SaaS Provider Handbook: Introduction

SaaS Provider Handbook:

How to Make Your App

Enterprise Ready
...............................................................................................................................

Enterprises are adopting more and more SaaS Applications. However

many SaaS apps are not enterprise-ready; their APIs are not well
documented, nor do they work easily with third party applications - either
on-premise or in the cloud. SaaS applications that do not hook into
existing systems, lack stickiness and can be easily replaced with another
SaaS solution, increasing customer churn rates for vendors, and lowering
monthly recurring revenue, impacting overall key performance indicators.
This brief how-to-guide will give you insight into key technology trends
impacting Enterprise customers, and provide best practices from both a
product, sales and marketing standpoint to repeatedly land and expand
within these accounts.

About MuleSoft
MuleSoft provides the most widely used integration platform to connect any
application, data service or API, across the cloud and on-premise continuum.
Supporting billions of transactions per day, MuleSoft is used in production
by global leaders in major industry verticals, including Walmart, MasterCard,
Nokia, Nestl and Honeywell, and powers integrations with leading SaaS
vendors such as salesforce.com, NetSuite, Workday, Intuit and Box.

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SaaS Provider Handbook: Contents

Table of contents
...........................................................................................................................................

Trend Spotlight:
Top Technology Waves impacting the Enterprise

How-to guide
Step 1 Understand the end-to-end business process your application supports
Step 2 Identify complementary third party applications
Step 3 Make your SaaS application Plug and Play
Step 4 Simplify the customer buying process and user experience

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SaaS Provider Handbook: Trend Spotlight

Trend Spotlight:

Top Technology Waves impacting

the Enterprise

.............................................................................................................................................................

Connect SaaS to Win. Enterprises focus on connecting applications,

devices and data silos to create a competitive advantage.
The mega-trends of SaaS, mobile and Big
Data are converging to create a
massive new wave of business
opportunity for Enterprises. Its no surprise
that by 2020, IDC predicts SaaS adoption
to exceed $140 Billion as more mission
critical applications such as CRM and
ERPs are moving to the cloud. In addition,
devices such as smart phones and tablets
will soon outnumber traditional laptops
and desktops connecting to the internet.
The adoption of both SaaS and mobile
devices either through IT buying centers
or shadow IT has created a massive
fragmentation of information and business
process in the Enterprise. While SaaS and
mobility are disruptive trends
independently, what is related, and
creates even more urgency for
Enterprises is the emergence of open
APIs.

..........................................................................

There is massive buzz around

SaaS, mobile and Big Data,
but the secret nobody talks about is
that Enterprises cant make any of it
work without connectivity.

Ross Mason, Founder and VP Product Strategy, MuleSoft

..........................................................................

Since 2008, open APIs have seen

explosive growth in the market. From
2010 to 2011 the number of open APIs
doubled from 3,000 to 6,000. Now in
2013, there are nearly 14,000 public APIs.
APIs, application programing interfaces,

are the core technology that enables

cloud based and on-premise
applications, in addition to mobile
devices, to exchange information and
interact with other systems.
Leveraging these technology trends
Enterprises are free to not only select a
best of breed application, but can more
easily streamline their internal business
processes to engage more closely with
customers. Orchestrating real-time
information sharing and process
automation gives organizations the
ability to differentiate their product or
service from the competition unlike ever
before. This connectivity creates a gap
so large in delivery, even the most
talented engineering teams would
struggle to keep up at such a pace.
Consider the airline that provides mobile
check-in and mobile boarding passes,
or the retailer who provides check-out
through an associates mobile device. In
order for each transaction to take place,
the applications and devices
supporting that process must share
information almost instantaneously,
otherwise the service fails.
Welcome to the new era of
hyper-connected applications and
devices. May the most connected, easy
to use SaaS application win mind-share
(and wallet) within the new Enterprise.

