Intro: Enterprise SaaS Series

Introduction

This series aims to break down the functions of various software companies and explain how customers use them to manage their products. My goal is to simplify the nuanced tech and explain them in a way anyone without a tech background would be able to understand.

Laying out the landscape:

What is SaaS?

Software can be delivered in one of two ways: SaaS and On-Premise (or “on-prem”). For software to be considered SaaS it must meet two conditions, it must be licensed on a subscription basis and centrally hosted. Subscription based means you must pay a monthly (or annual) fee to use the service (think paying a Netflix monthly fee). Centrally hosted means the application is owned by the company, runs on their servers and you can access it using your web browser (as opposed to downloading the program).

Enterprise SaaS can be divided in two ways, horizontal and vertical. Horizontal means dividing software by business function (i.e. payments, supply chain, collaborating and communicating with teams, etc.). Whereas vertical refers to software that targets a specific industry be it the education, financial, healthcare or even business services.

Horizontal Software: Horizontal software has one main job or function and can be used for multiple industries. We will break down each of the following in the future with their own corresponding articles.

• Accounting software
• Billing Management
• Business intelligence
• Business process management
• Content management system (CMS)
• Customer relationship management (CRM)
• Master data management (MDM)
• Enterprise resource planning (ERP)
• Enterprise asset management (EAM)
• Supply chain management (SCM)
• Backup software
• Product data management (PDM)
• Product lifecycle management (PLM)

Vertical Software: The term “Vertical SaaS” refers to software that serves multiple functions but focuses on one type of customer (i.e. a hospital, school, fast food chain, etc.). An example of Vertical SaaS is Mindbody, which caters to gym chains and yoga studios. Mindbody offers software that manages billing and payments for gym members, class bookings and customer sign-ins, promotions, and many more features.

The purpose of the ELI50 Enterprise SaaS series is to help you understand the software landscape. Once you figure out horizontal software and the various job functions then vertical software will be much easier to understand.

*Full Disclosure: Being 50 years old doesn’t mean the person doesn’t know Enterprise SaaS*