Service as a Service

The writing is on the wall. The subscription economy is exploding toward $1.5 trillion by the end of 2025, more than double its 2020 size. Subscription businesses are growing 11% faster than the S&P 500, and there’s a reason why. The old way of doing business is breaking down under the weight of modern demands.

Bottom line: Traditional SOWs, lengthy procurement cycles, and project-based engagements can’t keep pace with today’s speed of business. Service-as-a-Service is emerging as the smarter, faster alternative that enterprise leaders need.

The Traditional Model Is Failing

Enterprise marketing and IT leaders face a brutal reality. Your Adobe Experience Cloud roadmap is ambitious. Your Salesforce Marketing Cloud initiatives are critical. But traditional service procurement is sabotaging your execution.

Research shows that procurement processes can be “inordinately slow”, orders for simple supplies taking weeks instead of hours, while contracts for strategic services take months instead of weeks. Meanwhile, SOW development without proper alignment leads to “multiple revisions and ultimately project delays” that can stretch for months.

The numbers tell the story. When suppliers use their own SOW templates, procurement teams report that negotiations typically add “two to three weeks” to processing times. That’s before any actual work begins.

Your competition isn’t waiting. They’re moving to subscription models that eliminate these bottlenecks entirely.

Why Everything-as-a-Service Is Winning

The subscription economy has grown by 435% over the past decade, and the shift isn’t just about Netflix and Spotify. Industries across the board are moving from pay-per-product models to subscription-based access, and enterprise services are no exception.

The subscription model delivers three critical advantages that traditional SOWs can’t match:

Predictable Revenue Streams: Subscription models provide “steady and predictable revenue streams” that allow businesses to “plan more effectively and invest in growth opportunities”. For service providers, this stability means they can maintain elite talent ready to deploy.

Speed to Value: No more waiting for SOW negotiations, legal reviews, and procurement approvals. Service-as-a-Service engagements start in weeks, not months.

Continuous Value Delivery: Unlike one-time purchases where “value typically stays steady,” subscription models “provide ongoing value with regular updates, new features and personalized content”.

The Enterprise Agility Imperative

Everything moves fast in the digital age, customer desires, competitive threats, technology choices, business expectations, and revenue opportunities now happen at “blistering speeds”. Traditional procurement approaches weren’t designed for this reality.

McKinsey research shows that agile organizations can improve operational performance by 30-50% and financial performance by 20-30%. But that agility requires service delivery models that match the pace of modern business.

When your Adobe implementation is stuck in a three-month SOW cycle, your competitor with a Service-as-a-Service model is already shipping results. Digital solutions can reduce end-to-end procurement time by “as much as 80% for simple items and 40% for complex items”—but only if you abandon the traditional approach.

How Service-as-a-Service Solves Real Problems

Service-as-a-Service directly addresses the pain points that plague traditional service procurement:

No Headcount Approval Needed: Skip the months-long headcount approval process. Service subscriptions fit into existing operational budgets without triggering hiring freezes or approval bottlenecks.

Fixed Monthly Pricing: Eliminate unpredictable consulting fees and scope creep. You know exactly what you’re paying each month, making budget planning simple and transparent.

Faster Time-to-Value: Start receiving expert support in weeks, not months. No SOW negotiations, no legal reviews, no procurement delays.

Adaptive Resource Models: Scale up or down based on priorities without renegotiating contracts or managing individual contractor relationships.

The Focus GTS Navigator model exemplifies this approach, providing immediate access to elite onshore experts for Adobe Experience Cloud and Salesforce Marketing Cloud at a fixed monthly cost. No SOWs. No headcount approvals. No delays.

The Future Belongs to Subscription Services

Consumer behavior is driving this transformation, with 68% of Americans subscribing to a new service for the first time in 2024, and 84% saying they’re getting the same or more value from their subscriptions year-over-year. Enterprise buyers are following the same logic.

As one expert noted, “We are experiencing a move from an economy of abundance to an economy of scarcity,” where consumers are “conscious that products must be shared and optimized”. The same principle applies to enterprise expertise… access trumps ownership.

Traditional service models assume you need to own every capability internally or negotiate complex contracts for each engagement. Service-as-a-Service recognizes that what you really need is reliable access to the right expertise when you need it.

Making the Shift

The subscription economy isn’t a trend, it’s the new reality. The global SaaS market is projected to grow 19.2% in 2025, and enterprise service models are evolving to match this pace.

Forward-thinking marketing and IT leaders are already moving to Service-as-a-Service models for critical functions. They’re clearing backlogs faster, delivering wins more predictably, and building competitive advantages while their peers negotiate SOWs.

The question isn’t whether Service-as-a-Service will become the standard; the question is  whether you’ll be an early adopter or get left behind waiting, which we’ve all done enough of and can’t afford at this point in history.

Your Adobe roadmap can’t wait. Your Salesforce initiatives can’t wait. Your competitive position can’t wait.

It’s time to embrace the future of enterprise execution, click here to book time with us and learn more.