Thanks to the wide range of solutions available on the market, companies across all sectors are now largely equipped with SaaS. On average, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) use 15 SaaS applications. This number can go up to 45 for medium and large enterprises.
Given these figures, it is now essential to consider and implement software fleet management. This management is a whole discipline in and of itself called SaaS management. It brings together daily practices and tools needed to optimise all things related to professional software.
Monitoring SaaS-related expenses and ensuring that the user directory is up to date are among the various challenges of SaaS management. At the crossroads of management, cybersecurity and compliance related to the use of business data, it is now a must for the vast majority of organisations.
There can be no SaaS management without SaaS, but first of all, what is exactly a SaaS (and why do we see this term everywhere these days)? SaaS is an acronym derived from “Software as a Service”. And that's just it: software. What about this notion of ‘service’?
Before internet services were common, software did not work as it does today.
To use software, you first had to purchase a licence, which gave you access to a download file. This file was your own paid and legal copy of the software. It was, in a way, our individual and personal title deed (or rather, right of use).
Once you had downloaded the software on your computer, you could use it locally. This meant that you had access to a version that had been installed on that specific workstation (i.e. computer). If you had to go on a trip and use a different computer, you needed to reinstall the software on the new machine.
At the time, we were all organised and managed it, but today thist seems rather restrictive and old-fashioned.
This old-fashioned impression stems from the fact that, nowadays, online hosting systems have become widely available thanks to the cloud.
The possibilities offered by the internet have made storing software online, instead of installing it on a machine, a reality. Thanks to this system, all you need is internet access to use the online tools of your choice.
Unlike purchasing a licence, SaaS is most often billed as a subscription. In general, a company can choose between one and three plans to get started with any SaaS.
These packages differ in the number of features they offer, and the number of users they include. The variety of pricing options is designed to appeal to as wide a range and size of businesses as possible. All this is done to fit as many use cases and, therefore, potential prospects as possible.
Today, a company can get SaaS for just about anything. Planning tools, collaborative messaging, accounting, ERP, industry-specific solutions for logistics, catering or even dental practices... All you need is a little search, to find the right fit.
Unlike its licence-based ancestor, SaaS is easy to use and easy to cancel. The subscription can be managed from the payment settings of the main user or the account administrator. Click on a couple of options and you're done.
All this is great at first. After a while, companies start needing SaaS for each and every thing. Meanwhile this SaaS fleet expands, it is necessary to ensure that all employees are properly set up and have access to the tools they need. If the company is dynamic and growing, it doesn't take long for internal management chaos to become a reality.
Since you use SaaS, you'll have to manage them. But how? With so many tools, data and employee accounts to manage on a daily basis, nothing tops a tool which can automate repetitive actions.
This principle of automation is at the heart of SaaS management. We could just as easily talk about secure management of your software stack. The idea is clear: bring all your tools together into one meta SaaS to avoid repeating the same management operations 15 times a day.
If you do not centralise tools, you will be forced to manage your users in the settings of each one of your SaaS. That's half a day wasted making sure you've removed the former intern from all the software so they don't run off with your business proposal when they join the competition.
We're joking, but in cases where employees have access to truly sensitive assets, data leaks become a very serious issue. Properly managing your SaaS not only enables you to keep your list of user members up to date, but also ensures a sufficient level of vigilance to prevent security breaches.
In short, SaaS Management is a practice that enables a company to quickly:
This list roughly summarises practices that are truly complex to implement on a daily basis.
If you think this list only stated the obvious, try this test now: write down a complete list of the software you use in your company, from memory, without omitting a single item.
You will quickly understand two things: 1) you use more SaaS than you thought, and 2) it is likely that making the list from memory was more complicated than you expected.
If you fancy it, ask a colleague to check whether your list is exhaustive (or have some fun asking them to play the game as well :).
If the task of compiling the list is already a challenge, imagine what it’s like to try and create management practices. This is a necessary prerequisite for optimising software expenditure. Without this visibility, it is impossible to really determine which tools are useful and which are superfluous. Eliminating unused tools reduces the number of potential data breaches.
Without a tracking tool or a centralised system for visibility, it is impossible to avoid paying for software that is not being used. Similarly, when we know that some SaaS billing methods are based on the number of current or active users, it is important to precisely monitor this number.
In short, SaaS management is a discipline that enables you to manage your software applications efficiently in order to track their actual, daily usage.It is also useful to avoid data leaks and equipment expenses.
