Pieter Walraven is the co-founder of Pie, a startup building messaging based in Singapore for work.
What do you get when you combine the rapidly growing economies of Asia and the latest trends in enterprise software? A rare opportunity blue ocean.
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A population of over 3.5 billion people, an unprecedented GDP growth, and a huge sector of SMEs, mixed with SaaS freemium models light adoption feeds a new market that is hard to miss.
But unlike the more developed US where corporate IT attracted a record $ 5.4 billion of capital in the first six months of 2014, VCs based in Asia have been slow to jump on the occasion.
Most investors in the region have a development of the traditional economy-related background such as manufacturing, shipping, or off-line retail. Evade scalable, more IT business opportunities focused on technology, the focus has been on areas closer to their comfort zone such as e-commerce, fashion, and retail online .
Driven by a corporate software market explodes and inspired by the most advanced investment strategy investors of venture capital in the United States it is about to change.
Here are 7 trends for which it is worth keeping an eye on mobile SaaS companies in Asia:
1. Cloud + Asia = ♥
It is almost like clouds and emerging economies were made for each other. The ability to quickly scale capacity and pay-for-what-you-use that you develop is exactly what businesses in Asian fast-growing economies with large populations need.
Taking the high cost of initial establishment of the equation also cloud the logical choice to perform operations and launching new initiatives and services on the back of it.
2. Bottom-up adoption
In the past 50 years adoption of software for businesses was top-down, the CIO and IT department determined what software the rest of us have used. This quickly changes to a model of bottom-up adoption that people bring their own device to work and decide for themselves what they want to use.
The change in the purchase decision maker applies mainly to SMEs which contribute up to 59 percent of total GDP in some major Asian countries. But large companies are following suit.
For example, Shell was early to recognize the movement. Its 135,000 employees can bring their own device to work and use the tools they want.
3. experience in consumer
The solutions (BYOD) trend bring your own device resulted in a increased presence of consumer-oriented workplace. Knowledge workers choose services like DropBox, Wunderlist, Evernote, WhatsApp and WeChat beautifully decorated on their heritage - and often clumsy -. enterprise counterparts
In Asia the trend is more extreme because of the lowest median age of the population. In countries such as Indonesia and India, a growing part of the workforce are not familiar with desktop solutions to old. Instead of having to get used to existing tools people rather stick to the applications they know to get stuff done.
For most enterprise teams focused features such as security and integration are not enough to get solutions. The real opportunity lies in the ability to offer enterprise features, as well as the high level equal to the polished design, reliability and speed of consumer applications.
start-up software company that can offer an experience that is on par with high-quality consumer apps have a huge advantage over the competition.
4. Self-service payment
with a pay startups self-service software may start cutting faster and at a much earlier stage of the sales compared to establishment of a sales team first. No time to hire salespeople companies can focus on their product value while serving a global customer base from day expenses.
Self-service opens the way for new software purchase decisions makers bottom-up that now each department head can easily buy their own tools and charges. The low barrier to go is perfect for the young and fast moving SMEs that do not require support with LDAP, Sharepoint, and other integrations to existing systems.
enterprise software companies that offer an intuitive experience were widely disseminated a double benefit because they should not spend so much time on customer support than their traditional counterparts and complex.
5. Mobile-first
With stellar growth in mobile broadband adoption by nearly 50 percent a year, millions of people in Asia are first and primarily access the Internet on their mobile. Asia-Pacific Google blog reports.
"Asia went first mobile This is a future trend, a dim and distant horizon it has happened the last year "
for example in China, 75 percent of all Internet users access the Internet with their mobile device, exceeding the proportion of users who access Internet with a fixed connection. Most of the absorption in the mobile broadband users is taken low (~ US $ 150) and ultra low range (<100 $ US) Android devices.
The first mobile trend contributes to the sharp drop in the PC market because it allows workers to burn the PC era. It transforms the way people work and what tools they use to increase productivity.
enterprise software companies in Asia can take advantage of this opportunity by offering mobile workflow solutions with the low compatibility of Android device range.
6. Freemium: land and expand
McKinsey calculated that SMEs spend more than 30 percent of their budget on web technologies to grow their income nine times faster than SMEs spend less than 10 percent
.Despite the proven benefits of many SMEs in developing Asian markets are skeptical about the ROI of software solutions because they are the first buyers. The freemium model allows them to experience the value before whipping the wallet. This way, the risk of waste - to pay for the tools eventually use - is removed from the equation
.Companies like Yammer, Evernote and Dropbox have proven this model with great success. They allow teams to adopt freely their upward solution and widespread in organizations. Only after confirmation of the request will they deliver to convert businesses to pay users with freemium features.
7. No handicap of a head start
For companies in developed countries previous investment in existing software may delay the move to the cloud. Young companies in developing countries do not have this handicap of a departure. They face costly software licenses and can go directly to solutions of modern cloud computing, hence the name "Leapers cloud."
For software vendors holder time they change too quickly in Asia. Few can follow the dynamics of the rapidly changing market and most are struggling to adapt to the requirements of modern end user.
With a huge pot of business value to win a rare blue ocean opportunity taking shape for startups that fit the needs of the mobile workforce Asian first.
There is a storm brewing for startups SaaS in Asia