The global SaaS market has been witnessing exponential growth over the past few years as businesses across different verticals are moving towards SaaS-based business models. According to a report by Statista, the global public cloud Software as a service (SaaS) market is expected to become 157 billion USD by 2020.   "Because customers can see the return on investment and business benefits of deploying this software, it has now picked up a lot of interest amongst all customer segments," says Prasad Rai, Head & VP, Applications, Oracle India. As technology continues to advance, so does the space of Software as a service, making it an invariable choice for enterprises. There is a lot of disruption going on in this space due to emerging technologies. Let us have a look at some of the latest SaaS trends that are impacting the service delivery:    

Moving Beyond Automation with Artificial Intelligence

With enterprises looking to automate the tasks for their employees, technologies like AI and ML are finding more applications in SaaS business models. AI is helping businesses particularly that are into the e-commerce domain serve their customers in a personalized manner by analysing their behaviour patterns.  These technologies are largely helping businesses design customer-centric marketing strategies, whereby they can minimize the marketing spend and maximize sales.     

 White Labelling for Cohesive Experience

White labelling is becoming more popular in SaaS solutions for the reason that businesses are employing these solutions largely for the front-facing website activities. Especially for the companies that partner with multiple vendors, white labelling is consider to be the best option to achieve cohesive customer experience.   

Verticalized SaaS to Target Niche

While horizontal SaaS solutions focus on larger customer segments irrespective of the industry, vertical SaaS solutions cater to the domain specific needs of different business verticals i.e. targeting the niche. This approach provides users with completely customizable solutions, unlike the conventional approach of single solution for all needs. These solutions empower businesses with customer intelligence, enabling them to better understand their target customers and serve them in an effective manner.

Adapting to Changes with Micro SaaS

In this world of disruption where change is the only constant, it is imperative for businesses to quickly adapt to changes in order to stay ahead in the market.  Micro SaaS, an approach to complement the established platforms so as to add extra value to them, helps businesses to easily adapt to changes by adding new and advanced features within no time. These Micro SaaS solutions generally work in tandem with verticlaized solutions that cater to the needs of niche customer segments.