Google & Accel Partners together released a report which has outlined the growth opportunity for Indian SaaS startups in the global market over the next 10 years.
SaaS is a licensing and delivery model in which software is provided on a subscription basis rather than installed on a customer’s PC.
Is It Time For Indian SaaS Companies To Address Global Needs?
As per the reports, India is likely to become a $10 Billion revenue industry by 2025. It further adds that SaaS products will see hyper growth and adoption by Small and Medium Businesses (SMBs), and will contribute to more than 75% of the public cloud revenues driving the global SaaS industry to $132 Billion revenues by 2020, of which SMB SaaS is expected to reach $76B.
With the demand from SMBs in United States projected to double, and an expected explosion of demand from Europe, Indian startups have the opportunity to grab 8% of this revenue by creating purpose built innovative solutions targeted at SMBs globally.
India companies in past three years have significantly changed the global fulfillment landscape. And, poised to gain a shift with the global demand for such software and India’s shift to mobile platform happening by chance at the same time, with a strong Indian talent pool of over 120000 for mobile applications owing to the fast growth in consumer internet industry.
Additionally, cost advantage of doing engineering in India— which in the past has helped the first wave of Indian tech companies such as today’s top IT services companies in establishing globally— significant number of programmers building software for the mobile-first world in India gives the startups in the India a significant edge.
Online discovery and adoption will increasingly reduce dependence on Feet-on-Street sales.
Monetization Methods
According to the report, these are the new emerging monetization methods:
The report also reveals that though there is global SaaS demand, fulfillment comes from US. But, India has emerged as the potential global fulfillment landscape in the last few years.
By comparing unit economics advantages and current spread of demand fulfillment, the report outlined Customer Relationship Management, Data Visualization, Human Resource Management, Marketing, Healthcare and Education as some key opportunity areas where big global SaaS companies can emerge out of India.
Analyzing the global demand basis the number of searches on Google by region, US with highest demand at 37%, Europe at 26% , 12% in India and 25% in the Rest of the World.
Rajan Anandan, VP & Managing Director, Google Southeast Asia & India said, “Cloud computing is one of the top technology investment trends of this decade with venture funding for purpose-built SaaS solution exceeding $18b in the last four years. Indian startups have an edge, as mobility is also becoming a key requirement by SMBs for SaaS. Our startups are already building world class solutions for the mobile first users, this strength combined with easy access to global customer base online, will help India to become a very strong player in the global SaaS industry.”
The report was compiled by Google & Accel Partners by combining inputs basis primary interviews with SaaS Indian companies across segments, Investors in SaaS, SIs and institutes done in the period (Oct-Dec 2015).
