Top Ways of Managing SaaS (Software as a Service) Applications

The SaaS industry has grown at a rapid pace over the last decade. SaaS has become the gold standard for all kinds of businesses, from old-school accounting firms to artificial intelligence start-ups, small family-owned shops, and large multinational corporations. SaaS products’ usage, and demand for, they have grown dramatically over the years.

As of 2022, the trend is that all organizations use several SaaS applications across various departments and teams. As a result, it is almost impossible to track and manage these apps individually. So, it is better to find the best SaaS management platform for your organization.

Well, before proceeding, let us first understand what SaaS Application Management is?

SaaS Application Management

SaaS Application Management (SAM) is a proactive business solution that monitors and manages the purchase, licensing, maintenance, upgrades, security compliance, and shutdown of cloud-based software-as-a-service applications in the enterprise portfolio.

A good SaaS application management system for your organization is a long-term investment in optimizing your SaaS costs, maximizing your return on investment, meeting security requirements, and increasing your cloud-based investment.

The explosion of SaaS applications also possesses a series of threats. First, there are many chances for errors that may cause expensive losses for the company.

• From increased SaaS spend to poor security of the company’s data, poor SaaS application management may incur various risks.
• Data-related risks during employee offboarding and productivity issues while onboarding is some issues that the IT admins face in this scenario.

This article aims to discuss some innovative practices that companies can use to manage SaaS applications effectively. Eventually, reducing the SaaS spend increases the workforce’s productivity and lessens the pressure on IT admins.

Be prepared to control wasted SaaS spends, improve the SaaS applications, and use your IT budget to transform your business. A strong strategy is critical to gaining control and better visibility of your SaaS applications and licenses.

Significant Steps in Managing SaaS Applications

Here are some steps you can take to help organizations overcome their use of SaaS, save money on redundant applications, and gain knowledge of managing SaaS applications.

Protect your SaaS Accounts

SaaS applications are hugely helpful to organizations because of their scale, simplicity, and lower upfront costs. However, due to shadow IT, end-users frequently access licenses and apps without the consent of the IT department, resulting in a security gap. This exposes businesses to the danger of proprietary data theft, posing a significant compliance risk.

• Establish a regular security audit protocol to ensure that your organization’s SaaS applications and software are risk-free.
• To protect the integrity and confidentiality of your organization, make sure your organization complies with GDPR, HIPAA, and other regulations.
• Educate your end-users about the risks of unauthorized applications and licenses.
• Dedicate a team to work on all security blind spots in your organization.

Optimize SaaS Spend

Ask yourself if every application and license you get is 100% used. Do you offer state-of-the-art feature packs to all your employees, regardless of their needs? Is your organization a victim of hidden pollution costs?

SaaS is easy to get and implement; anyone with an email ID and credit card can do it. But the problem is that it is increasing. Unfortunately, most of the sourced applications are not even used. This results in the control of pollution costs.

• Reduce redundancy.
• Get a solid pollution management strategy.
• Teach your users how to improve SaaS deployment and engagement.
• Renegotiate contract terms with your sellers from time to time.
• Invest in automation to improve SaaS applications and licensing and renewal processes.

Discover Shadow SaaS

Due to the widespread perception that IT processes are time-consuming and cumbersome, employees often purchase licenses and applications without formal consent from IT. Shadow IT is designed for most employees to perform their tasks as efficiently and effectively as possible. This results in painful challenges such as redundant sash orders, unauthorized applications hosting your assets, increased security, and regulatory risks.

• Keep track of all your SaaS applications and licenses: authorized, unauthorized, approved, or not.
• Detect shadow SaaS applications.

Manage SaaS Renewals

Managing SaaS licenses requires attention to detail. A complete overview of your organization-wide cloud purchases and upgrades is never easy. The more SaaS licenses and applications your employees acquire, the harder it is to maintain them. These SaaS purchases, renewal agreements, or licenses have endless billing rules, contract lengths, and difficult-to-understand terms.

• A solid SaaS upgrade process is critical to overcoming these barriers and saving your organization.
• Specify a purchasing department and an individual owner for each pollution application.
• See all expenses related to SaaS/cloud.
• Keep track of all contracts and contract details for easier management.
• Keep your calendar updated with updates, important dates, and automatic updates.
• Create an automated process for purchasing SaaS / cloud apps and licenses.

Some Methods to Gain Control Over SaaS Applications

• Audit the SaaS Tools

SaaS security audits are becoming more important every day as hackers find smart new ways to use websites and applications – especially for small and medium-sized businesses. A good audit shows your relative strengths and weaknesses, security policies, user access control systems, and helps prevent security issues before they occur. Create a list of all SaaS tools and applications used by the organization.

• Track Software Renewals

Automating your software before the upgrade date can save you time and is a great way to keep track of your current spend and maintenance, but you can overlook some opportunities to save and negotiate new deals with suppliers. Analyze and track the renewal periods of each SaaS application. Think before renewing or ending them.

• Track Software Usage

Track the usage of applications by the employees. Find out what the employees are using all services and features.

• Look out for New Software

Stay updated on new software and applications with the same functionalities you require at lower costs.

• Automated Workflows

Save time by automating workflows and processes by using necessary tools.

• Choose User-Friendly SaaS Applications

Select the most user-friendly and easy-to-use applications so that employees do not lose time and effort learning to use the software.

Are you Ready for SaaS Application Management?

A massive stack of SaaS applications can help organizations in their processes but, at the same time, can incur colossal wastage and risks if left uncontrolled. However, getting control of SaaS applications is immensely important to an organization. Therefore, it is wise to let go of the spreadsheets and get an appropriate SaaS management tool to analyze and centralize all SaaS apps.

CloudFuze has the most innovative technology to control the SaaS environment. A good SaaS management tool can provide information and insights on the SaaS app’s usage and periodic renewal alerts. This can also help IT teams in various processes which might otherwise require a lot of time. Thus, you can quickly identify and remove unused licenses and wastage from the stack.

Choosing these methods and a good SaaS Application company can help optimize the SaaS spend and eliminate SaaS wastage. In addition, automated tasks and workflows increase the productivity of the workforce. As it stands, these methods can help remove a lot of pressure and workload.