2020 SaaS revenue is forecasted to be $157 billion; but with coronavirus pandemic, we can be sure to see a significant dip.

But for some verticals within SaaS, Covid is the catalyst they have been waiting for.

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In June last year, the enterprise SaaS revenue hit $100 billion run rate (and hence the gif below – no pun intended :P)

It closed 2019 at $141 billion.

Nearly half the #market is controlled by just five orgs:

Microsoft 17%
Salesforce 12%
Adobe 10%
SAP 5%
Oracle 5%

If you thought the SaaS revenues are incredible – it is not just yet.

SaaS has been maturing for over two decades now. So this is not its best yet.

SaaS revenue accounts for just 20% of the overall enterprise software market. So it still has a long run way.

Also SaaS’ growth rate is lower than that of IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service) and PaaS (Platform as a Service).

While the revenues of a lot SaaS business are impacted in the short-term, for some the pandemic is acting a catalyst they have been waiting for.

Take Digital Adoption Platforms like Whatfix* that provide in-app guidance to applications like Salesforce. Suddenly everyone’s working from home and now more than ever the end users and the management feels the need for an app that could cut down tickets raised or the new employee onboarding time and have users navigate applications by themselves without waiting on someone to tell them how.

For Whatfix, educating the market for the need of such a productivity booster has always been part of prospecting. Now the tables might have slightly turned. The end user has felt the pain firsthand and is more open to the idea of hopping onto a demo to see the product in action.

2020 SaaS revenue is forecasted to be $157 billion; but with the coronavirus pandemic, we can be sure to see a significant dip in many SaaS business and for some SaaS businesses, this year is going to be the best in their histories.

Rest assured that the long-term prospects of SaaS businesses have greatly improved with the pandemic. What was pipeline revenue for 2020 is not lost – it just became the pipeline for 2021/22 until budgets are back. And we should see the enterprise sales cycles come down visibly in the long run, if WFH is here to stay.

*at the time of posting this blog, I am employed by Whatfix