While entering

As digital transformation has accelerated due to COVID-19, one market that has grown a lot is the SaaS business. Subscribing rather than owning software has recently become a trend in the business environment, and SaaS companies continue to attract investment even in the midst of an investment cold due to the economic downturn. The global SaaS market is expected to be around 330 trillion won in 2022 to 1,200 trillion won in 2029, and according to Korea's IDC, the domestic SaaS market is expected to grow 19.9% over the previous year to reach 1.784.4 trillion won this year.

In this article, we'll look at whether the SaaS market's growth will continue to be effective, and discuss the SaaS Management Platform (SMP), which began to attract attention with the growth of the SaaS market.

‍

Will the SaaS market growth spurred by COVID-19 continue to be effective?

As the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic abates, telecommuting has ended and people are returning to the office. In Asia in particular, the return to the office is progressing the fastest at 80% or more. If so, will the way we work change again to what it was before COVID-19?

Due to COVID-19, B2B buyers and sellers have had to undertake a major digital transformation. The digital transformation that began in response to the crisis has now become the next normal, with a huge impact on how buyers and sellers conduct business.

According to McKinsey's research, B2B buyers and sellers alike prefer a digital purchasing experience. 3 out of 4 B2B buyers said they prefer to learn on their own rather than learn about products from sales representatives. It can be seen that digital self-service, which learns on its own through remote interactions or digital resources, is an important way to interact with B2B customers.

‍

According to Battery Ventures (Battery Ventures), a well-known VC based in Boston, the post-COVID-19 economic downturn has led many companies to be more conservative in formulating technology strategies. In fact, the number of companies cutting budgets for introducing new technology or services has increased, and decision-making time has also increased for more careful adoption. Despite the fact that the corporate spending sentiment index on technology fell 5.2 points between the third quarter of 2022 and the first quarter of 2023, the growth of the SaaS business is stabilizing.

According to a survey by spend management platform Productiv, the SaaS portfolio within the enterprise increased by 32% between 2021 and 2023 as the spread of SaaS continues despite budget cuts and workforce reductions. The average SaaS spend per employee in 2023 reached $9,643, and currently an average of 87 SaaS apps are being used by departments within the organization.

‍

SMP began to attract attention with the growth of the SaaS market

As the SaaS market grew, SMP (SaaS Management Platform) naturally began to attract attention. SaaS apps are often adopted by end users other than IT or purchasing departments to address operational inefficiencies. As a result, account information, licenses, etc. for SaaS apps are often distributed across the organization. Without visibility and easy management of SaaS usage, SaaS usage can lead to inefficiency and complexity within an organization. Gartner also predicted that by 2027, organizations that don't have visibility into the SaaS they are using within the organization and that fail to adjust the SaaS lifecycle will overspend at least 25% on SaaS.

A SaaS management platform (SMP) provides a central management console function to discover, manage, automate, optimize, manage, and activate SaaS used by employees, and enhances identity and data protection while using SaaS. SMP is expected to solve various problems caused by the increase in SaaS usage.

‍

I know the benefits of SMP... but the need doesn't touch my skin.

Despite the growth of the SaaS market, there is still little demand for an actual SaaS management platform. What I actually felt when the POPs team recruited beta customers, met them in person, and conducted interviews is that companies still don't have much trouble managing SaaS. There are many companies that are unaware of SaaS management, and as SaaS increases, they feel the need for management, so there are also many companies that manage it by hand on random Excel sheets.

However, due to the acceleration of digital transformation, the amount of data managed by enterprises is increasing, and incidents related to data security are also occurring frequently. About 10 years ago, Target (Target), a major US retail company, had to pay a fine of 3.8 trillion won due to a data breach, which severely damaged its corporate image and experienced a 46% decline in sales. According to a report published by IBM in 2022, Korean companies recorded the highest amount of damage in history, with an average of 4.334 billion won in data breaches.

According to the “Voice of the CISO Report” published by FruePoint this year, cases where insiders are the main culprits of sensitive data leaks are increasing, and establishing a security system within the organization is an essential task for CISOs who protect personnel and data in this situation.

In terms of SaaS management, account information and licenses for SaaS apps are often distributed throughout the organization, such as writing SaaS-specific account information by hand in Excel. Until now, the need for SMP has not been felt, but the use of SMP is likely to accelerate to prevent data loss incidents.

‍

At the end

As the SaaS market grows and companies accelerate their digital transformation, the importance of SaaS management is becoming increasingly prominent. Although many companies are currently unaware of the need for SaaS management, the complexity of management is also increasing as more and more SaaS applications are introduced within the organization. In particular, now that the importance of data security is emphasized, management methods that simply rely on Excel sheets are reaching their limits.

SMP is a key tool to address these issues and can improve the efficiency of SaaS usage, enhance security, and protect the company's digital assets. Going forward, SMP will play an important role in addressing the management complexity associated with the increase in SaaS and helping enterprises maximize the benefits of digital transformation. Ultimately, a SaaS management platform will become an essential element rather than an option, and an essential tool for strengthening the sustainability and competitiveness of enterprises.

Using SaaS, is it OK as it is? The POPs team is providing free reports, so check how our organization currently uses and manages SaaS.