According to Gartner research, software as a service (SaaS) revenue is forecast to grow consistently through to 2013 with worldwide SaaS revenue reaching over $14 billion for the enterprise applications market. This is a growth rate of close to 18% year-on-year, from a 2008 revenue of less than half that figure.
Online Customer Relationship Management (CRM) growth has been forging ahead at for many years with almost 24% of the total CRM market segment falling in the SaaS camp in 2009, according to Gartner. And Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), traditionally ‘back-end’ software for organisations, was the third largest SaaS revenue generator in 2009! Who would have predicted that 10 years ago?
The question that we keep hearing is “are people comfortable managing their company books online”? Will small businesses turn to the web to run their accounts? There still seems to be a lot of concern around this very topic – even in mid-2010.
Our obvious response to this is that people are already doing just that. In fact, people are now turning to online accounting options in droves! Vendors like Xero, FreshBooks, Kashflow, Clearbooks and Saasu have been reporting significant levels of growth in the past few years. A couple of these vendors now proudly supporting in excess of 50,000 customers! I dare say, the jury is already out on that one…
Software Shortlist recently launched our Independent Accounting Software Review Pack, which showcases 10 leading small business accounting software products. This covers all of the major accounting software solutions, including the up-and-coming online offerings. Our expert has taken an independent view of these offerings, defining feature mappings, giving star ratings by dimension, and writing detailed reviews for each product. We have this Review Pack available as a FREE download on our website, but only for a limited time.
A quick glance of this document will give you a good appreciation of how this landscape is changing. Whatever your feeling is on this topic, rest assured that that accounting software industry for SMBs is going to look totally different in 5 years from now!
