Leveraging Business Automation to Boost SaaS Growth

Wondering how to leverage business automation to boost SaaS growth? You have come to the right place.

Business automation is a vibrant space, and you can transform your SaaS product using it. You need the right team though.

Read on, as I explain how automation solutions can aid the growth of your SaaS company.

1. Understand the importance of business automation for boosting SaaS growth rate

The global SaaS market is growing. A PRNewswire report estimates that this market will grow from $158.2 billion in 2020 to $307.3 billion by 2026.

It’s a very competitive market, however. When you launch your SaaS product, watch out for customer churn. Observers state that the SaaS churn rate is more than what is desired. Customers will buy from your competitors if you can’t provide a great user experience by using popular SaaS trends.

You’d rather want your SaaS business to grow. Experts indicate that improving customer lifetime value will help to grow your SaaS company.

You can significantly streamline and improve the processes in your SaaS product if you use business automation. This helps you to offer greater value to customers.

2. Study the business process automation landscape to influence SaaS growth

You can learn about the business process automation (BPA) landscape by focusing on the following questions:

A. What are the different types of business process automation?

BPA can be of the following types:

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Marketing automation

You can use a BPA solution to generate leads that are highly qualified. Such BPA solutions should offer you a framework to target your marketing campaigns effectively. You can build, execute, and monitor your marketing campaigns.

Accounting and bookkeeping automation

BPA apps in this category help you in streamlining processes like AR (accounts receivable), AP (accounts payable), billing, collections, managing the GL (general ledger), etc. You can use them to manage data backups, card applications, and additional financial processes.

Process automation

Process automation is also known as “robotic process automation” (RPA). RPA is a subset of BPA. You use RPA to automate repetitive tasks. RPA can significantly increase the efficiency of organizations, and it eliminates common human errors.

E.g., BPA tools might automate email marketing. Organizations save time by automating their batch processing, file transfer, approval notifications, report generation, report distribution, etc.

Human resources (HR) automation

You can use BPA to automate several HR management processes. The following are a few examples:

• Scheduling interviews;
• Sending employment offers to selected candidates;
• Employee onboarding;
• Approvals of employee leave requests;
• Administration of employee benefits.

Note: Refer to the NetSuite guide to BPA types for more information.

B. How can business automation improve customer experience and aid in digital transformation?

Business process automation can improve customer satisfaction and operational efficiency in various ways. The following are examples:

• Streamline customer support: Customer support chatbots work 24×7. These chatbots can answer simple questions and resolve straightforward issues. This helps experienced customer support representatives to focus on more complex questions and issues.
• Using robotic process automation for order processing: Businesses can use robotic order processing to improve operational efficiency.
• Personalized offers based on customers’ behavior: You can use Artificial Intelligence (AI) to monitor the behavior of customers on your website. AI and advanced analytics can provide near real-time insights based on this. This AI system can create personalized offers for customers.
• Automated and personalized email marketing: BPA can help you to respond to customers immediately when customers use a contact form on your website. Quick responses and automated follow-ups make email marketing much more effective.
• Collect customer data for future marketing campaigns: We leave a lot of information about ourselves on social media. Additionally, plenty of information about us is available on online polls, surveys, and feedback forms. BPA can help businesses to collect this data on a massive scale. Businesses can use analytics to gather real-time insights for future marketing campaigns.

Note: For more information, read how automation can help businesses grow.

C. How’s the business potential for BPA?

Both enterprises and small businesses have understood the value of BPA, and the market for BPA is growing. A Markets and Markets report estimates that this market will grow from $9.8 billion in 2020 to $19.6 billion in 2026. The report projects a CAGR of 12.2% during the 2021-2026 period.

Some of the best BPA products are as follows:

• Kissflow;
• Comindware;
• K2;
• Process Street;
• Tallyfy;
• Pipefy;
• Nintex.

3. Understand the landscape of business process management (BPM) tools for SaaS Growth

Are you trying to decide between deploying a business process management (BPM) and an automation platform? You need to first understand the BPM landscape. Focus on the following questions:

A. What is BPM?

BPM is the overarching strategy to effectively manage manual and automated efforts in an organization. Businesses use BPM to streamline the operational and project management workflow.

BPM helps businesses to identify inefficiencies in both manual and automated processes. Subsequently, businesses can eliminate inefficiencies, improve customer satisfaction, and increase revenue growth.

Note: The important aspect of the BPA vs BPM comparison is that BPM is a superset of BPA.

B. How large is the BPM market?

There’s a large and growing BPM market. A Fortune Business Insights report projects that the global BPM market will grow from $10.64 billion in 2020 to $26.18 billion in 2028. That’s a CAGR of 12% during the 2021-2028 period.

The top BPM apps are as follows:

• BPMApp: It optimizes workflows.
• Kissflow: Kissflow caters to workflow management, case management, project management, and collaboration.
• Bizagi: Businesses can drive this low-code BPM tool to drive digital transformation.
• Processmaker: It automates complex and enterprise-scale business processes, and Processmaker provides a low-code platform for that.
• Creatio: Creatio is a low-code platform to transform the services, marketing, and sales processes.
• Bonitasoft: This open-source automation platform is extensible. You can use this BPM tool to organize the workflow and automate business processes.

