Nothing about cloud software is idle. The list of Software as a Service (SaaS) applications that an organization uses is a living library of changing tools. Software users are a revolving door of employees coming and going. User habits shift as projects start and stop. New software providers enter the market with disruptive new tools and more competitive pricing. Contracts need to be renewed frequently. Software can be an entry point for hackers, meaning security monitoring and compliance is a 24/7 operation.
Thus, managing software is an ongoing practice.
SaaS optimization requires constant evaluation to ensure companies aren’t overprovisioning tools, losing track of new tools in use, falling out of compliance, and missing out on opportunities to save money by reducing SaaS spending.
Sure, SaaS management solutions offer automated technologies that can do much of this work for you, but human oversight is still considered half of the success equation. While these tools are good at ingesting and evaluating data to shortcut the time it takes to arrive at actionable insights, experts are still considered essential in developing and maintaining SaaS management platforms as well as activating a SaaS optimization program.
A team of professionals is needed to prepare and take action against valuable insights. For instance, internal resources spend a large portion of time collecting and centralizing multi-source data and spend significant hours validating the continued need of every software license during contract negotiations. When the average company faces about one SaaS renewal every business day, a SaaS management software and supporting service can reduce and even remove this workload.
For these reasons, Tangoe announces fully managed services to accompany our Tangoe One Cloud for SaaS solution. Let’s take a look at how these new services support our clients and their IT operations, making it easier to optimize software usage and spending for today and all the days to come.
No More Pain in the SaaS: Fully Managed Services for SaaS Management
From setting up Tangoe’s SaaS management solution and customizing it to match your unique business processes to handling the day-to-day administration of new applications, contract renewals, and financial analysis, Tangoe’s new suite of services has you covered. These services ensure our clients’ IT resources stay focused on more strategic objectives.
SaaS Management: Solution Set Up & Monitoring
Let Tangoe’s team of experts simplify your solution implementation process. Our services will:
- Setup domain user integrations to effectively discover SaaS applications in use
- Identify and manage all integrations with all SaaS providers, ensuring the SaaS management solution continues to work with any new tools as your list of applications evolve over time
- Handle license administration during employee onboarding and offboarding. For instance, creating license management playbooks to assign, reallocate, and deprovision app licenses, ensuring each employee gets the right tools to do their job and the right level of access in compliance with corporate policies.
SaaS Optimization Management
The Tangoe team will proactively identify license cost optimization and usage optimization opportunities.
Cost Optimization
- Flag duplicate apps currently in use
- Recommend SaaS vendors offering cost-saving alternative apps – Tangoe has a track record of slashing SaaS costs by at least 30%
- Determine how many additional licenses were purchased above and beyond corporate contractual commitments, helping to identify cost-saving opportunities
- Highlight subscriptions set to auto-renew on corporate credit cards or personal cards
- Leverage usage data to help clients make informed purchases, knowing how many licenses verifiably need to be upgraded now or in the future – learn more about Tangoe’s unrivaled user analytics for Microsoft 365
Usage Optimization
- Analyze under-utilized apps and users wasting valuable licenses, helping clients downsize, downgrade, or reallocate licenses without impacting user functionality
- Discover terminated employees still assigned to app licenses, freeing unused licenses and reducing waste
- Drive employee adoption, helping companies standardize around a lean list of apps
Security Optimization
- Identify security risks from Shadow IT applications, consulting clients on the unsanctioned apps in use and which ones bring the most risk
SaaS Contract Management
Financial and procurement teams find the following services particularly helpful.
- Upload and input contracts, as building the inventory of SaaS applications can be time consuming
- Proactively track contract renewals on a calendar, helping teams stay ahead of procurement cycles – you’ll get notified as soon as a contract is up with the benchmark data you need to negotiate rates and terms based on the contextual intelligence of your historical and previous usage data with granular insight into users, usage habits and usage frequency
- Validate application spending, comparing invoices and contracts to verify dates and amounts are correct – this protects against billing errors and helps verify the cost of the tech stack
SaaS Financial Management: Budget & Forecasting
- Set up chargeback rules, helping clients customize how SaaS costs are allocated or distributed across the company to departments and lines of business
- Report on SaaS spending by application/vendor, by department, and against budget — showing any cost overruns and how SaaS expenditures are performing against budget expectations
- Forecast future demands for applications, using data and trends to inform financial decisions
And when that’s not enough, Tangoe can do even more. Ask about our bill pay services, RFP and contract negotiation artists handling SaaS renewals, and deeper audit and optimization efforts — thanks to Tangoe’s Advisory Services, our team of technology expense management consultants saving companies $250M annually.
When SaaS management is too much to handle, let Tangoe take on the work for you. We understand the processes behind effective SaaS administration and the requirements for Shadow IT mitigation, license management, controlled procurement processes, and financially optimizing investments to ensure every license goes used and every app delivers value to the business.
Ready to learn more?
Check out the solution brochure, Tangoe One Cloud for SaaS.