From the rapid adoption of generative AI to the ongoing consolidation of a company’s SaaS portfolio and the market, Keith Kirkpatrick, Research Director at the Futurum Group, takes us through his prediction for 2023 and compares it against 2024.
In his Enterprising Insights podcast, Kirkpatrick discusses generative AI, software that adapts to each user (personalization), tech stack consolidation (where you compare multiple tools into one), market consolidation, and the popularity of consumption-based pricing.
He breaks down why these trends are happening and sheds light on why CloudEagle is the preferred SaaS management platform for enterprises. (skip to minute 8:55 to 13:00 in the podcast)
In addition, in his "Rant or Rave" segment, Kirkpatrick doesn't hesitate to share his thoughts about a particular tech player while shedding light on CloudEagle.
Want to hear the full story? Click ‘Read Report’. This article will recap the key points and explain why CloudEagle got a shoutout.
Generative AI Goes Mainstream
Keith Kirkpatrick's first prediction centered around the widespread adoption of generative AI tools by 2024.
As anticipated, what began as experimental pilot projects have now transitioned into full-scale production deployments across industry giants such as Salesforce, Microsoft, ServiceNow, OpenText, and Adobe.
These companies have integrated generative AI for basic content generation and advanced to using it for complex tasks like querying large datasets.
This rapid evolution highlights the growing importance of generative AI in streamlining interactions and enhancing functionality across various platforms.
Emergence of Usage-Based Pricing Models
Another significant prediction focused on the emergence of usage or consumption-based pricing models among software vendors.
While the complete adoption of these models remains a work in progress, notable efforts have been made to completely switch to consumption-based models.
Salesforce, for instance, has introduced generative AI credits within its Einstein 1 platform, adopting a freemium strategy to stimulate usage.
This tiered model offers a certain number of free credits with the option to purchase more. It shows that Salesforce is making an effort to familiarize its customers with generative AI before fully monetizing it.
Consolidation of Technology Stacks
Keith also forecasted a trend toward consolidating technology stacks within enterprises. While some organizations have initiated consolidation efforts, many still evaluate their tech landscapes to identify underutilized applications and streamline operations.
Large organizations are still struggling to consolidate their tech stacks due to the cost and complexity provided by their vast application portfolios.
According to Keith, this is where platforms like CloudEagle have gained traction by offering comprehensive SaaS management and procurement solutions.
CloudEagle has an industry-leading 500+ integrations that enable enterprises to gain feature-level usage insights on applications and individual licenses. Organizations use this data to eliminate redundancies within their portfolio and optimize costs by rationalizing applications.
This trend highlights the gradual adoption of consolidation, where two overlapping applications are replaced using one full-stack solution, with CloudEagle playing a crucial role in optimizing SaaS costs.
SaaS Vendor Consolidation
Despite accelerated SaaS vendor consolidation predictions, Keith acknowledges that this trend has yet to fully materialize.
However, strategic acquisitions, such as Avaya's purchase of Edify and SAP's acquisition of WalkMe, suggest a gradual movement toward consolidation.
These deals highlight the strategic importance of integrating specific capabilities to enhance service offerings.
B2B Personalization on the Rise
Unlike B2C purchases, which often involve a single decision-maker, B2B transactions typically require input from multiple stakeholders, navigate intricate approval processes, manually chase stakeholders, and adhere to industry-specific regulations.
This complexity presents a unique opportunity for businesses to differentiate themselves by providing highly personalized experiences as a selling point. With the rise of generative AI, interacting with and activating this data is becoming easier, streamlining processes and improving efficiency.
For example, AI can automate the procurement process and ensure all stakeholders approve a purchase order before it is finalized.
While acknowledging that this vision is still in its early stages, Kirkpatrick is confident that combining AI and evolving business processes will lead to personalized B2B experiences.
Industry-Specific SaaS Solutions
For his final prediction in 2023, Keith discusses a significant increase in industry—or niche-based approaches to SaaS sales and marketing.
He explains that this trend means SaaS platforms will increasingly offer versions or enhancements tailored to specific industries.
