We've been closely following the emerging trends in the SaaS business model. Several of our customers businesses revolve around it and, as most other tech models, it is going through a transformative change. One of the most insightful articles we've read lately about this transformation comes from Techcrunch. On November 13, our good friend and business school classmate, Sequoia partner Aaref Hilaly wrote a story smartly titled "Why the next great SaaS company will look nothing like Salesforce." In it, Aaref points out that the newest crop of SaaS models turns the notion that to be sticky, a SaaS model has to become the "System of Record" (SoR) which used to be "the single source of truth, for customers’ most valuable information, such as customer records or employee data" like Salesforce. He adds that the emerging opportunity for SaaS is to become “Systems of Engagement” (SoE), meaning apps that employees actually use to get their work done" like Slack, one of the most "sticky" business applications, now the most valuable private cloud company according to Forbes.
Check it out here. Aaref's article is quite interesting and goes deep regarding how this new business model for SaaS not only makes sense, it solves the real problem of "creating systems of engagement that get users and revenue, by leveraging data in the systems of record."
