8 SaaS apps that are changing the way we do business

Thanks to a growing selection of Software as a Service (SaaS) apps, the mundane yet tedious activities of any business strategy can now be automated. These apps can capture the nuances of a customer’s online behavior while leaving no room for human error — why waste employee man hours on a repetitive process when there’s a game-changing app that’ll do it for you?

These SaaS apps are only getting better and better. I asked a panel of 8 successful young entrepreneurs the following question:

What newer SaaS do you think has the power to change the way we do business soon and why?

Below are their top picks. Which of these do you use, in or out of the office?

1. Infusionsoft and OfficeAutoPilot
There’s a fleet of new SaaS apps like Infusionsoft and OfficeAutoPilot that are allowing small- and medium-sized businesses to play like corporate giants. These all-in-one packages allow businesses to capture leads and track the lead source profitability, automate their repetitive pieces of the sales process for major scalability and use conditional marketing to treat each prospect uniquely.
– Patrick Conley, Automation Heroes

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2. Sociocast

A new startup called Sociocast has recently introduced two updated software products that could potentially change the way business gets done. Sociocast Signal and Sociocast Connect both proclaim to provide more real-time data for users as well as what its CEO calls “actionable intelligence.”
– Andrew Schrage, Money Crashers Personal Finance

3. iPad POS applications

As a consumer, you’ve seen it. At checkouts for your favorite cafés and retailers, you are now signing iPad screens instead of printed receipts. iPad POS SaaS applications are changing the way retailers do business, from the hardware they are using to (more importantly) the decisions they make. These decisions are now based on the increased amount of user-friendly information these apps provide.
– Henry Glucroft, Henry’s / Airdrop

4. Personalization tools

While the industry is still in its early stage, personalization is the frontier of the web and will be a powerful tool for e-commerce and content businesses over the coming years. SaaS solutions will bring these algorithms to sites and apps so that content and commerce can be customized for the end user. Not only will personalization improve conversion rates, but it will also better user experiences.
– Doreen Bloch, Poshly Inc.

5. ToutApp

ToutApp provides email templates and analytics as a service. With inside sales booming and many sales-oriented businesses closing lots of deals via email, it becomes important to not only know what email messages are performing well but also who is reading your email in real-time. I personally love what ToutApp is doing in this space with their simple, easy-to-use product.
– Andrew Montalenti, Parse.ly

6. End-user apps

I believe there is a paradigm shift happening in how business software is selected. It used to be a top-down (CIO, CTO, etc.) decision-making process. However, end users are getting savvier every day, and mobile apps have given them access to more user experiences than ever before. SaaS for business is poised to reinvent itself because the buyers are now the users.
– Chad Halvorson, When I Work

7. Intercom

New tools like Intercom combine CRM, application analytics, custom messaging, marketing automation and support tools. Intercom helps SaaS companies better understand how customers interact with their apps, which allows businesses to optimize the entire marketing life cycle and provide personalized messaging and support at scale — bringing a human touch to digital interaction.
– Clay Hebert, Spindows

8. Dashboard

There are some very interesting dynamics occurring in the startup/funding SaaS space. In particular, Dashboard  is poised to disrupt the way early-stage startups raise money and how early-stage VCs invest. Dashboard was founded by Paul Singh who co-founded 500 Startups with Dave McClure. They are making fast strides toward applying the “Moneyball” approach to early-stage investing.
– Danny Boice, Speek

Image credit: Thinkstock