4. Explore the landscape of robotic process automation (RPA)

Wondering whether to incorporate BPA or RPA in your SaaS product? Study the RPA landscape to understand this better. You need to find answers to the following questions:

A. What is RPA?

RPA uses bots to imitate tasks done by human beings. They record the process workflow of such tasks. Subsequently, they complete such rules-based tasks by following that workflow.

Software companies building traditional automation write pieces of code that are instructions. However, companies that create RPA systems train bots by using illustrative steps. RPA can adapt to changing requirements, however, traditional automation can’t.

B. How is BPA different from RPA?

BPA differs from RPA in the following ways:

• RPA is a subset of BPA. Both BPA and RPA automate workflows for greater efficiency, however, the scope varies. BPA has a wider scope than RPA.
• RPA typically automates relatively simple repetitive tasks. On the other hand, BPA involves complex workflows.
• You integrate RPA with your existing software systems. Think of a chatbot used with your CRM software to answer simple questions. BPA involves implementing an entire system with its software components.
• The pricing varies significantly. BPA products typically carry higher price tags than RPA products.

C. How’s the market for RPA?

There’s a rapidly growing market for RPA. A Fortune Business Insights report projects the global RPA market to grow from $1.29 billion in 2020 to $7.64 billion in 2028. The report estimates a CAGR of 25% during the 2021-2028 period.

The following are well-known RPA products:

• Keysight’s Eggplant;
• Inflectra Rapise;
• UiPath;
• Blue Prism;
• Pega;
• Automation Anywhere;
• Contextor;
• Kofax;
• Nice Systems;
• Kryon;
• Visual Cron;
• Softomotive.

Most of these RPA products cater to multiple industries. E.g., Pega supports healthcare, finance, insurance, manufacturing, etc.

5. Plan and execute a project to transform your SaaS business with business automation

Having done your homework, you now need to plan and execute a project to incorporate BPA in your SaaS company.

5A. Kick off your project to automate workflows in your SaaS product

Have you already built a SaaS product? You would need to incorporate BPA in the existing product then. Otherwise, you will create a SaaS product with BPA capabilities.

Engage a PM (project manager), an architect, and a few BAs (business analysts). This small team should define and plan the project to add BPA capabilities to your SaaS product.

5B. Decide which repetitive tasks in your product you want to automate for SaaS Growth

The BAs should have extensive discussions with the business stakeholders in your organization. This could include the sales team, marketing team, etc. BAs might need to interview end-users too.

They should identify where BPA can be used. You need to review their recommendations, and you need to decide the scope for automation.

BAs should document the functional requirements. They should use appropriate templates for this. The PM should implement a requirements review process, furthermore, the PM should establish a requirements management process.

5C. Formulate an approach for workflow automation

The architect in your team should create a software development approach. I recommend the following:

• Use a cloud computing platform: If you have a SaaS product already, then you might have already used a cloud platform. Otherwise, sign up with a cloud computing platform like AWS, Azure, Google Cloud Platform, etc.
• Develop your own APIs for the core features: You can scale your software development project better by creating your own APIs.
• Information security: Design and implement a robust information security solution including multi-factor authentication, encryption, API security, etc.

5D. Decide on the technology stack to develop the automation software for SaaS Growth

Your choice of technology stack depends on the kind of BPA implementation you choose. E.g., use Python if you plan to develop ML (Machine Learning) algorithms for automation.

Use the following technologies to develop a new SaaS application:

• JavaScript and Node.js for web development;
• Java for native Android development;
• Swift for native iOS development;
• PostgreSQL and MongoDB as databases.

5E. Hire developers to develop and incorporate automation tools into your SaaS product

You might need to hire web developers, mobile developers, AI/ML developers, testers, and DevOps engineers. Hire developers from a trustworthy software development company.

You should expect project management support from the development partner. Furthermore, the company should provide replacements in the case of turnover.

5F. Monitor the software development project to develop and integrate the business automation platform

Use the important product development KPIs to monitor the project. I recommend you track the following key metrics:

• Story points retired;
• Team velocity points;
• Sprint burndown;
• Errors per 1,000 lines of code.

6. Assess the success of your SaaS product after incorporating business automation

Monitor the important product management KPIs to evaluate the success of your BPA-powered SaaS product. These are as follows:

• Customer satisfaction (CSAT);
• Retention rate;
• Customer churn;
• Conversion rate;
• Customer lifetime value;
• Customer acquisition costs (CAC);
• The number of support tickets;
• DAUs (daily active users) and MAUs (monthly active users);
• Bounce rate;
• Monthly recurring revenue (MRR);
• Annual recurring revenue (ARR);
• The average revenue per user (ARPU);
• Net promoter score (NPS).

Final Thoughts on Using Business Automation for SaaS Growth

Need help in using business automation to boost the growth of your SaaS company? You can contact DevTeam.Space by letting us know a few of your project requirements. One of our dedicated account managers will explain how we can add value.

FAQs on Leveraging Automation for SaaS Business Growth