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SaaS Provider Handbook: Trend Spotlight

SaaS Adoption
$180 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Source: Forrester Research

$160 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

iPaaS

$140 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - $120 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - $100 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - SaaS

$80 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - $60 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - $40 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - $20 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

PaaS

$0

IaaS

2008

2009

2010

2011

2012

2013

2014

2015

2016

2017

2018

2019

2020

Mobility
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Source: Gartner, Inc.

illion
1.6 b
ices
e dev

Tablets

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

l
mobi

2013

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -b
- -y- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Smartphones
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Laptops

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Desktops

2007

2008

2009

2010

2011

2012

2013

2014

Open APIs

3 months

6,000 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 4 months

Source: Programmable Web

5,000 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 6 months

4,000 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 9 months

3,000 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 18 months

2,000 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 8 Years

1,000 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

0
2000

2001

2002

2003

2004

2005

2006

2007

2008

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2009

2010

Share :

2011

SaaS Provider Handbook: Step 1

Step 1:

Understand the end-to-end business

process your application supports

....................................................................................................................................

Regardless of who purchases your application - Line of Business or IT- it

is either the main character, or supporting cast member in your customers
production.
Understanding the end-to-end business process your application supports,
and how your application plays a role is key to assessing the criticality of
your solution to your customer. The more ingrained you are in the business
process and in the collection and storage of data, the less likely a customer
will be to switch from your solution to another.
Unfortunately for many enterprises, very few SaaS providers think about
their application in terms of the business processes they support, and as
a result do not connect their application to complementary or neighboring
apps. As a result, creating the connectivity layer - or app gap - falls into
the lap of the customer. This means that your customer will be forced to
manually integrate each application within the business process on their
own, increasing the overall cost of your application, and slowing time to
value.

Gartner Application Integration predictions for 2016- 2018

Source: Gartner Predicts 2013: Application Integration, Published: 14 November 2012
....................................................................................................................................................................

by

2016

Midsize to large companies will spend 33% more on application

integrations than in 2013.
Integration of data on mobile devices will represent 20%
of integration spending.

....................................................................................................................................................................

by

2017

....................................................................................................................................................................

by

2018

More than 50% of the cost of implementing 90% of new large

systems will be spent on integration

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SaaS Provider Handbook: Step 1

Sample business processes by application type with

common integration challenges
Application
Type

Human
Resources

Common Customer
Integration Challenges

Common Customer
Business Processes

Acquire new talent

Migrate data from legacy HR

systems in batch or real-time

Onboard new employees

Synchronize data between

recruiting and other ATS
applications

Retain top talent

Off-board existing employees

Streamline I9 Approval Process

Synchronize employee personal
and compensation information
between payroll, and expense

Employee
and Customer
Collaboration

Sharing of information and

assets between internal teams
Sharing of information and
assets between customers and
community members

Perform one way sync from

existing on-premise document
repository to cloud repositories
Create bi-directional sync
between PLM, project
management and CRM
applications
One way synchronization
between on-premise applications
and mobiles devices

Finance

Create an end-to-end order

management process
order-to-cash

Seamless synchronization of
invoice, payment, and order
details

Connect ecommerce
applications and systems

Synchronize services across

clients, providers, and core
eCommerce platforms

Quickly onboard new partners

and integrate into new shops
Extend ecommerce platform to
customers, partners and
suppliers

Connect applications & systems

such as Warehouse, SEO,
advertising, shipment,
and CRM
Integrate an order management
system with an external Web
Service
Integrate eCommerce site,
order management, CRM and
ERP systems

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SaaS Provider Handbook: Step 1

Application
Type

Marketing
Automation

Common Customer
Business Processes

Identify market opportunities

Drive awareness and
engagement with prospects
Build pipeline for sales
Accelerate the sales cycle

Common Customer
Integration Challenges

Aggregate buyer research data

from multiple survey sources
Connect marketing and social
media and collaboration tools
Connect google Adwords, email
marketing and inbound
marketing, event marketing,
fundraising activity responses to
Marketing Automation platform
Synchronize leads within
demand generation tools with
CRM systems in batch or
real-time

CRM

Reach new prospects

Create closed loop follow up
process for leads
Provide a single place for
tracking opportunity data
Analyze pipeline to quickly
identify bottlenecks in
sales cycle.

