Learn from the SaaS choices of OneOffice™ leaders: Part seven—cloud database and data management

The Situation: Enterprises valuing OneOffice™ outcomes are most likely to create business value through their software choices. They want their SaaS (software as a service) to deliver improved customer and employee experience, and they want to see how it makes outsourcing business processes easier. As part of our SaaS XXV research, we identified the SaaS choices made by these OneOffice enterprise leaders and compared them with those made by less mature tactical laggards. In this seventh in a series of seven on the SaaS choices of OneOffice leaders, we focus on cloud database and data management.

How we identified the leaders and the laggards

We asked enterprise decision-makers how SaaS is changing their business. We identified OneOffice leaders as those who agree or strongly agree with survey statements indicating SaaS improves employee experience, improves customer experience, and makes outsourcing business processes easier. These responses indicate the realization of outcomes indicative of greater maturity in the adoption and use of SaaS, thus a tighter alignment to the HFS OneOffice mindset.

In contrast, tactical laggards agree or strongly agree SaaS is changing how their business operates by improving the flow of information across the business, improving data and information access, improving security, encouraging the business to bypass IT, and making it harder to budget. These responses we identify as indicative of an enterprise that has not yet moved beyond the technical functionality of SaaS solutions and is missing how SaaS creates real-time “connections” between the company and its customers. We analyzed 411 responses and compared the strength of preference for the use of particular technologies by either leaders or laggards.

Microsoft is the clear leader among both OneOffice leaders and laggards for cloud database and data management

Our data—an enterprise customer subset of the overall SaaS XXV responses—shows Microsoft some distance ahead among OneOffice leaders. Microsoft also enjoys the largest gap between leaders (37% usage) and laggard use (25%). But it is Snowflake that has the greatest pro-rata gap (9%:4%). Amazon RDS and Oracle are closely matched in the second and third spots, with Oracle just ahead for OneOffice leaders.

Exhibit 1:Exhibit 1: OneOffice leaders are most likely to be using Microsoft for their cloud database and data management needs

Sample: N=411 responses from enterprise leaders, January 2022 SaaS XXV survey; the total may not be equal to 100% because some enterprises use multiple cloud database and data management SaaS
Source: HFS Research, 2022

OneOffice leaders in Exhibit 2 reserve their highest NPS (net promoter score) for Teradata and MySQL, with a chasing pack of Snowflake, MongoDB, Microsoft, and PostgreSQL. In our graphics, net promoter scores range from -1.00 to +1.00, where 1.00 = 100%. Anything higher than 0.70 (70%) is usually regarded as outstanding, .50 to .69 (50%–69%) as strong, and .49 or lower as needing improvement. The average NPS across the process intelligence category in our survey was 0.39. That is the second-highest NPS among our seven SaaS XXV categories, only beaten by the average NPS among enterprises for productivity and collaboration tools.

Snowflake’s score among laggards is surprising, and OneOffice leaders also rate it in the strong category. It is the most highly recommended tool in the category for OneOffice leaders and laggards combined. Amazon RDS and Google Cloud SQL stand out here for the wrong reasons. Google faces the biggest challenge in winning over laggards, and Amazon RDS failed to impress our respondents.

Exhibit 2: Cloud database and data management vendors should target scores higher than 0.7; only Snowflake passes that test, and only among our laggards—the average is .39 (needs improvement)

Sample: 411 responses from enterprise leaders, January 2022, SaaS XXV survey; insufficient data for MongoDB
Source: HFS Research, 2022

Almost one in four OneOffice leaders currently using Microsoft cloud database or data management plan to increase their spending with Microsoft for this SaaS category in the next 12 months. That is a significant vote of confidence, echoed in 15% of laggards. But the intent to invest across the rest of those considered in this survey is relatively suppressed.

Even where enterprise users appear relatively happy with the value they are getting (see NPS in Exhibit 2), there is little correlation with intent to invest (Exhibit 3).

Exhibit 3: Microsoft is dominant with both leaders and laggards; OneOffice leaders are more likely to extend their investment than laggards

Sample: 411 responses from enterprise leaders, January 2022, SaaS XXV survey; Teradata showed no change (0%)
Source: HFS Research, 2022

The Bottom Line: OneOffice leaders flocked to Microsoft, but stronger NPS for Snowflake, MySQL, Teradata, and MongoDB indicate Microsoft may not have it all its way

Among our respondents, OneOffice leaders have been happy to use Microsoft for cloud database and data management. The chink in the armor is in NPS, where Microsoft lags behind rivals such as Snowflake, MySQL, Teradata, and MongoDB. This is somewhat at odds with Microsoft’s clear advantage in terms of future investment among those already using Microsoft. Some of those surveyed may be tied into multi-year contracts. Microsoft should pay close attention to avoid storing up trouble come renewal time.

Read the results of our broader SaaS XXV survey here.