Rapid growth is only great in theory. Many businesses are unable to maintain it in the long run, coming to a halt. That’s why it’s important your growth strategy is optimised to be sustainable, promoting gradual scaling over the period of time. Our article today will explain how SaaS technology is perfect for this purpose.
In our previous article we’ve brought up the point that, despite the popular belief, quick scaling business shouldn’t be a goal. It’s in your best interest to rather focus on a more gradual, slow-paced growth. While it may sound counter-intuitive, unlike instant scaling, it’s a continuous process and long-term results which, believe it or not, will also save you a lot of money. Not to mention, it will help you and your team stay on track with all you do, experiencing no growing pains as you begin tackling bigger challenges.
One thing you need to achieve that is SaaS technology. It’s the trending type of software that won’t need to be replaced every few years for it’s designed to grow with you. Equipped with many features not to just support your progress but to also drive it, it’s an irreplaceable component of any sustainable business growth strategy.
Why is Sustainable Business Growth Important?
Here’s a quick refresher as to why you should prioritise sustainable business growth over rapid scaling:
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You won't overwhelm your teams;
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It allows you to stay true to your values;
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It’s easier to deliver better quality;
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Focus on building relationships with clients;
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You better your processes as you go;
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You control the pace of your growth;
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It saves money;
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It’s a long-term strategy that keeps on giving
And many more, of course. However, benefits may vary from company to company, simply due to differences in structures, goals and other factors. But the above are applicable to everyone, with no exceptions.
Key Benefits of SaaS Tools
SaaS technology wasn’t originally developed to promote sustainable growth specifically, but the growth itself. However, given it’s always evolving and has multiple uses, it has become irreplaceable for long-term scaling strategies. Below, we will explain why.
Easier Internal Communication
The key to sustainable and gradual growth is fluid communication within the team. We aren’t talking about verbal communication only, mind. Although it is just as important as sometimes an IM message is a quicker way to reach a solution than an email. If you’re working in a hybrid environment, it’s especially important to make sure your teams have an outlet to meet virtually, utilising both voice and video chat features.
But the type of communication we mean and which is achievable using SaaS technology is the creation of smoother collaboration experiences. It removes bottlenecks that occasionally occur in different stages of handovers. Most solutions will smoothly pass the task along to the party at the next step once the former one is completed, notifying them it’s time to take over. Additionally, most solutions also come with shared workspaces and document storages where team members can collaborate in real-time and easily track changes implemented.
Automated Workflows
This is the continuation of the above section for the best way to achieve the described processes is through introducing automation to existing workflows. The handover procedure we’ve discussed above is one of such. However, automation can also be used for completing tedious, repetitive tasks such as invoicing, chasing up team members who haven’t finished their part as the deadline nears, and many more. Often times the specific parts of the process you can automate will depend on the vendor and the platform’s capacity.
As your business grows, you will most likely automate more and more. First of all, the need to automate usually comes with increased volumes of work. Secondly, you will also be collecting data through automation, which will point you in the direction of further optimisation and improvements. That said, keep in mind that not every process can be fully automated, however, every process can have at least a couple of elements handled by the machines. Such processes are what form an automated workflow, ensuring they are all interconnected and working toward the same big goal.
Designed to Help You Grow
Most of the modules within SaaS solutions grow together with you. What’s more, their aim is to help you grow as well. The more you use the software, the more opportunities to optimise, improve and scale it reveals to you.
Analytics and Reporting
There is no need for us to harp on how important data is for businesses to understand how they are doing and what direction should they be moving in. SaaS technology is a goldmine when it comes to easily accessing the said insights. Most platforms greet you with dashboards upon logging in, displaying the key information you need to provide an instant overview of how things are going. The majority of the time, it’s up to you what key information gets displayed, in what details and what time frames are covered.
Within every solution, you will find a reporting module too, designed to give you deeper insights. The data you put into the tool, the data it collects as it runs processes, as well as the data gathered from integrations and overall usage - all will be crunched into visual, digestible reports within minutes. How in-depth these reports are or how much control you’ve got over them will depend on the vendor.
Easy Expansion of Functionality
As you grow, you will be growing out of your software - which is perfectly normal. However, given SaaS technology is the most modern approach to business tools, it has been designed keeping in mind efficiency gaps from earlier software practices. Having to look out for new tools once you reach a certain point in your growth is one of them. That said, SaaS tools grow with you instead of limiting your growth.
There are two types of expanding your tool’s capacity. First is the additional features and upgrades provided by the vendor. Usually, they are available for an additional fee. These are identical options available for all the users of the tool. The second is integrations, which is your opportunity to customise and create new, unique workflows. SaaS technology is created to be stacked, meaning it’s usually easy to link different solutions to transfer data among each other. Often this unlocks many new features and the setup is controlled by the user.
Get Your Money’s Worth
SaaS technology is usually available on a subscription basis and, if you are using multiple tools, it can get very pricey soon. Some may argue you shouldn’t skimp and choose cheaper solutions, but is that the right approach?
Expensive Does Not Equal Good
We are wired to believe that the more expensive the tool is, the more features it will have and the better the customer support will be. It’s time we free ourselves of this delusion. The SaaS market is currently so saturated the vendors have no luxury of charging too much, especially if they don’t have a wide user base yet. Therefore very often you can find top-tier software for a very competitive price.
Timesheet Portal is one of them. Not to toot our own horn, but our platform is very features-riddled, ranging from time-tracking to employee onboarding and many more. However, we also understand not every user will need the full variety, and hence instead of selling pre-set packages, we give you the opportunity to choose the features you need and in what capacity. This way you will only pay for what you and your team are using. And when the time comes, we will be happy to upgrade you. Not to be worried if things don’t go as planned either - downgrading is just as easy.
Summary
If you want your business to continuously grow and scale, you must ensure your strategy is optimised for sustainability. Rapid scaling is romanticised in the business world, but the reality is that very few companies can keep the ball rolling. The best way to achieve that is to employ SaaS technology as it offers a range of benefits.
First of all, they bring your internal communication to the next level by providing a transparent and accessible collaboration platform to all your team members, no matter where they are. They also present the opportunity of automating workflows, making processes such as handovers much smoother. What’s more, the said workflows collect data you can later analyse and act upon. There’s little to no limit when it comes to your automation options too as SaaS technology is created to be stackable using integrations, which can unlock new features. For a competitive price too.
Sounds tempting? Start exploring with us.
