Global SaaS Market 2014 – 2018 – Continues to drive growth in Cloud Computing Market

Global Software as Service market is expected US$53 billion by 2018, or 59 per cent of the enterprise public cloud computing market from the current 2013 revenues of US$23.2 billion, according to Juniper Research and also expects the overall enterprise cloud computing market to reach US$90.7 billion by 2018. According to Forrester Research, the total public cloud services market revenues were US$58 billion in 2013, is expected to grow to $72 billion in 2014 and expected to reach US$191 billion by 2020. Software as a Service (SaaS) solutions accounted for $36 billion in revenue in 2013. SaaS market has reached significant maturity levels and well established in several application categories like sales force automation, customer relationship management, human resource management, eProcurement and ePurchasing, replacement of existing licensed software. Cloud platforms, led by Amazon Web Services LLC, with revenues of $4.7 billion in 2013 but traditional IT partners IBM, HP and Microsoft are fast catching up with their own set of offerings and market is becoming highly competitive. The other two segments of cloud computing Platform as a Service (PaaS) and Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) are also expected to continue growth. But these two segments face certain critical issues in terms of data security, compliance and portability. “Both PaaS and IaaS will experience significant growth over the forecast period as new applications, developed specifically for the cloud to harness workloads such as big data analysis, benefit from the PaaS ‘fast-track’ model,” Juniper says.

According to San Diego-based investment firm Software Equity Group, SaaS software revenues will contribute around 25% of the overall software market in the next five years. Research firm Gartner estimated that global spending on SaaS will reach $22.1 billion by 2015. Some software vendors are converting their software delivery and revenue models to SaaS, while others acquire SaaS companies to gain access to this market. SaaS offerings are predominantly based on subscription models where enterprise customers access the software in the cloud by paying monthly subscriptions which is totally different from the traditional software license and maintenance models where customers have to pay large upfront perpetual license fee. With the emergence and development of networking equipment, platforms and access devices like smartphones and handheld devices, SaaS based on subscription model is picking up and customers can easily access data and applications form anywhere, at any time, on any device. Despite this there are certain concerns for CIOs who are not totally adopting the SaaS model as there are security concerns, switching costs, regulatory concerns and also cloud outages and failures too. Adoption of cloud based models is further expected to grow in the next five years as the technologies mature and more applications and services are offered on the cloud. Companies too need to rethink their IT investment strategy as Cloud Computing offers a significant level of cost savings in terms of IT infrastructure investments.

Finance & Accounting Outsourcing Market - Beyond Costs moving to Transformation

According to an article in www.the-outsocurcing .com written by Saranya Sundararaja, Senior Research Analyst at Beroe Inc., the Finance & Accounting BPO market is expected to surpass US$ 25 billion in 2013, and grow at a CAGR of around 8% between 2012 and 2017. The overall Global BPO market is estimated to be US$304 billion and the share of F&A BPO of the total market is 8%. Most of the organizations (75%) have outsourced their FAO mostly termed as P2P (procure to pay), O2C (order to cash) and R2R (record to report). The key factors driving the growth of this market are primarily cost savings (ranging 25% - 40% on current cost base), labor arbitrage (low cost locations labor cost is one third of the developed markets labor cost), efficiency focus, standardization, innovation and innovative technologies. Most of the Fortune 500 companies outsource primarily transactions related to Accounts Payable, Accounts Receivable, Payroll and General Accounting. A growing number of technology companies are leveraging third-party service delivery, with the number of global services agreements rising from 20 per year to 50 a year over the last ten years.  The average length of contract [5 years] and average size of contract ($4.7 million for F&A) is relatively unchanged, according to recent Everest Group research. The largest buyers of FAO services are Telecom, Manufacturing and BFSI, however, in terms of growth, Telecom, Media and Publishing, and Retail are facing highest growth (CAGR of 8-10%).

F&A BPO Market has matured over the years and with the entry of new players like small, medium and large players over the years, the market also has become highly competitive. Most of the F&A outsourcing contracts these days have either outcome based pricing model or gain sharing model where the pricing is tied to achieving certain specific outcomes or goals. Clients are demanding more from the vendors other than cost savings they want the vendors to participate in their business transformation and create significant impact. Financial Planning and Analysis, Budgeting, Forecasting and Internal Audit are some of the processes that are being outsourced to third party vendors which are high risk and high pay in nature. In terms of business transformational activities like Financial Process Consulting, Change management and supporting innovation roadmap, the level of outsourcing has increased by 20% to 25% over the last 3 years, according to Saranya Sundararaja, Senior Research Analyst at Beroe Inc. Another important aspect is the integration of analytics into the F&A BPO where some of the vendors are also offering predictive analytics and other advanced data analytics offerings along with the traditional Reporting to clients as well. Indian BPO Vendors have built significant market share in the F&A BPO market over the years and they now have to build skills or acquire skills that help them in offering high end judgment based services to the clients and move up the value chain.

