the business model Software as a Service (SaaS) has become popular in recent years, especially because of platforms like Netflix, HubSpot, and DocuSign.
An Overview of SaaS
Software-as-a-service (SaaS) is a software distribution model in which a cloud provider hosts applications and makes them available to end users over the Internet. In this model, an independent software vendor (ISV) may contract with a third-party cloud provider to host the application. Or, with larger companies like Microsoft, the cloud provider may also be the software vendor.
SaaS is one of the three main categories of cloud computing, along with infrastructure as a service ( IaaS ) and platform as a service ( PaaS ). A variety of IT professionals, business users, and personal users use SaaS applications. Products range from personal entertainment like Netflix to advanced IT tools. Unlike IaaS and PaaS, SaaS products are often marketed to B2B and B2C users.
According to a recent McKinsey & Company report, tech industry analysts predict further growth in the software as a service and expect to see the SaaS product market close to US$ 200 billion by 2024.
How important is SaaS management for the IT industry?
Gartner stated: “As software publishers focus on growing subscription and SaaS license revenue, active measurement and management of application costs becomes an inevitable necessity. IT outsourcing and vendor management leaders must shift the focus of software asset management practices to eliminate overspending.” Therefore, organizations that want to grow need the right tools, but the portfolio of tools, applications, services and physical assets tends to increase.
If you manage SaaS in spreadsheets, you will certainly hit a critical point in administration. IT needs a better way to organize and use your assets. Scalable SaaS management requires cutting-edge tools to ensure visibility, reduce waste, and ensure data security.
SaaS vendor management as part of ITAM
With the rise of SaaS in recent years, it has never been more important for IT to streamline SaaS discovery, SaaS adoption, and SaaS operations.
O asset management and managing access to interconnected systems is as important to your overall management practice as controlling physical assets.
And as SaaS usage grows and the balance between hardware and software purchasing shifts, effective vendor management helps organize data and purchasing processes for better decisions and more savings.
What are the biggest SaaS governance concerns for 2022?
1. Compliance
To establish business operations in the market or with a specific client, having well-structured IT compliance is important.
What can we say, then, these days, when many companies have massively adopted home working? Or regulatory privacy laws that pressure companies to adopt best information security practices?
Data is the main structure of an organization and its security needs to be present throughout the chain, both locally and globally.
Hence the importance of IT compliance. This practice is a process where digital security requirements are established for suppliers or meet these third-party security characteristics.
2. Visibility
Visibility is one of the biggest and most complex issues IT teams face when trying to manage assets. When teams lack visibility into available resources, they are at a disadvantage in terms of capacity planning, resource management, employee onboarding, and forecasting.
This lack of visibility is in part due to the growing number of unique billing owners. Small businesses have an average of 10 and larger companies can have up to 100.
Additionally, shadow IT (also known as “independent spending”) is growing. These unauthorized app installations are difficult to detect until they cause a security incident or show up in a corporate credit card audit.
One report estimates that 75% of CIOs expect an increase in cybersecurity engagement in the next year. Visibility will play an important role in the success of cybersecurity initiatives.
3. Access control
Understanding what is access control in information security and how it works is very important for every company that wants to be competitive in its market.
Some factors that reinforce the importance of this procedure in business are:
4. Simplify the means of access
Instead of having multiple passwords, one for each thing, a company can adopt an integrated system with a single password so that a user can access all levels of information that he is authorized to access. This makes auditing easier when traversing the access paths.
5. Create an information hierarchy in the company
Information hierarchy is important in access control for information security, as it simplifies the daily work of employees and allows them to quickly find what they need. So they can avoid wasting time opening multiple folders until they find what they need.
6. Digitize and automate processes
Digitizing company documents facilitates routine and information archiving. In addition, it automates the craft process, which takes longer.
Getting Started with SaaS Management
Many IT departments silently struggle with spreadsheets because of the cost-effectiveness of easily accessible manual processes.
In most cases, investing in an automated vendor management system for SaaS can result in substantial net savings for the organization. In fact, organizations that use vendor management tools to purchase software can save up to 25%.
Another common barrier to automating SaaS management: the perceived difficulty of migration. Migrating to a new platform can be daunting when IT is already struggling to gain visibility into its current software and assets. However, with the right process, migrating to a SaaS management platform can be a relatively quick and easy-to-manage process with immediate cost savings.
where to start
Start your journey to better SaaS management and compliance in three steps:
1. Identify the owners: Implementing SaaS governance is a collaborative effort between IT, procurement, finance, and departmental stakeholders. Identify advocates for gathering and centralizing information from multiple sources.
2. Start with expensive apps: The 80/20 principle applies to application usage, so start by identifying your most popular software tools. Ask department heads for a list of the top 10 or 15 apps used by their teams. Likewise, identify enterprise apps like Slack or Jira.
3- See upcoming projects: check your current SaaS stack for future renewals, expansions or new purchases. Use them as a pilot program for SaaS management automation. Trade and close deals and collect data within the system with the help of CSM and purchasing experts. Add new business to the platform using established protocols and further increase visibility and savings over time.
Historic
Centralized hosting of business applications dates back to the 1960s. to IBM and other mainframe computer vendors conducted a service bureau business, often referred to as timesharing or utility computing . These services included offering computing power and data storage Bank databases for banks and other large organizations from their worldwide data centers .
The expansion of the Internet during the 1990s brought about a new class of centralized computing, called from application service providers (ASP). ASPs provided companies with the service of hosting and managing specialized business applications, to reduce costs through central administration and provider specialization in a given business application. Two of the largest ASPs were USI, based in the Washington, D.C. area, and Futurelink Corporation, based in Irvine, California.
The acronym first appeared in the description of goods and services of a registered trademark of the USPTO , filed September 23, 1985. DbaaS ( Database as a service ) emerged as a subvariety of SaaS and is a type of cloud database.
Microsoft referred to SaaS as “software plus services” for a few years.
Supplier management is a powerful way to stay up to date on what software your company is using (or not), save money on your bottom line, and scale your business efficiently.
Contact us, and see what 4Matt can do for your company to save both time and money.
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