Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) Transformation

SaaS transformation is a multi-year journey that requires significant organizational change – amid significant market change. Success depends on swift and confident moves. That’s where West Monroe comes in. 

We’ve created a comprehensive and purpose-built approach for guiding transformation company-wide – built on lessons learned and best practices from our extensive work with leading software, hardware, and services companies that have made successful transformations to a SaaS model. 

Our framework for SaaS transformation and marketing strategy considers the changes that must take place across your organization – from defining your offering portfolio, to adapting your sales and go-to-market strategies and delivery model, to retooling your back-office capabilities. We bring outside-in thinking to spark transformation and avoid pitfalls that often inhibit progress. That means you can migrate faster – and begin realizing benefits sooner. 

Results You Can Expect

• Expand the total addressable market by targeting new market segments
• Achieve best-in-class SaaS gross margins of 75% or greater
• Drive towards attractive valuation multiples commensurate with subscriptions businesses
• Reduce churn, increase net retention and customer lifetime value

What We Offer

Develop a sound SaaS adoption strategy and business case

SaaS transformation involves a new economic portfolio and operating model. Armed with insight from our SaaS transformation experience, we help you develop a strategic, financially-driven business case for moving forward with a supporting operating model to drive scale.

Together, we’ll look at market size, growth potential, customer dynamics, key trends, and the competitive landscape to frame your market opportunity and gain internal alignment around targets, timing, operating model changes, and the investments necessary to make the transition. We also assist with establishing a program-specific P&L and modeling capabilities to project revenue and margin based on portfolio evolution. 

Create the SaaS transformation road map

SaaS transformation is a three-to five-year journey, so a thorough plan is a requirement.  Our SaaS transformation framework covers all the bases. We use it to assess operational readiness, identify key gaps, and outline the initiatives required to bring a SaaS portfolio to fruition – prioritized in a road map designed for rapid, efficient transformation.  

We’re firm believers in the value of multidisciplinary collaboration. Our approach makes sure your key functions – product development, finance, sales, professional services, support, cloud operations, and others – are well aligned, guided by a cross-functional steering committee.  

Design your SaaS model for success – yours and your customers’

A successful SaaS strategy requires making the right decisions about packaging, pricing, and policies & practices. We make sure you balance customer orientation with operational requirements—creating a portfolio design that resonates with customers but is not so complicated that it is a burden to run. We design SaaS pricing strategies that reflect both cost structure and value proposition, and product bundles that create effective differentiation across tiers. 

With SaaS transformation, emphasis shifts from the up-front sale to ongoing customer engagement to maximize retention. We design SaaS engagement strategies focused on customer success— helping customers use the platform to achieve business goals by emphasizing efficient deployment, effective support, ongoing user adoption, and value creation. 

Execute the transition to SaaS – efficiently and effectively

We understand the many interrelated initiatives required to bring a SaaS offering to market and come ready with best practices for achieving your target economics. Our team provides experienced leadership and change management for the changes required to:

• Sales and go-to-market models
• End-to-end customer engagement and service transformation 
• Innovation and efficiency to evolve the product road map 
• Digital enablement to enable professional services, support, and success at a larger scale
• Upgrades to quote-to-cash, ERP, and CRM systems

Because the market is ever changing, we make sure you have a process for continuously refining your SaaS transformation strategy and approach based on traction and feedback. 

Finally, we make sure you can manage the complexity of a hybrid portfolio throughout the transition – delivering existing products while introducing a new SaaS model.