Here are five benefits of SaaS management.

1. Optimised and right-sized SaaS inventory

77% of IT executives rely on manual, reactive measures to manage subscriptions and gauge their effectiveness. That means relying on someone to remember to cancel and renew subscriptions, monitor users and usage, and cancel credit card transactions at the end of a free trial.

SaaS management starts with a comprehensive assessment to understand the state of your software environment. This includes knowing what apps are used and recording key details, such as users, renewal dates, license/seat count, cost, vendors, and purpose.

This process will also uncover shadow IT, functional redundancy, duplicate apps, prohibited, "orphan", and dormant apps, and software that doesn't comply with cybersecurity, data protection, or financial protocols.

Use this information to right-size your SaaS inventory:

• Identify and cancel redundant subscriptions that you no longer use, don't serve the business's needs, or have overlapping features, functionality, and integrations. Research shows that an app's average usage rate is 47%, yet 29% of apps have a usage rate of less than 20%. On average, companies have 135 redundant apps that they still pay for, which means plenty of opportunities for consolidation and cost savings.
• Determine which apps deliver the biggest return on investment. You can establish this by measuring app utilisation, including who logged in, how often they log in, and how much time they spend using the app. With a better understanding of how your users interact with SaaS apps, you can use this information to inform future SaaS purchasing decisions.
• Establish end-to-end app lifecycle management by continually reassessing your software needs, monitoring upcoming renewals, and ensuring apps are properly provisioned through license distribution management, vendor and contractor management, license negotiations, etc.

2. Optimised security

Companies use free apps three times more than paid apps. But don't be fooled – you're paying with your data.

Employees generally don't need IT's permission to download a demo or sign up for a free trial. Yet, that's all it takes for apps to access your data. And the more apps – approved and unapproved – that your business uses, the greater your risk exposure.

That's because you can't fully implement your security policy unless you have complete app visibility. And because you can't verify many apps that are in use, you can't be sure that your company is compliant. Even a single app vulnerability gives hackers access to your organisation's data.

Another challenge is that there's no standardisation for SaaS security and compliance, with many vendors not enforcing two-factor authentication. Furthermore, SaaS services often do not give the granularity of permissions. Inconsistent access levels for administrators and users can result in giving out more data and controls than necessary, which increases risk.

3. Cost management

Over half (55%) of SaaS spend occurs outside of known software expense types.

SaaS costs can quickly spiral out of control, given how easy it is to sign up for and deploy software applications. That's because, when it comes to free software, the internet does not disappoint.

• For video conferencing, there's Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Google Meet, Skype, and Webex.
• For team collaboration and project management, there's Slack, Mondays, Trello, and Asana.
• For file storage, there's Box, Dropbox, OneDrive, and Google Docs.
• For enterprise, architecture, and customer management, there's Salesforce, Microsoft, Adobe, Oracle, and Amazon, as well as apps to manage accounting and payroll, HR, and ERP.

And that's just scratching the surface.

Not knowing how many or what types of apps your company uses makes it difficult to anticipate expenses because technology costs vary by department and job. Before long, the amount of data, users, and apps go through the roof.

4. Encourage self-service

With a solid understanding of your app landscape and user behaviour, you can establish and enforce an active SaaS inventory and approval processes.

Compile a list of preapproved apps that employees can pick from to build their own digital workspace. There are many benefits to this approach, including faster, smoother adoption, fewer bottlenecks, controlled SaaS spend, faster employee onboarding, and the feeling of autonomy that results from being able to choose your tools.

5. Visibility

Only 3% of IT executives have complete and real-time visibility into their SaaS tools, and 41% of enterprise apps aren't managed.

Complete visibility means being able to prevent shadow IT by using integrations that track software purchases, deprovision licenses when employees leave the company and identify vendors that don't comply with your business's SaaS policies or with regulatory requirements, such as the GDPR.

A SaaS app visibility strategy can help to address governance issues. Your strategy should determine which apps the company needs and which best fit the business strategy. Scrap the rest.

Gartner predicts that, by 2026, half of organisations will centralise SaaS application management, and by 2025, 85% of enterprises will operate cloud-first.