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Microsoft SaaS Academy

Free events and content to accelerate your business

Bringing together best practices and guidance from Microsoft employees, partners, and customers to help businesses accelerate their "Software as a Service" journey, addressing both business and technical aspects. 

 

Program benefits

The intention behind SaaS Academy is to help any and all software companies take their business to the next level using real solutions and strategic partnerships.

On Demand content

These 3 simple steps represent the journey through Microsoft SaaS Academy's free resources.

Conveniently divided into business (CEOs, CPOs, Marketing, and Sales reps) and technical (CTOs, Architects, Devs) tracks,

users can discover and apply the content to transform their software service.

3 steps infografic

Step 1

For all companies who want to build SaaS businesses, such as startups or traditional license-based software companies, your journey starts here.

Follow "Start from scratch" if you are a yong startup, or "Transform" if you are an established software with license-based or on-premise approach.

Start from scratch

Startups: current trends

Learn about current trends and various programs Microsoft offers for startups.

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SaaS Architecture

Should my customers share the same instanse of the solution, or I should deploy per customer? 

If you have this question we highly recommend to get an introduction to SaaS architecture session. 

SaaS Fundamentals

Get an introduction to the Software as a Service (SaaS) model. Learn about LAER (flywheel) model, adoption & customer success.

Get started with SaaS DevKit

Learn how to easy get started with modular SaaS solution using SaaS DevKit

SaaS Metrics

Learn about the most important metrics of SaaS business and how they align with your current SaaS journey stage, such as: CAC, LTV, MRR | ARR, Churn

Monolith vs Microservices

Learn the difference between the monolithic approach and microservices architecture, as well patterns used while building resilient cloud solutions. 

Value Proposition

In this session, we will zoom in on how SaaS companies are creating value for customers and ultimately enables an organization to capture value – and continues to do so.

Frontend on Azure

Learn about Azure Static Web Apps which brings global avaliability and dynamic scale with integrated serverless APIs.

SaaS Pricing strategy

Learn how to design optimal pricing models and achieve higher revenue with the right pricing model.

Data strategy

Learn the technical fundamentals of using OSS in your SaaS applications and how Postgres & MySQL can help achieve portability in SaaS solutions.

Build products with OpenAI

Learn about LLM (Large Language Models) and how to get started with OpenAI.

Networking tips for a secure SaaS solution

Learn how to secure virtual networks when building with PaaS services on Azure, by utilizing Azure Private Link and Azure Private Endpoint.

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Role of CTO in a startup

Learn about the role of CTO in an early-stage startup and the strategic choice of cloud and technologies

Introduction to security in SaaS

Learn how to handle authentication and authorization,  monitor and improve security posture and what services you can benefit from when building solutions on top of Azure.

Multi-cloud and where it makes sense

Learn about multi-cloud strategy, its benefits, and downsides. 

Github and other DevOps tools

  • GitHub’s approach to helping developers feel happier and be more productive 

  • Elevate your DevOps game with proven tools, tips, and tricks 

Transform existing software into SaaS

For established companies selling licence-based or on-premise solutions

Why SaaS and why now?

As technology revenues are moving from products to services, and customers choosing to subscribe to their solutions, and aspire that their suppliers assume responsibility for the complexity make SaaS the right business model to choose going forward. 

Hybrid approach with Azure

Learn about Azure Arc and other services, which can ease cloud adoption and support Hybrid approach to the cloud.

SaaS operations and risks

Learn how the new operational model differs from traditional license-based.

Cloud Adoption for traditional software company

Learn about Cloud Adoption framework and new skills required for cloud environment.

Fish model: path to profitability

One of the key things to consider and focus on is profitability. Hear from TSIA about "Swallowing the Fish”. TSIA has studied the evolution of the technology industry and noted how new patterns have emerged.

Transforming the monolith

Unsure how to start rebuilding the monolithic legacy application? Join this session to learn how to come up with a strategy for modernization.

Organizational changes required to operate SaaS

Learn about how the organization should transform in order to become successful in a SaaS delivery model. 

Enterprise-scale environments & landing zones

Learn more about Azure Landing zones which support cloud adoption at scale by providing repeatable environments, with consistent configuration and controls. 

Panel discussion: transforming into SaaS

In this session you can hear real testimonies from these companies who have already started their journey to saas and hopefully get insight about the journey, the pitfalls, and the key points to focus on to ensure a successful transformation.

Containers & Cloud native

Why organizations need to embrace Cloud Native and Containers 

Microsoft Cloud for Industry

Extend and innovate with Microsoft Cloud for Industry

Innovate with Cosmos DB

CosmosDB: More than just a database

Cost optimizations in the cloud

Leverage FinOps to drive success

Optimizing costs by rearchitecting

Identify Cost saving opportunities without changing architecture, learn about Azure costs tooling, and learn how to architect for cost savings.

