8 SaaS spend challenges BetterCloud can solve for you
When it comes to your SaaS tech stack, there’s a lot to keep track of.
From keeping all of your contracts organized to ensuring all of your data is secure, it’s nearly impossible to do it all in a spreadsheet.
To stay informed regarding all of your SaaS applications, it’s in your best interest to give yourself some peace of mind that your organization is utilizing a SaaS management platform to do the heavy lifting for you.
If you’ve found your company experiencing the same SaaS spend challenges regularly, let BetterCloud solve them for you.
Challenge 1: Overlapping SaaS products
In a time when getting a new application is as easy as having five minutes and a credit card, IT is all too familiar that shadow IT is always lingering in their company tech stack.
Without the visibility that comes with a SaaS management tool, it can be nearly impossible to know what tools your end users are actually using. Like when your sales and marketing teams are using two different, but similar project management tools right under IT’s nose.
Or maybe two teams are using two different expense management SaaS applications. Even though these two tools are different, they have similar functionality and features, which is where overlap comes into play. Meaning your company is paying for the same features and functionality – twice.
Even after cleaning up with a SaaS management tool, it’s tough to keep track of overlapping features as new features and functionality are added.
What was once two different software solutions at the beginning of your fiscal year can look very similar, with the same user experience and delivery model at the end of the year, thanks to new developments and software improvements.
Whatever the case may be, it’s more common than you think to have overlapping SaaS products.
Solution: BetterCloud can identify software overlap
One of many benefits of using a SaaS management tool like BetterCloud is it can identify any overlap in functionality between various software solutions. When you know where there’s feature or product overlap, it’s easy to pinpoint new ways to not only cut costs, but trim out any unnecessary and overlapping tools, which can free up more of your company’s budget to be spent on tools your teams actually need.
By assessing these redundancies in software your company is experiencing, BetterCloud provides clear and concise data needed to make smarter software decisions that are in the best interests of their company’s strategy, employees, budget, and customers.
“We are a small company, but as we have grown, so have our demands and costs. New employees often sign up for services without knowing what other teams are using. BetterCloud has already notified our finance team of overlap in spend where we can consolidate those services.”
– Verified G2 Review, Marcus W.
Challenge 2: Excessive shadow IT
Another common challenge businesses of all shapes and sizes face from a large SaaS stack is shadow IT.
Shadow IT encompasses any unapproved information technology (IT) systems and software that your company uses and manages without the knowledge or approval of the IT department.
Unauthorized tech exposes your entire organization to increased risk, including data breaches. For example, an employee could create an account in an unsanctioned application, and then – making matters even worse – grants it access to sanctioned company apps like Dropbox and Google Docs.
In addition to a breach, shadow IT can also result in inefficient collaboration across departments, compliance concerns, redundant apps, and wasted budget spend.
Solution: BetterCloud can help reduce shadow IT
With BetterCloud, IT is able to see what apps are living in their environment, as well as who is using them and flags apps that have yet to be provisioned.
By detecting hidden software, BetterCloud safeguards your business from potential security threats. This allows you to streamline operations, promote transparency, and make informed decisions that drive growth.
Challenge 3: Spending too much on software
IT teams often face pressure to reduce software costs annually. Overspending can lead to budget cuts, project delays, and potential security risks. Careful budget planning is crucial to avoid these pitfalls.
To get a handle on how much your company is spending on SaaS tools, you’ll need to know more about software spend optimization, which is the process of managing not only your spend on software, but your contracts, account usage, and compliance.
If your team is in the dark regarding how much of the overall budget is allotted to be spent on software, it’s only a matter of time until you’re in the red. Being ill-informed about your company’s software budget can also lead to:
- Uncertainty regarding your software footprint
- Misunderstanding of how to manage your software footprint
- Lacking visibility into which software is being used
- Uncertainty if employees like the software they’re using
- Difficulty with license management
Solution: BetterCloud provides complete SaaS budget breakdown
Empower your business with a 360° view of spending, powered by BetterCloud.
It’s common for companies of all shapes and sizes to struggle with their SaaS budget, especially when it’s kept inside a spreadsheet. But there’s simply too much information to keep track of, especially when you consider the fact that spreadsheets are static without the ability to incorporate information dynamically and receive updates in real-time.
SaaS spend management tools like BetterCloud help organizations streamline and optimize internal software spend, utilization, contracts, and compliance by seamlessly housing and visualizing your technology stack.
Beyond visibility, BetterCloud automates your SaaS spend optimization efforts so your team can spend more time working towards company success.
Challenge 4: Lack of understanding around software contracts
As your SaaS stack grows, so will the number of software contracts you need to keep track of. Once a contract is signed and the software is successfully implemented, there are a lot of details to keep organized.
- These details include:
- When the contract renews
- If the contract is set to auto-renew
- Who the contract owner is
- The total value of the contract
- The term length of the contract
And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Utilizing spreadsheet solutions that are often incomplete – and therefore ineffective – will only hurt your organization in the long run as they try to make strategic decisions to reach their goals.
Solution: BetterCloud keeps SaaS contract data organized
The contract dashboard in BetterCloud is designed to complete transparency surrounding contract details.
As a system of record, BetterCloud showcases all important details and software-related contracts, subscriptions, and credit card purchases in one easy-to-navigate dashboard. Customers will receive notifications in real time so they can examine renewal and termination dates, total contract value, type of billing cycle, auto-renewal information, and other important details, so nothing ever goes missed.