This is not just a possibility but something already in motion. Keith has observed numerous briefings where large, generic platforms are being reformulated or enhanced to focus on particular industries and their unique use cases, spanning fields from tax and accounting to manufacturing, retail, and services.
Keith believes there is a reason behind this shift. Customers aren’t willing to wait for third-party consultants to customize generic platforms, which is often costly, time-consuming, and prone to inefficiencies due to competing stakeholder demands.
The rapid innovation, especially with the integration of generative AI, means companies cannot afford to wait months for software to be tailored to their needs. Industry-specific SaaS solutions enable businesses to adapt and stay competitive in a fast-evolving technological landscape quickly.
CloudEagle's Recognition in the Podcast
In this episode of "Enterprising Insights," CloudEagle is highlighted as the top choice for SaaS management among enterprises.
Keith Kirkpatrick highlighted CloudEagle's pivotal role in driving enterprises' ongoing consolidation of technology stacks.
By delivering comprehensive insights into software usage and optimizing SaaS investments, CloudEagle has established itself as a leader in the industry.
CloudEagle is a SaaS management and procurement platform that helps organizations Discover, Optimize, Govern and Manage their SaaS portfolio.
CloudEagle’s features can be split into four value pillars:
1. Discover
Spend and App Discovery: Thanks to our industry-leading 500+ integrations, you can easily uncover hidden costs and optimize your software stack by identifying unused or underutilized applications.
License Management: Accurately track software licenses to prevent overspending and ensure compliance.
Contract Management: Centralize and organize all your software contracts for easy access and analysis.
2. Optimize
License Harvesting: Use license reclamation workflows to recover unused software licenses. Harvest those licenses and assign them to new users to optimize costs, improve software utilization, and increase ROI.
SaaS Budgeting: Use 100+ detailed spending reports from finance integrations and create accurate SaaS budgets, forecast spending, and allocate resources effectively.
Spend Optimization: Identify unused, redundant, and duplicate applications and analyze feature-level usage insights to optimize applications based on the usage and optimize your SaaS costs.
3. Govern
Self-service App Catalog: Enable your employees to quickly find and access the necessary software, improving productivity and reducing IT support burden.
Employee Onboarding and Offboarding: Use workflows to automate user provisioning and deprovisioning to streamline employee lifecycle management. Your IT teams don’t have to visit each app to grant or revoke access anymore, and they can do it with one click and focus on their tasks.
Access Control and Compliance: Enforce strong access controls and conduct regular reviews to maintain data security and regulatory compliance.
4. Renew
Benchmarking: You don’t have to contact your peers whenever you want to purchase an application. We have a vast database of price benchmarking data compiled from field experts, $2B+ in transactions, and an extensive network of SaaS buyers to provide real-time competitive prices. Compare software pricing to market rates to ensure you get the best deals.
Outsourced Procurement: Do you have a lean procurement team that lacks the time or bandwidth to perform extensive vendor research and negotiate? Outsource your procurement process to our experts, let us handle the heavy lifting of research and negotiation, and secure favorable deals for you.
Renewal Management: Automatically extract contact metadata and create renewal calendars. Send out reminders via Slack and emails 30, 60, or 90 days before the renewal date, and renew your contract on time. No more auto-renewals with CloudEagle.
We have helped customers like RingCentral, Shiji, OysterHR, Rec Room, ICEYE, etc. streamline SaaS management, automate procurement, renewals, and license management, and save millions of dollars in SaaS spend.
Here’s Eric Silver, AVP, Head of Procurement at RingCentral, sharing his success story of how CloudEagle helped RingCentral achieve 3x ROI.
Conclusion
Keith's analysis provides a nuanced perspective on the outcomes of his predictions. While trends like the widespread adoption of generative AI and industry-specific SaaS solutions have clearly emerged, others, such as vendor consolidation and B2B personalization, are still evolving.
As we navigate the remainder of 2024, these insights serve as a valuable roadmap for understanding the dynamic shifts within the software landscape and preparing for future advancements.
If you own a business and are looking to consolidate your tech stack, personalize your procurement process, and optimize your spend, CloudEagle is just a click away.
Book a demo, and our experts will show you why CloudEagle is the best SaaS management platform on the market.
