A recent article at destinationCRM.com discusses research from AMI-Partners that suggests that the software-as-a-service (SaaS) CRM market is set to undergo double-digit year-over-year growth in the next five years. The research cites four reasons for this:
- Greater availability of broadband internet
- proliferation of wireless-enabled mobile devices
- the economy
- enterprise-class solutions with lower total cost of ownership
What I find fascinating about this is that the association market, from my perspective, is on the front end of this trend. The vast majority of my clients are now choosing SaaS-based systems for their new AMS installations. The reasons cited above are exactly the reasons my clients give me, especially item #4. The simple fact is that there are many SaaS solutions available to the association market offering very good functionality at relatively affordable fees. While there are still plenty of premise-based solutions available, I haven’t seen a new premise-based offering enter this market in years (while several SaaS solutions have).
There’s no doubt in my mind that SaaS offerings will continue to increase their share of the association market.