Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) solutions are becoming increasingly popular among big enterprises to help them be more agile and cost-efficient. However, the road to success has been strewn with numerous challenges, including a lack of visibility, gathering data and analytics, and optimization.
The first obstacle is the inability of large companies to see SaaS as a viable option. With so many different applications out there, it can be difficult to keep track of what services are being used. It may even be hard for some employees to know which services they have access to or how much their subscriptions cost each month. If you do not make sure your team knows about all the SaaS apps that exist and where licenses are located, then it can result in people using more than necessary on certain subscription types while only using limited amounts on other platforms. Not knowing this information could lead to waste when it comes time to renew contracts or allow individuals with multiple subscriptions that overlap but never use both at once. You need full visibility across all license types before making decisions on renewals and optimization.
When you start digging, the number of SaaS applications is likely to surprise you. You might think you have a handle on your productivity environment because Microsoft Office and Google Workspace are so widespread. However, there are numerous subscription levels accessible as part of those services that contain various independent programs. So, even if you’ve taken into account your basic APIs for Teams, SharePoint, Dynamics CRM Online, and other Microsoft products are often bundled with a subscription. Salesforce and Adobe each have their own slew of APIs, which on occasion number in the dozens or more. Then there’s Zoom, standalone task management applications, one-time data storage options, and any number of uncommon platforms hanging around that
The sum of all SaaS applications multiplied by the number of APIs that make them work adds up to a lot. You could have hundreds in your company without realizing it.
One of the most common challenges that come along with managing software licenses and expenses is trying to optimize your spending. Without proper tools, it can be difficult to track down which subscriptions are being used by certain employees, if they are using them at all, or what type of usage there is for each subscription.
Even when you start to understand your company’s SaaS and UCaaS usage and expenditures, controlling the associated expenses effectively is still a major challenge.
App stores and customer loyalty programs, for example, can reveal valuable information about customers’ usage habits. However, collecting and processing those data streams is a difficult task that few businesses have the tools to accomplish effectively. Analytics applied to the information is even more challenging, but it’s critical to managing your SaaS environment. It’s almost impossible to get.
Businesses may also integrate data from different sources, such as an SSO solution and intelligence gathered using their GL. This technique is time-consuming to implement and maintain, and it provides just limited insight in the end. You’ll still only receive a view of your company’s full SaaS usage and true expenses.
Finding ways to optimize cloud expenses so that they run more efficiently and cost-effectively. Asset managers need the ability to manage their entire asset lifecycle: from discovery and monitoring, through usage and analytics, to asset optimization and termination.
To keep up with SaaS asset management best practices, asset managers need to have access to up-to-date asset reports that are easy to read and understand. They should be able to make decisions about their cloud spending based on this information (e.g., which apps do they want to keep or terminate?). This is not possible with “at-a-glance” reporting that makes asset managers feel like they are taking aim at a moving target. Attempting to optimize cloud assets without visibility into the asset inventory will prove challenging, if not impossible.
These are just some of the challenges that asset managers have had to face around SaaS asset management. Fortunately, there is a solution: asset management software with automated asset
Fortunately, asset management software can be used to provide access to data regarding hardware and network infrastructure, allowing it to be utilized for analytics and reporting. Asset management software making use of hyperautomation may also assist businesses in addressing key business issues. For example, asset hyper-automation may be used to optimize asset management, such as assigning new roles to assets when they are created or decommissioning them when they are no longer in use, by using asset management software and hyper-automation at the same time. The whole SaaS delivery lifecycle will be able to communicate effectively with asset managers, who will finally be able to address asset management challenges like optimization and security.