This is a wild time for enterprise software. At this very moment, we’re sitting at the intersection of several major trends, each one of which could be transformational, but collectively, they present the opportunity for a generational step forward.

Those trends:

1. The stampede of enterprise data to the modern data clouds
2. The popularity of no-code applications to empower business users
3. The collective embrace of process automation to increase productivity
4. The breakout of AI from concept to mainstream

For many of the legacy software companies out there, this is a scary time. They’ve built their empires on antiquated technologies. Each of these trends represents a risk that they’ll be left in the dust.

For the modern SaaS company that’s built natively in the cloud with a user-first, data-first approach, there couldn’t be a more exciting time.

Here’s some perspective on each of these trends, and why they’re so impactful.


The stampede of enterprise data to the modern data clouds
As of 2022, 60% of corporate data is now in the cloud. That’s up 2x since 2015. In the past, without data, there’s only so much that software can do. Data is basically the fuel for insights, automation, and AI. Moreover, it’s not just that more data (ie fuel) is becoming accessible via the cloud, but modern datastores are also providing better engines to use that data. Snowflake, for one, boasts that it “supports a virtually unlimited number of concurrent users and queries with near-unlimited, dedicated compute resources.”

With more fuel and better engines, SaaS companies designed to use data in the cloud – meaning, those companies with cloud-native architectures – are primed to go mock speed.

The popularity of no-code applications to empower business users
It’s great that software solutions are becoming more powerful, but that only matters if business users have access to the capabilities. Technology teams, who’ve traditionally been relied upon to administer all software capabilities, are increasingly taking on the mission of making capabilities self-service to the business users. The easiest way to do that is with no-code software platforms.
Most companies (53%) are now implementing low-code or no-code solutions, and citizen automation development platforms are expected to grow 25% and 30%, respectively, in 2023. Gartner predicts that by 2026, developers outside formal IT departments will account for at least 80% of the user base for low-code development tools, up from 60% in 2021.

The collective embrace of process automation to increase productivity
Again, we have two combining trends creating a catalyst for major change. The first, the availability of data as we already discussed, is making process automation possible like never before. With the access to data, and the ability to process that data in real-time, software has the appropriate precedents and context to run common business processes without human intervention.

Second, is the historically low unemployment rate. With fewer available workers, the ROI of automation isn’t just appealing, it’s actually required.

As a result, 97% of organizations now believe the business process automation is critical for digitization, and the market is expected to grow 4.5x from 2020 to 2026.

The breakout of AI from concept to mainstream
There’s already been so much recent hype about AI, we don’t need to pile on. The key here is that AI use cases are no longer fringe, but they are in fact mainstream. The rails for applying insights, recommendations, and decisions automatically are pragmatic and well-defined. Every innovative SaaS company is adopting AI use cases to drive user value. That is, every SaaS company with a modern architecture flexible enough to adopt breakthrough capabilities,