Interaction - Nilesh Patel, Founder & CEO, LeadSquared

Nilesh Patel is based in Bangalore and provides SaaS based services across the US, West Asia and Africa. Here he talks to us about his work.

What is the difference in the SaaS markets of the US, Africa and West Asia in terms of client expectations?

Nilesh Patel -  Cloud adoption and the SaaS market are growing rapidly and are interlinked in many ways. If we had to compare, we can say that the US market is more mature in terms of Cloud adoption, whereas the Cloud penetration is increasing rapidly in the other markets. Hence, to enter these regions is much easier when they are ready to start or step up in their digital transformation curve. The move from on-premise to Cloud was already happening gradually on a global scale. This accelerated due to the pandemic. In regions such as Africa and West Asia, accessibility to new software applications is also increasing as Cloud adoption rises. There are new programmable resources that the Cloud has enabled today. These are helping businesses to meet their performance requirements better than they did earlier. The trend is clear – the Cloud will drive software adoption at a rapid pace in various parts of the globe.

What are the challenges in operating in the SaaS markets of the US, Africa, and West Asia? How do you meet these challenges?

Nilesh Patel - The first challenge selling SaaS in these markets face is around getting the reach and access to the customers. Discovery of the SaaS companies is partly solved by the online discovery methods, but the customer expectations around being served and supported locally still exists, especially for less tech savvy businesses and must have for large businesses.

 Another challenge in SaaS adaption comes in due to reasons of data security and data privacy. Most SaaS companies run their infrastructure on AWS, Azure or Google Cloud. If these clouds are not present in a respective country then the local regulations may prohibit businesses to buy cloud applications hosted in these mature cloud platforms.

 Partner ecosystem that sells and service cloud products is still in early stages in these geographies. As the adaption increases it will be easy to find resourceful partners in these geographies to drive reach of the products and serve and support existing customers.

What are the different features of ease of doing business for an Indian SaaS entrepreneur in the US, Africa and West Asia?

 Nilesh Patel - The key for any SaaS entrepreneur to enter these regions is to understand the needs of the businesses in that region and decide if your software is relevant for them. The relevance has many aspects – localization of the user front end, specific needs of the businesses, compliance related needs mandated by regulation, etc. It is possible to overcome them by working with partners who understand the regions' policies, business needs and can guide you in addressing them. Also, as an entrepreneur, you must understand that the go-to-market strategies are different for different products, and so is the sales strategy. It is not only important to understand and develop relevant software but also to promote and distribute to the right audience.. 

How profitable is the SaaS business in the US, West Asia and Africa?

Nilesh Patel - SaaS and Automation are paving the way for bettering processes and helping generate real-time insights. These ease the workflow management of businesses today and directly assist them in increasing sales. Pricing in a SaaS business also depends on where the client stands in their digital transformation curve and how much customers are keen to spend to reach the next level in their digital journey. The cost of operations is lesser than their peers based in the US. There isn't any difference between the capability of the teams based in India v/s other regions and the quality of customer service that we provide to customers globally. As far as the profitability of a SaaS business is concerned, I can say clients are willing to pay if the software does fulfill their needs, and it accelerates their performance even across these three markets.