Case study

Productiv + Uber

How effective management of SaaS powers operations for Uber

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Managing SaaS and employee experience for over 35,000 people

Challenges:

Static View of SaaS Portfolio
Rapid Company Growth
Difficult to Adapt to Changing SaaS Landscape
Limited Visibility of Actual Usage and Value

Results:

Improved SaaS Management Processes
Better Cost and License Management
More Agile and Dynamic App Portfolio
Increased Business Value

Founded in 2009, Uber may be best known for pioneering the ride-hailing business, but the company has expanded into food delivery, freight transportation, and even scooter rentals. Uber’s scale is massive, with over 600 offices globally and over 35,000 people.

The IT platform to support this large enterprise is even bigger – the company has over 1,000 SaaS applications. Uber needed IT to be both fast and agile since the company was onboarding more than 1,000 people per month. Uber needed to keep pace with the rapid speed of employee growth, new apps, and security concerns. Simply put, they needed to be able to manage their software portfolio in a much more systematic and dynamic way.

Align SaaS Usage with Value

One of the key challenges for Uber was supporting 35,000 employees and matching SaaS tools to each departments needs. Productiv’s feature usage data was a critical draw for IT.

The team leverages this data for much more impactful conversations with business units, finance, and vendors. The data enables them to right-size contracts with vendors based on actual feature level data and usage. As Shobz puts it, “It may not be right-sizing for discounts, but right-sizing for needs and value. The team may not want one feature, but more of another.” The results are a tighter ship, better cost and license management, all while delivering business value.

Manage SaaS Portfolio and Processes

Uber needed to find a way to manage over 1,000 SaaS applications and improve the ways they tracked and validated new apps.

Productiv enabled Uber to see the full portfolio easily. “The tool is a one-stop shop where we can have a really broad view of a really complicated system – a holistic look,” Shobz says. Uber has ingested over 1 million app logins already and Productiv helps them get a pulse on the overall portfolio. This visibility is especially helpful when there are multiple implementations of a SaaS application, like Salesforce, in different departments.

Improve Productivity and Toolset for Employees

Finally, Uber IT wanted to be able to create a more agile and dynamic app portfolio. The team couldn’t wait 6 months to approve new tools.

Productiv’s SaaS platform allowed the team to track and manage new applications in a secure and systematic method. As Shobz described, Productiv helped them create a sandbox with guardrails. They could test a tool in one department and really understand business value and the KPIs of a new app. Meanwhile, if a tool was being used by more than 3 departments, then it became a “Corporate tool”.

The end goal was a dynamic toolset where departments can easily see SaaS apps that have been blessed by IT. Productiv enabled IT to be strategic partners with business groups, helping them recommend and vet technology.

"Productiv’s feature-level visibility into SaaS application engagement gives us a complete picture of how employees use applications to do their jobs, enabling our team to focus adoption efforts on the applications that drive maximum value.”

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