India poised to become next global SaaS capital

In News: According to a study by Ernst & Young Global Limited (EY) and Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) titled “India: The next global SaaS capital”, India is poised to become the next SaaS capital over the next few years.

• The Indian software-as-a-services (SaaS) market is expected to grow multi-fold by 2025, accounting for almost 7 to 10 per cent of the global market from 2 to 4 per cent currently, said a report.
• The report also stated that according to industry estimates, the market is expected to reach $20-25 billion by 2025 from $4-7 billion in 2020.
• Compared to only 1 SaaS unicorn in 2018, India now has a total of 18, taking the third spot among the largest SaaS ecosystems in the world.
• Further, funding has increased from $2.6 billion to $6 billion in the span of these two years, stated EY.

Software-as-a-services (SaaS)

• SaaS is also known as “On-Demand Software”.
• It is a software distribution model in which services are hosted by a cloud service provider.
• These services are available to end-users over the internet so, the end-users do not need to install any software on their devices to access these services.
• Outlook, Hotmail or Yahoo! Mail are forms of SaaS.

There are the following services provided by SaaS providers –

• Business Services – SaaS Provider provides various business services to start-up. The SaaS business services include ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning), CRM (Customer Relationship Management), billing, and sales.
• Document Management – SaaS document management is a software application offered by a third party (SaaS providers) to create, manage, and track electronic documents.
• Social Networks – Social networking service providers use SaaS for their convenience and handle the general public’s information.
• Mail Services – To handle the unpredictable number of users and load on e-mail services, many e-mail providers offering their services using SaaS.

Advantages of SaaS cloud computing layer

SaaS is easy to buy

• SaaS pricing is based on a monthly fee or annual fee subscription, so it allows organizations to access business functionality at a low cost, which is less than licensed applications.

One to Many

• SaaS services are offered as a one-to-many model means a single instance of the application is shared by multiple users.

Less hardware required for SaaS

• The software is hosted remotely, so organizations do not need to invest in additional hardware.
• All users will have the same version of the software and typically access it through the web browser. SaaS reduces IT support costs by outsourcing hardware and software maintenance and support to the SaaS provider.

Low maintenance required for SaaS

• Software as a service removes the need for installation, set-up, and daily maintenance for the organizations.

Multidevice support

• SaaS services can be accessed from any device such as desktops, laptops, tablets, phones, and thin clients.

Disadvantages of SaaS cloud computing layer

Security

• Data is stored in the cloud, so security may be an issue for users.

Latency issue

• Since data and applications are stored in the cloud at a variable distance from the end-user, there is a possibility that there may be greater latency when interacting with the application compared to local deployment.
• Therefore, the SaaS model is not suitable for applications whose demand response time is in milliseconds.

Total Dependency on Internet

• Without an internet connection, most SaaS applications are not usable.

Switching between SaaS vendors is difficult

Switching SaaS vendors involves the difficult and slow task of transferring the very large data files over the internet and then converting and importing them into another SaaS also.

Source: Business-standard.com

Previous Year Question

Q.1) With reference to “Software as a Service (SaaS)”, consider the following statements: (2022)

1. SaaS buyers can customise the user interface and can change data fields.
2. SaaS users can access their data through their mobile devices.
3. Outlook, Hotmail and Yahoo! Mail are forms of SaaS.

Which of the statements given above are correct?

1. 1 and 2 only
2. 2 and 3 only
3. 1 and 3 only
4. 1, 2 and 3