SaaS Management provides visibility, cost governance, and security insights into an organizations’ SaaS tools. A SaaS Management platform is a cloud-based solution that enables organizations to understand their SaaS usage and costs, carefully managing all the essential functions associated with their tech stack. It automates manual tasks, eliminates shadow IT, and helps significantly rein in spend, running continuous SaaS optimization analysis.
As companies continue to adopt new applications and grow their SaaS stack cross functionally, leaders must get a handle on excessive spending to effectively meet budgets, reallocate resources, and capitalize on investments that drive innovation and generate growth. Those needs won’t change anytime soon, which is why its important to check out our 2024 IT Trends and Savings Recommendations.
Some common problems with SaaS applications that can be fixed by a management platform include:
These problems are often summarized by the term Shadow IT. Gartner defines shadow IT as the ownership and/or control of IT devices, software and services outside of IT organizations. Lack of corporate technology governance leads to an influx of siloed SaaS purchases and operational activities, creating unmanageable costs and data exchanges. This in turn opens a pandoras box of security, compliance and wasted SaaS spend in the form of unused licenses and unnecessary spending. Read more about how to tackle Shadow IT.
As adoption of SaaS tools increases, it creates major hurdles for IT teams to right-size assets to business needs. SaaS spend management tools like Tangoe One Cloud for SaaS provide the level of control and visibility many enterprise IT teams are currently missing in order to manage their cloud services.
Tangoe One Cloud for SaaS is our Cloud Expense Management (CEM) platform and managed service, also accurately referred to as a Cloud Cost Management (CCM) platform. It’s a comprehensive SaaS management platform and FinOps solution that was shortlisted as a finalist in the 2023 SaaS Awards. It assists with problems such as:
Shadow IT Discovery
Discovery of any unauthorized procurement, deployment and use of digital services or cloud-based software that circumvent a central IT department is an essential component of Tangoe One Cloud for SaaS. If not addressed, shadow IT can expose an organization to compliance and security threats.
Features like Shadow IT Discovery identify apps in use via integrations, SSO, ID providers, and financial systems, offering users a systematic way of collecting data from SaaS applications. The solution provides real-time alerts, continuous monitoring and detailed SaaS Management analytics. This is essential to providing complete visibility of user activity. Virtual Desktop Agents can also track apps installed and time spent on each app. Browser extensions also capture activities, finally reporting them to the SaaS management platform for comprehensive cost and usage analysis.
Pinpointing Areas of Cost Savings
With the right SaaS Management Software, you’re able to track, measure, analyze and control costs via advanced analytics, automation, and automated spend management. Instant cost savings recommendations are delivered in 24-48 hours with data that identifies unsanctioned expenses, real-time usage trends and unused, misused and /or unnecessary licenses that can be decommissioned to reduce and even eliminate wasted spend. This helps IT teams right-size the number of licenses, purchasing only what they need and aligning app subscription tiers to their specific usage needs. This data-driven purchasing intelligence creates certainty but also substantial savings.
Simplifying Procurement Processes
Our solution allows the ability to choose from an extensive selection of SaaS apps that aren’t part of your company’s SaaS portfolio and place a request to order the app right from within the platform, which streamlines and speeds up the procurement process. Once approved, license management playbooks can then assign licenses for quick set up. These features are helpful because they eliminate having to input hundreds of requisitions, approvals, and allocation tickets manually.
It also provides automated workflows, approvals and timely alerts when contracts are up for renewal. With access to current benchmark data, teams can also negotiate better terms and rates with every vendor to rein in spending and SaaS operating costs. With SaaS license and contract management capabilities with our platform, IT and procurement teams can also access all contracts in one central location, managing contract renewals and payments.
Automation
The use of our SaaS Management Software automates many manual tasks and delivers a level of transparency and control that drives productivity and process efficiency which can boost workforce satisfaction. Employee On-and-Offboarding allows users to get set up quickly and easily, while IT can control permissions to protect data privacy. An extensive catalog of both direct and 3rd-party integrations allows users to choose the SaaS apps they need, and request a new app/place an order quickly and easily under the supervision and guidance of IT.
Learn more with these infographics about SaaS Management:
IT
Tangoe’s SaaS management software allows IT teams to maximize the value of SaaS investments by reallocating resources and budgets, scaling, right-sizing as needed in order to drive innovation and growth. It helps drive ROI with critical insights that inform SaaS spend, budgetary and forecasting decisions. Equally as important is the ability to respond to security threats from app downloads and usage in a timely manner to identify unmanaged IT activity due to licenses procured without its’ consent.
Security
Security Ops teams need to be able to enforce strict governance, regulatory and security protocols to protect sensitive data, stay ahead of potential security threats and ensure compliance audit readiness. This is accomplished with the Shadow IT SaaS discovery features and app security ratings that should be part of any complete SaaS management solution.
Finance
Tangoe One Cloud for SaaS provides finance teams with centralized SaaS cost management tools that provide a complete and holistic view of all spend, operating costs, license utilization and consumption. Automated finance and accounting processes from invoice management to inventory analysis, accounts payable and general ledger file integration, as well as accurate cost allocations and chargebacks to business units all help eliminate late fees and disconnects.
Check out these additional resources that can help you learn more about how Tangoe’s SaaS solution empowers your leaders & teams:
SaaS optimization is the process of maximizing the value of SaaS applications by ensuring that they are used efficiently and procured cost effectively. This can be done by identifying unused or underutilized applications, negotiating better pricing with vendors, and automating provisioning and deprovisioning of users. Learn more about what SaaS optimization is and assess how it could impact your business.
Tangoe’s SaaS optimization solution drives this by providing a single pane of glass view of all SaaS applications, licenses, and users, which can help organizations identify unused or underutilized applications. It also collects data on usage and costs, which can be used to negotiate better pricing with vendors. Finally, it can automate provisioning and deprovisioning of users, which can help organizations reduce waste and increase productivity. By having a clear understanding of their SaaS ecosystem, organizations can make better decisions about which applications to use.
Here is a short summary of some of the most popular features and functions included in Tangoe One Cloud for SaaS:
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