This talk was given by Stu Richards, CEO at Bredin at SaaS Connect 2019 in San Francisco, March 26-27, 2019. Get the slides.

What SaaS are small and medium-sized businesses buying? And why? What are the market opportunities for SaaS vendors to sell to these businesses? Bredin reported at SaaS Connect 2019 from their survey of 500 U.S. businesses.

Key takeaways:

  • Business challenges vary by company size. The very small businesses want new customers, small businesses want to hire and retain employees, and mid-sized companies have turned to data security.
  • “The cloud” is a better known and understood term than “SaaS”
  • The most commonly used apps are revenue-generating: analytics, marketing automation, CRM, sales, and video conferencing; followed by based cloud IT services like file sharing, storage, and backup.
  • Businesses plan to invest in analytics, surveys, CRMs, online meetings, storage & backup, and social media management.
  • Smaller companies like being able to access SaaS anywhere and anytime much more than larger companies, who prioritize improved functionality, security and reliability instead.
  • Overall, integrations are the the biggest benefit of cloud software that smaller businesses see. Larger businesses think cloud software is just the better software.
  • The larger the company, the more likely they want to buy through a reseller. 37% of medium-sized businesses prefer buying through resellers or managed service providers.