quickest way possible but also with tools and software that they found to be convenient, they would experience a higher level of engagement with the process. Technology has a significant impact on both the capacity of an employee to complete their work and the satisfaction that work brings them.

People today are highly selective when it comes to the technology they use on a daily basis, and the business applications they choose to use at work are no exception. They have high expectations for applications in all aspects of their lives, including the workplace, and can easily navigate the SaaS application market by leveraging their extensive user experience. Therefore, employers should encourage their employees to look for new ways to improve the efficiency with which they complete their tasks and contribute to the overall improvement of business results.

- The first link in the chain of communication and internal selling is workers who experience inefficiencies and difficulties in the course of their work. Employees, including sales managers, are typically the first ones to encounter a problem that needs to be addressed; consequently, it is more likely that they will devise the most creative approach trying to resolve the issue. Due to the fact that they serve as a foundation for the entire in-house communication chain, it is more likely that they will discover and initiate a perfect solution that targets the pains that they, along with the business itself, struggle with.

Given the complexity of the current business environment, it is better to make strategic decisions as precisely as possible and as quickly as possible. Even if the management of the company recognises the issue, it will undoubtedly take a significant amount of time to locate a solution, negotiate the terms of a profitable one, and put it into action. Why not just skip ahead to the part where the issue is resolved at its core for a low cost, in a more productive manner, and without having to deal with the bureaucracy of the corporation? When a SaaS subscription is being considered, it is unquestionably the best course of action to consult with end-users at the beginning rather than imposing an unknown product on them. Employees want to feel as though they have some control over the tools they use, and they don't want to be coerced into utilising a system that meets only some of their requirements. Everyone wants solutions that are the best of their kind.

Open communication and collaborative problem-solving among all employees ensure that major projects keep progressing in a fluid manner and that goals are met on time. Meanwhile, reaching the top of the chain always comes at a cost -** transnational and agency costs** to navigate the corporate bureaucracy. A lot of innovation will be lost not only during the "internal fight" but also right at the start as bureaucratic structures can unintentionally stifle innovation by making businesses less agile and decreasing operational efficiency.

- As I already said, it is essential for businesses to act quickly when making strategic decisions. Through P2P connections and information sharing, employees and end users can find the best solutions **much faster**, which is why hands-on experience is the best way to evaluate SaaS.

Before committing to a paid subscription, most, if not all, SaaS platforms provide users with a free trial period during which they can test out most or all of the available tools. However, a large ecosystem like an enterprise cannot afford to take part in those tryouts. But what if we asked those who tried them all?

_“The percentage of companies using SaaS to meet their software needs is steadily increasing, with only 38% of companies relying on SaaS in 2016 and 51% in 2018. The percentage of companies relying solely on SaaS is projected to hit 80% in 2022.”*_

Companies around the world are turning to SaaS solutions for a wide range of business needs, and the experience of other companies can help avoid trial and error. A constant flow of information is essential for growing businesses as it is a great way to avoid a time-consuming decision-making process and unnecessary corporate bureaucracy caused by a strict multi-level hierarchy. In the field of best task management tools, knowledge sharing rarely occurs from the top down, and the number of stakeholders at the top is frequently smaller. Most people who are dissatisfied with the status quo and the pains they are experiencing at work are also searching for solutions in order to find the best one to meet their needs. Networking among interested employees could be a significant source of new SaaS solutions that have already been evaluated and tested and whose implementation would boost enterprise innovation.

**What are the misconceptions that prevent companies from finding useful SaaS?**

There are only a few arguments against the bottom-up approach with SaaS tools, but they must still be addressed because this myopic perspective impedes business growth.

- Discovering and implementing new SaaS tools does not incur escalating or uncontrollable costs, contrary to what stakeholders may believe.

Enterprises will occasionally encounter redundancy, overspent and ineffective solutions, but this is essentially **equivalent to investing in innovation**, which always involves risk and expense. This cost, however, is anticipated to be significantly lower for bottom-up versus top-down approaches (which also comes with the risk of wrong decisions). As previously stated, end-users at the bottom almost always purchase a single cloud-based subscription for themselves or a small group of people, attempting to solve some problems they are struggling with. Moreover, if the tool is widely adopted by a growing group of people, there is a good chance that it solves a company-wide need, and therefore the Enterprise level subscription should be considered - the investment in innovation has yielded the lowest risks and the highest likelihood of success.

- The other belief is that the use of web-based tools increases security risk, which is a more valid concern given the rate of SaaS business expansion and the variety of apps employed. That is just one more reason to invest in appropriate and secure cloud-based software for enterprise businesses. The argument that permitting unrestricted purchasing of SaaS licences outside of the procurement and IT security processes is also flawed. As aforementioned, employees naturally attempt to alleviate their pain points. Therefore, restricting their access to purchasing tools will only increase their use of free tools, which are commonly less secure.

A good illustration of this would be the recurring requirement to translate anything work-related - an actual example from the industry I currently work in. Have you ever given any thought to how your employees manage without the benefit of paid secure tools for their day-to-day translation needs? (And almost all businesses do not have those). They simply make use of free online machine translation services such as Google Translate or DeepL to copy and paste sensitive content or even entire files online in order to obtain the translation. Is there anyone who could argue that it is not secure in any way? Even though businesses can save money by using free online translation tools, they risk jeopardising their reputation.

**Conclusion**
Not subscribing to a SaaS service or showing mistrust in the SaaS choices made by your employees is a false economy that prevents a workflow that is significantly more efficient and often leads to a lack of innovation within an enterprise.

In the modern world of business, it is essential for companies to be able to quickly shift their focus in order to capitalise on emerging opportunities or address unforeseen challenges. This is made possible by subscription software as a service (SaaS), which gives users the freedom to experiment with new methods, implement new services, or even test out other vendors in order to find the solutions that are the most ideally suited to their requirements. 

*https://ascendixtech.com/number-saas-companies-statistics