How many SaaS companies are there in the world? How about in the Nordic countries? And how many of them focus on sales and marketing technology? And how about HR tech, AgriTech, or LegalTech?

Standard industry classification systems, such as SIC and NAICS, couldn’t give us an answer to these questions, so we did the only rational thing one can do in that situation: We built our own industry classification taxonomy. We wanted a system that was able to segment and analyze companies on a granular level, and we’ve got just that with Vainu Custom Industry.

So, how many SaaS companies are there in the world?

Not all businesses are the same. This simple statement isn't especially controversial, yet it's surprisingly powerful. The statement implies that, since not all businesses are the same, they should not be treated as if they are, which provides support for the practice of market segmentation. In a nutshell, market segmentation allows you to concentrate your resources on the potential customers that are the most likely to be interested in your offering. An essential component of most B2B segmentation processes is identifying the organizational characteristics that make your offering more valuable to company A than company B. One of the most powerful and most frequently used forms of organizational characteristics in B2B segmentation is industry.

The International Data Corporation (IDC) forecasts that the yearly global spending on digital transformation will reach $2.8 trillion in 2025. For the uninitiated, digital transformation refers to the adoption of digital technologies by a company, and it is generally pursued in the hope that these newly-adopted digital technologies will provide efficiency gains and customer intimacy.

The aforementioned statistic clearly highlights that the demand for digital technologies that improve existing business processes is, to say the least, significant. The growing demand for digital technologies presents an unprecedented opportunity for companies that are able to provide products or services that help businesses achieve these digital transformations.

Despite being one amongst dozens of available CRM solutions, Pipedrive has managed to amass 50,000 paying customers spread across more than 140 countries. Whether that success is due to Pipedrive having almost 100 integration partners, their app being available in 14 languages, or one of the many other features that they provide is unclear, but what is clear is that Pipedrive helps salespeople close more deals.

In the case of HubSpot, the numbers speak for themselves. In 2021, less than 15 years after their founding, HubSpot announced that their CRM platform had surpassed 100,000 paying users and that they had reached more than $1 billion in annual recurring revenue. Considering HubSpot’s platform offers more than 600 integrations, a solutions partner network, and hundreds of Academy courses, the source of their success is clear: HubSpot helps companies grow better.

Since its founding in 1975, Microsoft has grown to become a household name, offering an array of software products for computing devices, including its CRM solution, Dynamics 365 CRM, that was released in 2016. With its practical functionality, flexibility, and customizability, Dynamics 365 quickly became one of the top CRM vendors in the market and has helped thousands of customers gain control of their sales process.

Succeeding in sales in the 21st century is not an easy job. In addition to needing empathy, grit, and drive, you also need to know your potential and existing customers intimately to be relevant at every touchpoint.

Sales professionals who leverage sales technology outperform their peers. In this article, we'll introduce you to the eleven sales software categories that we think are the most important for you to be acquainted with.

Thousands of people are heading towards Pasila, Helsinki this week to join Slush, one of the largest startup events in the world.

At Vainu, we analyzed 1,000+ startups joining the conference and picked some interesting verticals and companies to keep an eye on.

And that’s another year nearly gone—time sure does fly! Just like its predecessor, 2021 probably hasn’t been what we were hoping it would be. Nonetheless, even these trying times won’t stop our annual tradition of predicting the most important sales trends of the upcoming year.

As you well know, many things have changed over the course of the year, but one thing remains the same—sales activity hasn't stopped. As has been the case for a while, creativity and resourcefulness are becoming increasingly important for sales and marketing teams to excel.

A renewed focus on the role of the salespeople and the tools and technologies that can help them do what they do best. That's the premise in which we're predicting next year's sales trends—and here they are: