SaaS Management in Action: The Hands-On Guide for IT Leaders

How many SaaS apps do you have, and how do you manage them all? For many companies, those aren’t questions they can answer easily. They don’t know how many SaaS apps they have, and when it comes to SaaS management, it’s either done poorly, or it’s nonexistent.

In this post, we’ll explore how IT leaders can effectively manage SaaS apps so they can improve productivity, reduce costs, and improve the employee experience.

What Is SaaS Management?

SaaS management is the process of managing and governing SaaS applications and platforms within a business.

The goal of SaaS management is to gain greater control and visibility over their SaaS portfolios. Today, SaaS management is imperative: Netskope reports that the actual number of cloud services is 1,071 per company. Moreover, many of those SaaS subscriptions aren’t being used – 71% of organizations have “orphaned” SaaS apps (without a clear owner), which can cost companies as much as $8,520 per year for each subscription.

SaaS Management Methods

No company wants to waste money on apps that aren’t being used. Yet, they wind up squandering time, money, and other resources on SaaS management methods that don’t work.

Here are some of the most common free SaaS management tools:

• Spreadsheets
• Employee surveys
• Free trials of SaaS management software

Spreadsheets

Admittedly, a spreadsheet is better than doing nothing, but it still has some major flaws as a SaaS management method.

For a start, they’re manual – they won’t automatically update when there’s a change. Second, SaaS apps can be complex. You need to track:

• The cost per subscription
• Renewal dates
• App ownership
• The app’s compliance status
• Onboarding processes
• Security
• Privacy

All of those things are very difficult to track in a single spreadsheet. As a result, you wind up with a situation where you lack visibility into your SaaS apps and platforms, and you can’t make the right decisions.

Employee Surveys

Employee surveys involve asking employees which SaaS apps they’re using. Here’s why that doesn’t work:

• Not all employees have time to fill out surveys
• Some employees won’t fill out surveys unless they’re guaranteed anonymity, which defeats the purpose of a SaaS app survey
• There’s no guarantee they’re filling out the surveys truthfully
• Even if an employee is truthful about the SaaS apps he or she uses, he or she most likely doesn’t know all of the details, like the cost, renewal dates, compliance status, etc.
• You also can’t track employee usage of a SaaS app through a survey

Free Trials of SaaS Management Software

Free trials of SaaS management software are appealing – they offer a test run before you make a major investment. Yet, if you choose the wrong free trial, you’ll face some significant limitations.

For a start, they’re not a permanent solution – once the trial ends, you won’t be able to renew it. Second, the majority of SaaS management software trials don’t give you access to all of its features; you won’t be able to know what it can truly do unless you purchase it. Third, there might be other limitations, such as constraints on how many users within a company can utilize the SaaS management software.

Productiv: Effective SaaS Management for Your Company

That’s where Productiv comes in. Our SaaS management solution allows you to effectively govern your SaaS apps and platforms.

Here’s why Productiv is different than other SaaS management methods: it doesn’t just track the number of apps you have or even the number of users. Productiv measures how users are engaging with SaaS apps, so you can make better decisions about SaaS renewals and your overall technology strategy.

Productiv’s Benefits

There are three key benefits you’ll see from using Productiv:

• Higher productivity
• Lower costs
• A better employee experience

Higher Productivity

How do Productiv’s SaaS management capabilities boost employee productivity? Thanks to the insight Productiv gives you into your apps, you can avoid redundancies that hinder collaboration.

When SaaS apps and platforms proliferate without anyone reining them in, they prevent employees from effectively collaborating with one another. If one team uses one app and another team uses a different app, those apps won’t share information across teams. As a result, it’s more difficult to get work done.

Productiv not only shows you which apps your employees are using most, but which features of those apps are getting the most mileage. You might learn that employees don’t use some of the premium features of that expensive collaboration app, making it a poor investment.

Lower Costs

Productiv helps you save money in two ways:

• Identifying redundant apps
• Giving you data about app usage and engagement to prepare for subscription renewals

Redundant apps waste resources. If you already have a subscription to Cisco Webex, employees shouldn’t download a free license for Zoom.

Moreover, when it’s time to renew app subscriptions, Productiv gives you the data you need to negotiate with vendors. Let’s say you’re using a SaaS CRM. With Productiv, you can see that employees aren’t using the premium features (the one the salesperson swore would give you the greatest ROI). Armed with that data, you’ll confidently enter the meeting with the salesperson, knowing that you’re negotiating from a position of strength.

A Better Employee Experience

SaaS management with Productiv actually leads to a better employee experience. Here’s why:

• You can eliminate duplicate or redundant apps, which break down information silos to drive greater productivity and collaboration
• Employees always have the right tools at the right time – there’s no more guessing which employees need licenses, or which employees need certain features
• Employees use the apps that allow them to get work thanks to evidence-based decisions

The employee experience matters. When employees have a better experience, they’re more engaged, and highly-engaged employees are 87% less likely to leave their companies. Moreover, companies with more engaged employees earn 2.5 times the revenue than their competitors with less engaged employees.

Productiv: Empowering IT Leaders with Effective SaaS Management

SaaS management allows you to make better decisions for the entire organization – decisions that boost productivity, cut costs, and make your company a better place to work. Learn more about how Productiv is a leader in SaaS management.