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The Three Key Themes for XaaS Businesses in 2023

The Three Key Themes for XaaS Businesses in 2023

Businesses of continuous services (XaaS - anything as a service) in 2023 will focus on the growing trend towards introducing new services that provide clients with value and peace of mind. Clever pricing strategies and billing software will drive growth, along with the adoption of Revenue Operations (RevOps) to align departments toward driving revenue growth and operational efficiency. In this blog, I am focusing on three key themes.

The key themes for 2023 for all companies in recurring revenue, or introducing new services:

  1. XaaS trend grows strong
  2. Pricing is a key driver of growth
  3. RevOps opens growth

undefinedThis insight was created by Taija Engman, also referring to the pricing strategist Hermann Simon’s keynote at Good Sign’s annual customer event. 

 

1. XaaS Trend Grows Strong

XaaS trend is growing strong, allowing businesses to introduce new services that provide value to clients, including availability and peace of mind.

For example, clients can access XaaS services anytime and anywhere, without having to worry about maintaining and managing them themselves. They can focus on their core business activities, which ultimately leads to higher productivity and profitability.

On the other hand, for businesses, XaaS services generate recurring revenue streams and foster continuous client relationships, benefiting businesses in the long run.

Overall, the XaaS trend is going strong due to its ability to provide both businesses and clients with value and benefits, such as flexibility, cost-effectiveness, convenience, and scalability, ultimately leading to increased productivity, profitability, and competitiveness.

 

2. Pricing Is a Key Driver of Growth

The right pricing strategy can help a business attract and retain customers, increase market share, and even enable upsell and cross-sell opportunities.

By pricing products or services based on their perceived value to the customer, a business can communicate a compelling value proposition and differentiate itself from competitors.

The most important aspect of pricing is value. Or more precisely, what is the perceived value for the customer.

herrmann simon

Hermann Simon from Simon-Kucher was one of the keynote speakers at our customer event last week. He is a renowned pricing expert and the author of the book "Confessions of the Pricing Man: How Price Affects Everything." In his book and other works, Simon emphasizes the importance of pricing as a strategic tool for businesses to achieve success.

These are some of his key takeaways:

  • The most important aspect of pricing is value.
  • Understand, create, and communicate value!
  • Value delivery and value monetization are at the core of pricing and profit.

Simon's work also stresses the need for businesses to continuously evaluate and adjust their pricing strategy to remain competitive and meet the evolving needs of their customers. He believes that pricing should be an ongoing and dynamic process that is central to a business's success.

These differences in value for different use cases and customer segments, and changes over time, are also one key reason for needing clever pricing and billing software. To enable ideal pricing in a sustainable and scalable way. Today and tomorrow.

Similarly, a SaaS Benchmark Survey 2022, conducted by OpenView, concluded that also the future of SaaS pricing is becoming more complex.

Three out of five SaaS companies now have some form of usage-based pricing. However, not all companies are building usage-based models in the same way. In fact, recent OpenView data shows that hybrid models are winning. Hybrid pricing models include usage-based subscriptions or usage-based-pricing alongside traditional subscriptions. Hybrid models now enable growth as they help win deals and meet customers where they are. 

 

3. RevOps Opens Growth

Revenue Operations, also known as RevOps, is an emerging approach to business operations that brings together the sales, marketing, customer success, and finance departments. 

The goal of RevOps is to align these departments towards a common goal of driving revenue growth and operational efficiency.

revops and growth

The exact origin of the term "RevOps" is unclear, but it emerged around 2017, and the term has since gained popularity and become wider. The customer has been put at the center of RevOps.

The ultimate goal of RevOps is to increase revenue.

The following shows what Forrester and Gartner have for example stated about RevOps in 2021:

  • 57% percent reported that their organizations plan to invest in a RevOps function in the next 12 months. (Forrester, The Rise of RevOps, July 2021)

  • 75% of the highest growth companies in the world will deploy a revenue operations (RevOps) model by 2025. (Gartner press release, May 2021)

I will also quote Salesforce here, as I really value how they have defined the shared goals of RevOps in their guidebook “What is Revenue Operations?” RevOps sets shared goals to:

  • Price for better conversion, margin, and growth
  • Remove revenue leakage
  • Use customer data to identify new revenue opportunities

Pricing and RevOps Call for the Best Billing Software in XaaS Business

Pricing is a key driver for growth, and RevOps opens up growth. Capable pricing and billing software is crucial for XaaS businesses to create and manage the ideal pricing that aligns with customers' value perception, driving growth by increasing customer satisfaction and retention. Additionally, the best billing software also helps businesses track usage data, enabling them to offer personalized pricing plans and optimize their revenue streams.

GS solution for xaas


Watch a video on how our pricing and billing solution can support your growth.

Pricing Billing Monetization with Good Sign-thumb-2-2
Watch now

 

TAKE US TO THE TEST! 

If you feel your billing needs will outgrow your current recurring revenue billing solution, or if you are just curious to learn how Good Sign does things differently, feel free to take us to the test! We help you to create your ideal pricing, bill your customers correctly and transparently and use data to create growth. We will gladly take on your challenge and prove to you it can be done, and that the new world lies beyond just subscriptions. 

 

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