Tangoe: Technology Expense & Lifecycle Management
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REPORT

How to Lower Your
Microsoft 365® Costs

Every business runs on their productivity software, but research shows that 67% of IT and finance leaders admit at least some of their office suite licenses go to waste. How can you ensure your organization is efficiently using every subscription it owns, so your company isn’t spending more than necessary on Microsoft 365 applications?

Step 1

Gain Visibility into App Usage

A single 365 license can have many underlying tools that license holders may not use. Take for instance, Access®, Visio®, Outlook® or even Excel®. 365 is often referred to as a layered or tiered app environment with many sub-products, and in these situations, visibility can be difficult. It’s hard to see who is using each sub-product, which makes cost optimization more challenging.

The first step is to uncover usage at the deepest level, knowing which sub-products each license holder uses and doesn’t use. This intelligence allows for the next step, usage optimization. Without this insight, it’s nearly impossible to downsize subscriptions without negatively impacting user functionality. Deep levels of observability are enabled by automated software and SaaS management solutions that can immediately reveal usage details.

You’ll want to know:

  • Which individual users have been assigned a license and which departments they belong to
  • Which types of licenses they have (E3 vs E5 for example)
  • Who uses each nested sub-product and how frequently they use them
  • How many additional licenses were purchased above and beyond corporate contractual commitments
  • Which subscriptions are set to auto-renew on corporate credit cards and even personal cards

A single 365 license can have many underlying tools that license holders may not use.

Step 2

Optimize 365 Usage and Lower Your Costs

Now you can leverage usage analytics to reallocate, downsize, or even eliminate subscriptions as necessary. The key is to optimize without negatively impacting employee productivity.

Ask yourself these questions:

  • Which licenses go entirely unused or are assigned to employees no longer with the company?
  • Which licenses can be downgraded to a lower subscription level?
  • Can low-usage and high-usage users swap licenses to maximize utilization and efficiency?
  • How many licenses verifiably need to be upgraded — for example to E3 or E5?
  • Which licenses are outside of our corporate contract?
  • Can you allocate unused licenses to these employees and discontinue subscriptions to save money? Or can you fold unsanctioned licenses into contract renewals leveraging economies of scale for discounts?

Here are other ways to reduce SaaS waste and avoid higher expenditures:

Raise Awareness

Spotlight what portion of each department or project budget goes to Microsoft by generating custom financial reports for each key stakeholder

Leverage Technology to Better Administer Licenses

License management software can ease the burdens of handling everyday license distribution and reallocations. For example, automated playbooks can accelerate assignments, deprovisioning, and reassignments as employees join and leave the company. This ensures that licenses don’t go unused.

Hold Departments Responsible for their 365 Costs

Cost allocations and financial chargebacks help distribute 365 costs across the company. This way IT alone doesn’t “eat” all the costs. Holding each team accountable for their expenses helps reduce overspending.

38% of SaaS spending comes from unsanctioned purchases

Step 3

Avoid these Pitfalls

  • While some software can expose E3 versus E5 license utilization at the surface level, not all of them can reveal usage for the layered sub-products within 365. When shopping for solutions, deep user analytics will separate leaders from laggards.
  • SaaS security software or Cloud Access Security Broker (CASB) tools can fall short of being a comprehensive solution for SaaS management and cost optimization. Look for solutions that combine Shadow IT discovery tools and spend management tools in one platform. Pairing SaaS security initiatives with cost and usage optimization efforts can also help streamline and prioritize effective SaaS management. Learn more here.
  • Don’t forget to monitor how 365 usage changes over time, as waste will surge again without constant oversight. The best programs revisit SaaS waste regularly.
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SaaS Expense Management

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3 Reasons to Choose Tangoe for 365 Application Management

Tangoe is the leader in cloud expense management with comprehensive solutions spanning SaaS, UCaaS, IaaS and private cloud. Here’s why you want to work with Tangoe when optimizing 365 usage and costs.

Tangoe offers:

1

The deepest user analytics for Microsoft 365.

2

The most advanced license management automation features, including 1,000 automated actions, custom playbooks, and workflows triggered by your business rules.

3

Multi-source Shadow IT discovery tools offer wide visibility into sanctioned and unsanctioned applications with detailed security insights for advanced threat intelligence.

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See how one manufacturer shaved $183K off their 365 costs with Tangoe

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Now is the time to transform your SaaS management

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