6 ways to level up your SaaS management with Sidekick, Productiv’s AI Assistant

Artificial intelligence (AI) is making waves across all functions of business, and SaaS management is no exception. Many AI products offer solutions to help tackle challenges that procurement leaders face, like inefficiency, high costs, and security risks. As you continue to think through your SaaS management strategy, consider how using AI solutions can help address these issues by streamlining workflows, boosting productivity, and empowering teams to do more, faster.

Enter: Sidekick, Productiv’s AI Assistant

More than just your average chatbot, Sidekick is the no-cost, implementation free, accelerator you’ve been waiting for to take you from tactical to strategic superhero. Gone are the days of running in circles or searching for hours to find the answers with the data you need. Instead, Sidekick works as your AI assistant, integrated with the Productiv Platform to help you harness the full power of your data. 

Sidekick has been built so you can talk to it like a coworker. Whether you’re looking for a quick answer within a complex report, or want to confirm that your operational ducks are in a row, Sidekick has you covered. From data and intelligent insights, to comprehensive analysis and SaaS management strategy, Sidekick provides industry leaders with speedy, digestible information so they can put time back on their calendar and enhance their performance. 

Effective use of integrated AI can have a myriad of positive benefits, including streamlining how you receive data and analytics and boosting your productivity to the next level. 

How can AI level up your SaaS management? 

Almost every professional will tell you that they could use more hours in the day. It’s a universal fact that too much valuable time is taken up with tedious report analysis or meetings that could have been an email. Integrated AI gives you the tools to get those hours back, speed up your processes, and reinvest those precious hours on high-priority tasks and creative strategy. When you’re weighing your options with AI, consider how these use cases can further assist in optimizing costs, providing deeper insights, and giving you greater control over your SaaS management strategy.

1. Spend optimization and cost savings: 
   
   AI is transforming how companies manage spend. Integrated AI can analyze usage data to uncover trends and predict costs, allowing companies to stay proactive in their spend management strategies. By coupling an AI solution with a SaaS Management Platform — like Sidekick and Productiv — it’s easier than ever to identify unusual spikes or inefficiencies within your portfolio. AI can also automate tedious tasks and minimize errors, freeing up teams and ensuring data accuracy. 
   
   And it goes beyond simple spend monitoring. By analyzing your usage trends, AI can actively seek out cost-saving opportunities and provide actionable recommendations such as where to consolidate licenses or eliminate overlapping tools. This can help companies achieve greater cost optimization through better insights, streamlined processes, and highly informed decisions.
   
   
2. Simplification of data:
   
   Traditionally, analyzing insights from complex data involves poring over spreadsheets and reports, taking hours to find the answers you’re actually looking for. This not only hinders quick decision-making but also restricts access to crucial information for the broader team.
   
   With an AI solution, simply ask for what you’re looking for and get complicated data sets translated into easy-to-read, actionable answers. This simplicity empowers every user, regardless of technical expertise, to be able to locate the information they need. You no longer need to be a power-user to unlock the full potential of your SaaS Management Platform. Your integrated AI solution elevates the way you source data, allowing users to quickly access and understand crucial information.
   
   
3. Increased productivity and time back:
   
   Awaiting answers can add even more steps to your already packed schedule. By utilizing AI to get immediate access to actionable answers, you can allow teams to ramp up their productivity and spend that extra time focusing on more creative, strategic tasks. 
   
   AI automates the heavy lifting of report generation, data analysis, and contract management. It can extract and summarize key details so you can spend your time more wisely instead of sifting through tedious, complex reports. This can streamline processes and also minimize the need for manual intervention, further freeing up valuable time for employees. 
   
   
4. Personalized insights into your data :
   
   Opting for an AI solution that collaborates with your SaaS Management Platform, like Sidekick, can help make spend decisions easier. You already have the numbers, but your data is only as good as what you can do with it. 
   
   You don’t have to spend time sifting through figures to inform your decisions. With AI you — and your teams — instantly have the business specific information needed to efficiently purchase and renew, without extra hassle. Reducing the steps toward success will further protect your budget and highlight even more cost savings opportunities. 
   
   Personalized insights based on your in-house application catalogs can provide application comparisons and consolidation recommendations, taking the difficulty out of spend decisions by surfacing data and insights around your portfolio. 
   
   
5. Better vendor management:
   
   Traditional approaches to vendor management often involve manual processes that can lead to potential inefficiencies and missed cost-saving opportunities.  However, AI-powered SaaS Management Platforms foster stronger collaborations between businesses and their vendors by providing mutually-beneficial insights that drive better communication.
   
   Using AI to gain deeper insights into vendor performance empowers you to co-create better solutions for both teams. If there’s a gap in performance expectations, AI can get to the root of the issue early, so you can open up the lines of communication before larger problems arise. By analyzing historical data and current spending trends, AI can identify areas for optimization so you can propose adjustments that benefit both parties involved. 
   
   
6. Streamlined contract management: 
   
   Manually managing contracts for every tool in your portfolio can often result in things slipping through the cracks. AI solutions can simplify your contract management by automating tasks like contract analysis, and by identifying key terms, important dates, and renewal opportunities. 
   
   The proper solution can also largely help with risk mitigation. Your integrated AI can analyze vast amounts of spend data to educate teams on contract details and recommend negotiation opportunities. This opens doors for early action and communication with vendors to address concerns before they escalate into larger problems. 
   
   It can also ensure that every contract is accounted for by surfacing applications without a contract. This allows for a holistic look into all of the contracts in your portfolio and ensures better data maintenance. Whether you’re in the process of negotiations or worried you’re missing a renewal, quickly checking in with your integrated AI can provide you an easy to understand status update — without having to always rely on other team members. 

From the moment a new purchase is initiated, to managing a growing portfolio, through to renewing contracts with the right information at your fingertips, Productiv and Sidekick are here to provide you and your teams with the answers you need. The collaboration between Sidekick and Productiv delivers more than just a chatbot — it brings you better data, stronger relationships, and elevated productivity. 

Whether you’re prioritizing contract management, looking to improve your vendor relationships, or are seeking out more personalized insights, integrated AI can deliver the answers you need to get the job done. It’s here to help you bring your productivity to the next level, simplify how you receive data and analytics, and help you better understand your ultimate source of truth for all things spend.