Migrate data from legacy CRM

systems (one time, batch or
real-time)
Synchronize product catalog with
Connect lead database to sales
campaigns
Streamline contract signing and
negotiation
Convert opportunities won to
orders and invoices
Import invoice/ payment info from
sales
Connect direct sales CRM to
renewal platforms
Gather data from marketing and
CRM platforms to analyze
customer buying process, time
and conversion rates by stage

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SaaS Provider Handbook: Step 2

Step 2:

Identify areas to expand your application

to increase customer value
..........................................................................................................................................................

Youve successfully developed the best in class application in your space,

that is central to your customers business process. Congratulations The order forms are likely pouring in! Now, how do you keep your
customers from churning?
One of the primary ways SaaS companies
provide additional value to their customers
is through adding additional product
functionality. This has traditionally be
done by building the related features into
your core platform, acquiring companies,
or through partnerships with other best of
breed software providers. With the
emergence of SaaS, mobility and open
APIs, SaaS providers now have the
opportunity to also extend their business
through their API.
Today we see a spectrum of companies in
the SaaS Marketplace looking to capitalize
on these technology trends. Companies
range from niche best of breed
functionality such as SurveyMonkey and
HootSuite, to all in one vendors that
provide functionality across a customers
end to end business process, such as
Salesforce.com.
Regardless if you are a niche best of
breed or a all-in-one application provider,
there is a connectivity gap of information
and business processes between your
solution and existing customers
gap - the SaaS provider, their partner

ecosystem or the customer? Some of the

most successful SaaS companies in the
market have focused on simplifying and
enabling third parties to use their API.
SaaS providers that make discovery of
and development to their API easy, simple
and accessible to customers and partners
are more likely to secure new customers,
partners and retain existing clients.
Spotlight: Amazons Product Advertising API
pioneered a new business model.

to create widespread industry buzz

and adoption for open Web APIs APIs
that are publicly accessible for most any
developer to use. The big reversal with this
API is that, rather than Amazon choosing
its business partners, Amazon let its
business partners choose it. This resulted
in Amazon having an embedded presence
on websites across the Internet. From the
start, the API has been available via REST
and SOAP. Amazon does not provide
current usage numbers, but as early as
2003, the company stated that 85% of API
calls were through its REST API. Since
then, APIs from Facebook, Twitter, Google,
and other major players have expanded
their businesses and driven industry
innovation with APIs.
Excerpt from Forrester report: Establish Your API Design Strategy
by Randy Heffner, June 11, 2013

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SaaS Provider Handbook: Step 2

Where do you fall on the SaaS provider continuum?

Market Awareness and Demand Gen: Best of Breed Vendors

Customer Lifecycle: Salesforce.com

Not sure where to extend your application to?

PRO TIP

Leverage user surveys to assess and prioritize customer integration needs

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SaaS Provider Handbook: Step 3

Step 3:

Make your SaaS application

Plug and Play

......................................................................................................................................

To enable third parties to use your application, you need to make

your API as simple as possible. One of the biggest oversights
by SaaS and API providers, is understanding that the customer
application can make an impact in their environment. What is
your API capable of? What are the limitations? What is the fastest
path to value for the consumer? The best way to accelerate
adoption of your application and reduce barriers in time to live, is
to enable easy plug and playability of your application.
Plug: Is the API of your application designed to support the business
processes and use cases of your customer? Can you allow third
parties to connect to your application preserving your IP while at the
same time extending your business model to allow an ecosystem to
be built around you?
Takeaway:
guidelines so it is easy for consumers of your application to easily
extend it. Identify the key business processes that you support with
your application and be explicitly clear in communication of this in
your API documentation.

Play: Does my application provide the necessary hooks and

supportability through a modern, adoptable and easy to on-board
APIs that will attract and delight developers?
Takeaway: Ensure you follow best practices when publishing your
API and that the necessary tools and technologies to support
integration to your API are readily available.

These Enterprises are also API providers

DID YOU
KNOW?

Source: Forrester, Establish Your API Design Strategy by Randy Heffner, June 11, 2013

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SaaS Provider Handbook: Step 3

APIs in Action

Pharmaceutical Enterprise
Customer Case Study
......................................................................................................................................................

