Description

In this episode of SaaS Connect by Cloud Software Association, Herman Man, VP of products and partnerships (Americas) at Xero at the time of this presentation and now chief product officer at BlueVine, talks about cloud and services and how SaaS can enable the success and transformation of SMBs.

Xero, cloud accounting software, is very focused on small businesses and looks particularly at how to be the bridge that helps make small businesses successful. It’s helped more than 1.2 million small businesses and boasts more than 600+ integrations.

At Xero, when they talk with small business owners, they are always presented with two primary questions:

1. Will my business survive?
2. How do I actually grow my business?

These are valid questions because statistics show that after five years, only 50% of businesses survive.

Herman addresses how SaaS can help SMBs not only survive, but thrive. The discussion includes:

• Why small businesses matter (95% of companies in the US are small businesses).
• The SaaS SMB experience to date has not been ideal. Small businesses have had to contend with aging software, poor user experiences, and disjointed app experiences.
• Fintech entered as a way to innovate financing and banks but has not solved the problem because it's difficult for small businesses to acquire new customers, generate trust, and handle regulations such as GDPR.
• Keys for SaaS to address SMB concerns:
  • Simplify financial management.
  • Connect apps to make it easier for small businesses. Simplify workflows by connecting apps.
  • Automate accounting.
  • Integrate accounting with banking.
  • Enable better access to capital.
  • Create interoperability through standards.

Teaser Tip: “To enable small businesses, we in SaaS need to build the interconnectedness between the apps that they use.” - Herman Man

Resources Mentioned:

• Slack 
• Microsoft
• Featurly
• Veem

This presentation is from a SaaS conference in 2018.

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