9 Stats Explaining the Acceleration to SaaS

For the past decade (at least), software has been eating the world and its appetite remains as voracious as ever.

That’s one of the overarching takeaways from IDC’s recent InfoBrief, titled “SaaS: The Linchpin of Sustainable Digital Businesses”. The report explores the essential role that Software-as-a-Service plays in digital transformation, drawing on proprietary research into adoption, goals, ingredients to success, obstacles and more.

When assessing the prevalence and importance of SaaS applications, numbers don’t lie. Here are nine statistics to keep in mind.

The Sky is the Limit for SaaS

In 2021, SaaS adoption across vertical and functional markets reached new highs. Up-to-date forecasts predict that SaaS application revenue will surpass $300 billion by 2025, representing 52% of the total cloud software market, and their value continues to exceed expectations to the point that many businesses will only consider SaaS solutions.

Why’s that? With SaaS tools in hand, enterprises realize a variety of benefits: greater agility and flexibility in dealing with continuous disruption and emerging competition, time and cost savings associated with updating new infrastructure and resources, and superior adaptability in terms of how everyone works.

In IDC’s 2021 Industry CloudPath Survey, 81% of respondents confirmed they were currently using or planning to use SaaS within the current year. 89% of respondents were currently using or planning to use public cloud within the year. Ask those who work in that space and the forecast for SaaS is sunny indeed.

Data, Data Everywhere

It’s safe to say at this point that most industrial enterprises possess enormous amounts of information: about their products, their processes, their workforce, and their facilities. In terms of the quality of that data and how effectively they make use of it, well, that’s another conversation.

According to a recent McKinsey study, more than 75% of heavy industry companies surveyed had piloted some form of artificial intelligence (AI), yet less than 15% of them achieved a meaningful, scalable impact. Outdated, incomplete data is one of the most common culprits.

SaaS applications help to remedy this challenge through their ability to rapidly incorporate new information and use that data to feed real-time analytics and decision-making. Enterprises ranked improved customer experience (35%) and improved operational efficiency (35%) as their top two objectives to achieve with SaaS, with 78% citing the importance of technology in assisting with real-time governance and management.

The Future of Work Has Arrived

Perhaps you’ve heard? The global pandemic that began in 2020 has indelibly altered the way we live, work, and interact with each other. A poll commissioned by Advanced Workplace Associates found that just 3% of white-collar workers want to return to five days a week in the office; the split might not be quite that stark across every organization but that’s the gist of it.
If the past few years of remote work were a necessary response to the acute impact of the pandemic, the bright future for remote work is a straightforward acknowledgement of overwhelming demand from workers and the leverage they now possess.

In a 2022 IDC Future Enterprise Resiliency and Spending Survey, 78% of respondents planned to adopt hybrid work-first models that redefine processes and technologies. 70% of connected workers in task-based roles expect to use intelligence embedded in digital workspaces to collaborate and drive productivity, according to a October 2021 study.

The upshot is clear: remote workers, particularly those with extensive knowledge and experience, expect technology to both support their quality of life outside of work and the tasks they do for work. SaaS platforms facilitate this change and companies who want to compete for the best talent have already taken notice.

Final Thoughts

As disruption continues at pace, SaaS applications will become more popular because they provide the agility, flexibility and adaptability that enterprises need to survive and thrive during turbulent times. In a sea of change, there are few constants; the rise of SaaS tools will be one into the foreseeable future.