Global Medical Transcription market continues its growth till 2019 due to Cost Savings

According to Transparency Market Research Report, Medical Transcription market globally is expected to grow at a CAGR of 5.6% from 2013 to 2019, to reach an estimated value of USD 60.6 million in 2019, the market was valued at USD 41.4 million in 2012.  The report classified the medical transcription services based on service types into History and Physical Report (H&P), Discharge Summary (DS), Operative Note or Report (OP), Consultation Report (CONSULTS), Others (Pathology Report (PATH) & Radiology Report (X rays or radiographs)) market. CONSULT reports is largest among all the other reports in the medical transcription services market as these reports are repeatedly produced for single patients undergoing treatment each time the patient visits the specialist. It is expected that the global market fort CONSULT reports will reach USD 21.1 million with the market growing at a CAGR of 3.3% from 2013 to 2019. H&P reports share of overall medical transcription services market has increased as both inpatients as well as outpatients are being maintained both to reduce the risk of reimbursement issues. Outsourcing is the most preferred mode of service procurement in medical transcription as internationally operating healthcare organizations need to efficiently run the operations, reduce costs, maintain up-to-date patient health records, facilitate reimbursement and claims process, and also due to regulatory constraints.

Medical transcription jobs are outsourced to offshore companies and freelancers as the hospitals and healthcare organizations have savings in terms of overhead costs of setting up for in-house department for medical transcription and the staff costs are high compared to low cost countries like India and Philippines where the staff costs will be one third of the cost in United States. United States followed by United Kingdom and Canada outsource medical transcription jobs to low cost countries like India, Philippines, etc. Medical Transcription vendors can handle significant volumes efficiently and maintain the health and medical records without errors will allow the hospitals and Medical professionals to focus on improving the services to patients and also improve the healthcare. With significant changes in the United States Healthcare like Patient Protection and Affordable Healthcare Act, compulsory health insurance and aging populations the market is expected to continue its growth in the next five years. The North America medical transcription services market was worth more than USD 18 million and is expected to grow at a CAGR of over 5% in the forecast period. But Indian Medical transcription vendors are facing severe competition from Philippines, China and other countries as the vendors in these countries with support of government incentives are also bidding for the contracts. Moreover India is losing its labor arbitrage as the cost of living increases. Even the Healthcare payers and providers in the United States are also looking to cut costs due to increase in competition and government regulations.

Procurement & Supply Chain Management Software Market 2013- Strategic Importance

Procurement plays a critical role in cutting costs of acquiring the raw materials and other materials for the company’s operations. Company’s across the globe have automated this process and deployed advanced software technologies to effectively manage their procurement operations there by reducing costs and also surviving in the highly competitive markets. For offering the products and services at the lowest possible price and with good profit margins business managers have realized the importance of strategic sourcing and procurement and deployed software technologies to manage this critical business function. For materials that are high value in nature, whose prices constantly change based on the market conditions and whose availability is also highly competitive as competitors too fight for the same materials strategic sourcing and procurement is critical strategy.

According to Gartner, supply chain management and procurement software market grew by 7.3 per cent to $8.9 billion (£5.27 billion) in 2013. SAP dominated with number one position for more than a decade with a 23.9 per cent market share, growing its revenue by 24 per cent from $1.7 billion (£1.02 billion) in 2012 to $2.14 billion (£1.27 billion) in 2013. Oracle is second in the market with a market share of 16.3 per cent, down on 17.4 per cent in 2012, and revenue of $1.46 billion (£861.5 million), up just 0.1 per cent on 2012. JDA Software remained in third place in 2013 and according to Gartner a “year of transition as it worked through product rationalization and integration of several years of acquisitions and the 2013 merger with RedPraire. Gartner said the market grew because supply chain investments “kept their priority”, even as IT budget managers “remained cautious”. Chad Eschinger, research VP at Gartner, said: “Both influences have impacted strategic planning processes and have resulted in stronger price-based competition and smaller contracts. Cloud and subscription-based pricing is shifting revenue streams and influencing growth.”

Investment in Procurement and supply chain management software will lead to supplier relationship management, reduction in errors and quality issues, efficient and timely supply of the materials, reducing cost, reducing support costs. Even procurement managers using software can improve their productivity, achieve the strategic goals, negotiate efficiently, avoid unnecessary legal disputes and conflicts, manage their work and provide the relevant and necessary reports to the finance teams and top management. Procurement BPO is one of the critical process for the Indian IT & BPO Vendors and companies that outsource this function to third party vendors in India have over the years have seen significant cost reduction. But Procurement BPO market has matured and the companies are looking for vendors who will bring strategic impact to their business not only reduce costs. For doing so the automation and software technologies play a significant role and even Indian IT & BPO vendors are also developing products in this segment.