The Healthcare industry's adoption of SaaS software for various reasons in the past decades once used to be called hosted software services. The healthcare industry has started increasing the adoption of those services with the advent of off-the-shelf software that is more secure, easy to deploy, and reduces capital expenditure. SaaS is dominating the healthcare industry worldwide, and we see that it only continues to grow at a rapid pace in the next few years. We believe that Healthcare SaaS will adopt a Product Led Growth strategy to penetrate the under-served market and grow significantly in the markets that currently have adoption in pockets. 

Here are some areas that we believe will help Healthcare SaaS companies to scale using a Product Led Growth strategy. 

• Cybersecurity: The need for Security in Healthcare is much more significant in the new world, where Public Cloud is used heavily for hosting SaaS solutions. Healthcare organizations need security solutions to mitigate risk-based threats to their assets when they leverage SaaS solutions. The complexities are increasing rapidly. Most Healthcare organizations face a significant headwind in hiring and retaining technology talent in cybersecurity when they chose sophisticated SaaS offerings. So the need for cybersecurity out of the box is paramount.
• Artificial intelligence: As Healthcare organizations start to warm up to AI technology, they are beginning to see how AI technology is revolutionizing the healthcare spectrum in a wide range of needs. Artificial intelligence provides immense advantages to Healthcare organizations to personalize healthcare for their care delivery, address potential automation challenges within the healthcare delivery ecosystem, and increase the speed of their overall processes to become operationally efficient. 
• End to End SaaS: The idea of an end-to-end SaaS has presented healthcare providers with some significant advantages, such as allowing them to target patients and their suppliers with customizing operations using Data and analytics solutions. The result is cost-effective to benefit providers, patients, and suppliers using vital metrics driving performance assessments. To improve processes, increase patient insights to better and efficiently serve their patients, standards-based healthcare operations protocols that operate business value in the entire value chain.
• API Availability: The need for API has become a substantial competitive advantage for Healthcare SaaS companies due to many legacy applications across the healthcare industry. As organizations migrate their systems to the Cloud and SaaS solutions, many organizations will require API availability from Healthcare SaaS vendors. APIs provide flexibility and robustness to bring an end-to-end feature functionality to provide less disruption and increases agility overall.
• Connected Devices: For healthcare organizations, connected devices within the care delivery spectrum are increasing rapidly, patient devices, hospital devices. Solutions that simplify the provisioning, management, and support are in very high demand. 

Here is our strategic view for every startup.

• Product Led Growth strategy pivots are necessary to capitalize on market opportunities when the Covid-19 situation ends.
• Go to market plans for startups that require careful consideration, leverage experts in the industry who have gone through such downturns. 
• Pricing plans require creative adjustments to incentivize for the short term to scale back up for the long term.
• Look for opportunities in M&A to drive inorganic growth to be ready for the uptick. 
• Drive product Led Growth roadmaps and optimizations relentlessly to prioritize and maximize the money on hand.

The Cloud-first Healthcare SaaS companies have a massive opportunity over the next 12-24 months, and AI adoption is accelerating at a fantastic pace. In summary, economic downturns lend themselves to times when excellent companies are born in the Cloud, Social, Mobile, IoT, AI, and Visualization technologies. Founder in search of growth partners to complement their team to address Innovation Strategy, Product Led Growth Strategy, AI/ML-powered Technology Strategy, Pricing Analysis, and Technology Strategy, Product10x has three Product acceleration programs that might be right for you. 

If you want to know more about how to accelerate your startup in the new year or like to learn more about the startup strategy, contact us at hello@product10x.com.

About the Author: Suresh Madhuvarsu is a serial entrepreneur and investor. He is the Managing Partner of Product10x Accelerator, a SaaS accelerator that helps founders build and launch successful startups. He is also the Co-Founder and CEO of Salestable, a purpose-built sales readiness platform for SMBs.

Suresh has over 20 years of experience in the technology/SaaS industry. He is a 4x founder with 2 exits. He is also an active angel investor and mentor to early-stage startups. Suresh is passionate about helping entrepreneurs build successful businesses. He believes that technology can be used to solve real-world problems and improve people's lives.

About Product10x: Product10x is a SaaS accelerator that helps founders build and launch successful startups. The accelerator is run by experienced operating partners who have "been there and done that." Product10x provides founders with mentorship, advisory, and access to a network of investors and partners. The accelerator focuses on Product Led Growth (PLG), Sales readiness, and Fundraise readiness, helping founders all the way from product to go-to-market.