Goal: Create a 360 view of the customer, accessible from a mobile device
Business Owner: VP of Marketing

api
api
api
api
api

api

api

api
api
api

Business Initiatives

Create a 360 degree view

of the customer to help
increase revenues
Make information
accessible globally via
multiple channels: eg.
Web, Social, Mobile
devices
Lower costs & streamline
processes

Barrier to Success

Applications Used

Customer Web Portal:

Drupal
CRM: Salesforce.com
Campaign Management:
SAP, Marketo

Data silos, individual

solutions & point-to-point
integrations
Existing application set
did not connect to SaaS
and mobile devices

Registration & Validation:

Janrain, Ping Identity

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SaaS Provider Handbook: Step 4

Step 4:

Simplify the customer buying

process and user experience

...................................................................................................................................

From the moment you engage a customer- the beginning

of their buying process to the user experience within your
application- having a simple, seamless experience will be
critical to not only winning, but retaining customers over time.

Best Practice

Product

Sales &
marketing

Offer a pre-built, packaged

integration options for
customers

Unlock new markets with

integration as an add-on to your
existing offering

Provide customers with

complex requirements a path
to customization (eg. offer
pre-built integration templates
with access to a knowledgeable
partner to assist in
implementing the customized
requirements)

Focus your resources on your

applications core engineering
needs, expanding intellectual
property and product
differentiation

Offer integration as a feature or

add-on to your platform

Impact top line revenue by

up-selling existing customers
with integration as an add-on

Sell pre-built, packaged

integration through your
existing sales team

Services &
support

Business Impact

Provide packaged integrations

that require no coding, only

Provide sticky, best in class

SaaS applications and mitigate
risk of competitive
displacements
Reduce customer onboarding
efforts and support inquiries
related to integrations

Have the ability to quickly

diagnose and troubleshoot
integrations versus those
related to your app

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SaaS Provider Handbook: Conclusion

Conclusion

..................................................................................................................................

To successfully land and expand in the Enterprise your application

must have a simple, easy to use and well documented API that
works with existing applications and systems.
If you are ready to engage with a SaaS integration expert, MuleSoft is
here to help. MuleSoft powers integrations for leading SaaS companies
such as such as salesforce.com, NetSuite, Workday, Intuit, Box and
many more.

Learn more about MuleSofts SaaS partner program or contact us

to discuss your integration needs today.

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SaaS Provider Handbook: About the Authors

About the Authors

................................................................................................................................................

Sumit Sharma
Director & GM of ProgrammableWeb & APIhub, MuleSoft
Sumit Sharma is passionate about APIs and the power of connectivity.
He brings over 10 years of cloud and enterprise integration experience
to MuleSoft where he is responsible for API Solutions, including APIhub,
the worlds leading API publishing and consumption platform. Prior to
MuleSoft, Sumit was at Nebula, an OpenStack based IaaS private cloud
system provider; and prior to that he was a leader of the Cloud practice at
Deloitte where he pioneered the global cloud computing center of
excellence.

Dan Diephouse
CloudHub Product Management, MuleSoft
Dan Diephouse helps companies connect everything together: cloud
services, applications, databases, mobile devices - hell even help
connect your toaster or refrigerator. He brings over 12 years of experience
in integration and middleware to his role as product manager of Mulesofts
integration platform as a service, CloudHub. Previously, as a software
architect, he co-founded Apache CXF, a popular open source web
services framework, helped shape Mule, the most popular open source
ESB, and consulted with many of the worlds top companies around their
integration problems.

Katie Burton
Partner Marketing, MuleSoft
Katie loves SaaS and loves the channel. She brings over 7 years
experience in enterprise software and SaaS marketing to MuleSoft
where she manages the recruitment and enablement of leading SaaS
provider and System Integrator partnerships. Prior to joining
MuleSoft Katie held various roles in enterprise software lead generation,
campaign marketing, solution marketing and product marketing. Katie is
an expert in aligning marketing activities to customer buying process
including but not limited to sales enablement, marketing programs and
product positioning.

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