Meanwhile, SaaS was quietly becoming part of everything. Email, office productivity, CRM, analytics, security—if you examine the typical enterprise software landscape, most are SaaS solutions. They require no infrastructure decisions, little maintenance, and are often purchased by business units rather than IT. Many see SaaS simply as “apps” rather than part of the cloud industry. This semantic gap, along with the technical appeal of building and managing IaaS, explains why SaaS isn’t a main focus in most cloud-first conversations—even though it makes up the majority of cloud spending.

Enterprises often invest heavily in developing or migrating custom applications to IaaS or PaaS platforms, handling everything from storage and security to scaling and updates. Yet, many of these investments are unnecessary when a ready-made SaaS solution can address the same business needs more quickly and with less risk. The real question for enterprises isn’t how to architect something on the cloud, but rather, can they find a SaaS solution that already exists.

SaaS offers more than just plug-and-play convenience. These solutions are engineered for out-of-the-box scalability, compliance, and integration, allowing organizations to focus resources on the unique aspects of their business. The hidden cost of custom IaaS solutions isn’t just measured in price, but also in time to value and complexity. In a competitive environment where speed and responsiveness prevail, leveraging the best-in-breed SaaS for HR, finance, analytics, or compliance gives enterprises an agility edge.