Legacy software in 2025 may become a blocker of future business growth. It is slow in operations, often not flexible enough to allow integration with novel tools, and usually requires a lot of manual interventions that absorb time.
Yet, stuck within rigid business models, modern business owners experience challenges in implementing innovations.
Software-as-a-Service or SaaS business model provides a way out. This article will discuss what SaaS is, what benefits you get when adopting this option, and how to migrate to SaaS in 2025.
Let’s get started!
What Is SaaS?
Software as a Service is a software delivery model in which customers don’t buy or build proprietary software but instead use it on a subscription basis.
Most of the modern software we use, such as Microsoft 365, Apple TV, and Grammarly, is a SaaS product.
The SaaS market attracts investment because it solves many operational challenges: It is projected to generate almost USD 300 billion in revenues this year and possibly exceed $1.23 trillion by 2032. According to McKinsey, market capitalization may reach up to USD 10 trillion by 2030.
Yet, using individual software products for personal or limited needs is not a huge deal. The problem arises when we need to deal with decade-long records of customer shopping history, an e-mail base, etc.
In this case, businesses must integrate their existing databases, ERPs, and CMS with a SaaS offering. Although this is a bit burdensome initially, it has many benefits.
Benefits of Software-as-a-service for Businesses
For SMBs, SaaS is a holy grail of innovation and competitiveness. It allows them to deploy new features and implement enhanced services faster than conventional software while avoiding high upfront costs. Overall, the benefits of SaaS model include:
- Accessibility: As SaaS software models are built on cloud servers, users can access the needed software from anywhere. This is increasingly important in cases when abrupt interference is needed, which isn’t always possible with legacy software.
- Operational management: With SaaS solutions, the provider handles all the maintenance, updates, and licensing agreements with the minimum effort on behalf of the user.
- Scalability: Due to their rigid architecture, legacy software products are not integration-friendly, and building new features requires plenty of time and effort. With SaaS, scalability is often a matter of switching between pricing plans. Moreover, software-as-a-service providers regularly update their feature offerings with techie perks to stay competitive so that users can sleep peacefully knowing they use the most up-to-date service.
- Data storage: As data’s role increases with the widening adoption of AI and machine learning, legacy systems present challenges in providing an adequate basis for data collection and storage. Flexible and secure cloud solutions possess the storage volume and technical possibilities to solve these issues.
- Increased security: Software service providers invest heavily in continuous modernization of their security systems to stay current with evolving cyber threats. Therefore, they have the upper hand compared to legacy systems in providing the best and most robust security solutions.
What is SaaS migration?
Migration to SaaS presupposes transferring software from an on-the-premise solution to a dedicated (single-tenant migration) or shared (multi-tenant migration) server.
Migration to SaaS can be rapid or gradual, depending on the company’s readiness to embrace innovation. The flexibility of the SaaS model opens a lot of space for experimentation—businesses can transfer part of or all of their operations, either rapidly or incrementally.
A company choosing a single dedicated server to move its software and data is often referred to as siloed migration. In another case, companies may select a layered migration model, where services and functionality are transferred incrementally, service by service. This option is perfect for companies wishing to start small with SaaS implementation.
If you select the data migration model, you’ll transfer all the data to the single-tenant or multi-tenant cloud in one move, dealing with most of the on-premise facilities at once. Also, businesses can use the parallel migration model, where operations on the cloud and on the premise are compared for effectiveness.
Whatever model a business chooses, the journey will consist of some general steps.
Key Steps of SaaS Migration
SaaS migration is a complex project that can become complicated without proper planning. In general, a SaaS migration project will go into the following steps:
- Creating a roadmap: At this stage, the business should assess the existing application and draft the best possible way to execute migration using research, analysis, and consulting.
- Building a design: At this step, businesses decide whether they have to completely redesign their existing architecture, database, or codebase. At this point, it is also important to discuss the changes needed in the processes.
- Manage change: It is important to run training so that the team using the new software is prepared to work with it easily.
- Testing: At this stage, it is important to check whether the transferred parts of business operations also work as expected.
- Data migration: Now that all the preparations are complete and the tests show the system’s ability to sustain uninterrupted operation, it’s time to run the migration itself.
Of course, this process is quite often risky and full of underwater currents. Therefore, it is important to find a reliable vendor who can guide you through the migration process in the most ROI-effective way.
Summary
Since the SaaS model offers greater capabilities, lower maintenance costs, and higher security, businesses will increasingly adopt it. The benefits, like reduced costs, higher flexibility, and increased scalability, also increase investor interest in SaaS solutions. This and the high market competition will fuel SaaS providers to implement the newest tech solutions to enhance customer experience. Therefore, the number of SaaS benefits is projected to increase exponentially, and it is a great time to step in!
