4 SaaS Application Development Challenges

With each passing year, Software as a Service (SaaS) is getting more popular than ever. There are ERP software, project management solutions, CRMs, collaboration software, email marketing tools, vertical applications, and more. 

According to a 2017 report, 86% of companies expect nearly all their business apps to be SaaS by 2022. 

No wonder why we are seeing a big boom of SaaS startups nowadays. But developing a profitable SaaS app is easier said than done. You have to overcome several SaaS application development challenges before seeing a good return on investment (ROI). Thanks to the growing complexities, rapidly changing technology trends, market conditions, and more.

Below we have listed the top SaaS challenges that you have to face while developing your solution.   

• Protect Database with GDPR Compliance 

The GDPR restrictions are taking the world by storm together with standard tenants’ protection. Therefore, a secure database is key to building a successful SaaS product. 

But this doesn’t end here. When it comes to American organizations, especially those from the medical industry, you need to take additional steps. For example, you must apply HIPAA constraints to ensure your patients’ data won’t leak. 

The GDPR or HIPAA requirements must be defined and applied in the initial phase to avoid any complications. During the development process, enforce unit and integration tests to ascertain the data access restrictions. 

• Ensuring Zero-Downtime Deployment  

System availability is also a top priority. One of the prominent pain points is that the system isn’t fully accessible when a new version is released.  

Here a seasoned developer can take advantage of a zero-downtime deployment strategy. Simply put, throughout the deployment process, the service remains fully responsive without any lags. 

In traditional systems, the app informs the users about scheduled downtime. In contrast, the blue-green strategy guarantees almost zero-downtime deployment, which makes SaaS more reliable. In other words, the risks of SaaS are way lower than traditional systems.  

• Online Payment Gateway Integration 

Having a payment functionality is a vital part of a SaaS product. Typically, it is accomplished by integrating an online payment gateway. This effort usually has two ends: an easy way and a challenging one. A more straightforward solution to tackle SaaS application development challenges is a payment service that offers excellent support for the integration. 

In contrast, the challenging one is where the developers have to examine the aspects from a technical point of view. Additionally, you also have to analyze the challenges behind the payment integration to develop appropriate application parts. 

This includes services and facades to integrate the online payment system seamlessly.  

• Develop a Fully Customizable System 

Another significant feature of a top SaaS solution is that it is fully customized. Whether you talk about underlying system layers or the interface, everything should be personalized to address the SaaS challenges. 

Of course, the customization is always decided by the client or the product owner. But in certain cases, you have to customize colors, templates, subdomain, layout, and more separately for each tenant. Meeting such requirements is no easy feat. However, if you smartly design them in a lean and agile manner, it will significantly benefit the system in the long run.