A new study is projecting steady growth over the next few years in the SaaS-based enterprise content management (ECM) market.

According to a report released by IT research firm TechNavio, the SaaS-based ECM market will grow an estimated compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 31.1 percent from 2013-2018.

Even though on-premise ECM held a 90.73 percent share in the ECM market in 2013, its share is expected to decrease by 2018.

The growing need to access data and reduce the total cost of ownership will drive customers in the ECM space toward adopting SaaS-based solutions, the study revealed.

“SaaS-based ECM provides all the benefits of on-premise ECM systems in a trouble-free environment so that customers can focus on their core business activities while achieving a significant reduction in the total cost of ownership,” TechNavio Research Vice President Faisal Ghaus said in the report.

Ghaus said the cloud-based model creates opportunities for the channel as “infrastructure maintenance are shifted from internal IT departments to vendors or service providers.”

Follow CJ Arlotta on Twitter @cjarlotta and Google+ for further updates on the story above.