Step 2

Prepare for scalability

How Microsoft does Customer Success?

Learn from Microsoft about the role of Customer Success in SaaS organizations, transformation through maturing our consumption business and importance of customers' adoption of technology in a saas world – to prevent churn.

How Microsoft does DevOps?

By changing the way we work through DevOps, we deliver better products to our customers and better results to the business. But DevOps adoption isn’t easy. Beyond implementing new processes and technology, the ultimate key to a successful DevOps practice is embracing a DevOps culture.

Collecting Customers' feedback

User-centered design is fundamental to the success of a product. Learn techniques to collect this feedback, but also to integrate it into your development workflow. 

Get started with AI in SaaS

Using Azure Cognitive Services, we demonstrate how to utilize pre-built and customizable AI models across image recognition, and speech and text analytics. 

Optimizing SaaS customer journey

How to get end-to-end visibility through the entire customer journey, how to solve integration challenges, and how to build a data-driven culture that will help your team to make the right decisions.

End-to-end Data Integration

Big Data is an umbrella of multiple technologies such as Data Factory, Stream Analytics, Data Lake Store, Data Lake Analytics, Azure Machine Learning and Data Catalog.

Secure SaaS development

Real-world hacking and how to defend against it

Multi-tenant SaaS applications with Cosmos DB

Considerations for multitenant SaaS solutions with Cosmos DB

Securing your SaaS Application

Learn how to improve overall security posture with Defender for Cloud 

Best Practices for Building SaaS Solution

Hear from Microsoft product groups about best practices for building SaaS solutions.


Step 3

Additional content to help you go further in your SaaS journey

Scale & Grow

Growth during a storm

What you do in the next few weeks will determine the outcome of 2023

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How to publish SaaS solution in Microsoft Marketplace

Learn about the technical fundamentals for simplified delivery for your SaaS application and technical best practices around selling via the Azure Marketplace (AppSource).

Accelerate your global expansion

Microsoft Marketplace can support market reach and sales of your SaaS solution. Get an introduction to the Marketplace value proposition for both software vendors and customers, and an overview of the various listing types and associated Marketplace Rewards.

Get value from product and operational data

Learn how to transform data into insights from your SaaS application. Want to create personalized experiences in applications but not sure where to start?

Customers' patterns in SaaS world

Customers' patterns to address in your SaaS solution to increase your competitiveness in the market

SaaS & MaaS - Better Together

Learn about Model-as-a-Service and how Microsoft takes advantage of generative AI models. 

GDPR for SaaS companies

What does it take for SaaS companies to become GDPR-compliant?

Blockchain on Azure

Build Blockchain Applications in the Cloud faster with Quorum

Market trends for B2B marketplaces

Trends and insights in buyers' behavior and new era of marketplaces in B2B

The role of data in SaaS daily decision making

Discover how to drive product insights with Kusto queries, and possibilities of Kusto and Azure Data explorer

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Accessibility: Why it matters?

Over 1 billion people worldwide live with a disability. That’s more than 15% of our global population! Each of us may encounter situational disabilities at some point throughout our everyday lives.

Accessibility: How to get started

Want to create a SaaS application that is inclusive and accessible for people with different needs & capabilities but not sure where to start?

Azure SaaS Development Kit

Move to a software as a service (SaaS) model faster with a kit of prebuilt modular resources that can be configured and deployed in 15 minutes or less.
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Join Founders Hub or ISV Success Program

Microsoft for Startups Founders Hub offers free access to the tech, coaching and support you need to hit your next milestone.

The new ISV Success Program helps you build and publish your solutions faster, accelerate innovation and reach more customers

Interviews with SaaS companies


Visma SaaS Transformation

Watch interview with Øyvind Larsen, Managing Director at Visma.
Visma offers software and services that simplify and digitise core business processes in the private and public sector. Visma operates across the entire Nordic region with 12,500 employees & 1,000,000 customers.

Salutare SaaS Journey

Watch the interview with Chris Dial, Co-Founder and CEO of Salutare.
Salutare Group works with people - from clinicians to patients to all who help in the treatment pathway - to improve safety and well-being, and to restore the life-work balance for clinicians.
Chris will share the story and learnings of Salutare, a true SaaS company from day 1.

ToolsGroup SaaS Transformation

Watch the interview with Riccardo Toni, Global SaaS Manager & Information System Security Officer at ToolsGroup.
ToolsGroup is how organizations achieve their target service levels while optimizing inventory, no matter how complex their supply chain is or how much demand changes. 


Microsoft Marketplace for SaaS

Panel Discussion with SaaS companies Seeq and Metallic selling through Microsoft Commercial Marketplace.

Operational changes that are needed for business transformation

Panel discussion with SaaS companies Ortec and Arbor about the organizational transformation required when switching from a traditional model to SaaS.

Art of possible with AI

Accelerate product innovation and build competitive advantage - panel discussion.