With the dashboard, it’s easy to see a breakdown of which contracts expire or renew each month, if it’s time to assign a new contract owner, how many active contracts are within your tech stack, and so much more. Never again will a software contract renew or expire without you knowing about it first.
Best of all, enterprise customers of BetterCloud enjoy the convenience of the Contract Concierge team (with the help of AI!). The concierge team allows customers to save time by entering details of future contracts into the BetterCloud database for them.
Challenge 5: Making uniformed software choices
When it comes to software utilization, how do you know your company is making the best decision for its own unique needs?
For instance, when a contract is set to renew, how will you make a decision regarding software seats? Do you currently have enough, too many, or too few? Going too far in either direction can result in overspending on seats. In addition, are the employees who do have a seat even using the software? How often are they logging in – and for how long?
Having your data stagnant in a spreadsheet will make it impossible to get your hands on these answers.
Solution: BetterCloud helps to make smarter software decisions
Monitoring, auditing, and evaluating license utilization is easy with BetterCloud. With a clear picture into the fluctuations of software usage, IT is able to optimize SaaS spend in seconds.
In just a few clicks, stakeholders can see whether they’ve purchased too many or not enough seats in the license agreement for a particular software solution. When the contract is set to renew, they can use the data to rightsize the contract and come to a decision to keep, replace, or stop using the application altogether.
Also, it allows IT admins to better distribute seats that are going unused. They can easily see which employees have a seat, but aren’t using the software regularly enough, and then relocate it to an employee who will actually use it. With this data, instead of spending more of your budget for more seats, they can just be assigned in a smarter fashion.
Having accurate information surrounding how many licenses are paid, how many are free, how many are currently allocated, and how many are actively in use ensures your organization is getting the most out of its SaaS budget.
Challenge 6: Lack of visibility into employee and department software use
You know your organization has a never-ending list of SaaS tools within its tech stack. But how confident are you that your employees are using these apps?
You may know that your marketing team has purchased a certain SEO tool, but do you know if their utilization of the app is worth the cost? How can you be sure your company is getting its money’s worth in terms of employee and department use?
Without a SaaS spend management tool, you’ll be left wondering if the apps you’re spending money on truly help teams collaborate more effectively.
Solution: BetterCloud puts this data front and center
To avoid guessing how your apps are being used, and to promote alignment between departments, BetterCloud houses a complete list of every app your company uses, which department owns the app, who’s logging in, and how often.
In this dashboard, customers can see in just a few clicks not only how much is being spent on a SaaS tool, but what the login activity looks like, the name of each employee logging in, when their last login was, how many logins an employee has a month, as well as data surrounding the contract owner and if there are any overlapping products.
Having immediate access to current and accurate data supports an unbiased, data-driven assessment of what fits and what doesn’t for the long-term – preventing inaccurate (yet passionately held) opinions from influencing the wrong decision.
When it comes to SaaS tools, no one likes surprises.
Whether it’s the overall company strategy, budget, or employee breakdown, some things are just good to know – like knowing the ins and outs of your total software footprint. Without having these insights, the decisions your company makes, for the short and the long term, could be wildly off base.
As our reliance on cloud based tools continues, knowing the ins and outs of your total software footprint is more important than ever.
Solution: BetterCloud uncovers this data
BetterCloud makes it possible for finance, IT, and procurement teams to identify all software that is being purchased and licensed within their organization. Having this comprehensive data at your fingertips gives customers the ability to make smarter decisions and get organized regarding their technology strategy.
Having this information allows organizations of all sizes to better set up their budget and employees for long-term success.
Challenge 8: No empowering way to help employees be heard
Who makes the software buying decisions at your company?
If it’s not with your employees, chances are good that you’re not making SaaS decisions with your team in mind. When this is the case, it’s difficult to foster an inclusive culture within your organization when choosing the right software.
You could be purchasing software that your employees don’t enjoy using, don’t need to get their daily responsibilities done, or one that overlaps with a different SaaS tool.
Solution: BetterCloud gives you employee sentiment data
To know how your employees really feel about the SaaS solutions within your stack, there’s the employee sentiment hub within BetterCloud.
When IT collects user sentiment data, the process includes asking employees or team members what software tools they believe are actually worth having, using, and paying for. One of the best ways to gather this kind of data is to send out an employee pulse survey.
These surveys make it easy for team members to share their feedback directly with stakeholders and decision-makers as a way to influence the tech stack within the organization. This provides customers the chance to not only grow company culture but also boost employee trust and keep communication about software solutions front and center so everyone is on the same page.
Once responses are back from employees, the pulse survey provides decision-makers with four possible outcomes.
- Replace or retrain: Software within this category are applications that employees believe to be critical to their daily responsibilities, but don’t necessarily enjoy using. These apps should either be replaced with a different tool that has similar features and functionality, or there’s the option of retraining employees on how to use this software in case some of its features aren’t being utilized in ways that it should be.
- Consider eliminating: Stakeholders should always pay special attention to software that is disliked by employees and considered to be non-critical. Based on this feedback, any of these tools should be eliminated, since they don’t provide value and are wasted spend.
- Renegotiate pricing: There’s some software that employees say they enjoy using, but don’t find critical to their daily responsibilities. For these applications, stakeholders should look at the license and cost of the tool. Before the contract is renewed, renegotiating the cost or lowering license counts may be the best strategy.
- Keep and expand: When employees say that software is both loved and critical, it’s easy for decision-makers to categorize it as a must-have tool that needs to be used for the long term. To save money, these applications should always have a multi-year contract.
Unleash the power of your SaaS
Tired of SaaS chaos? BetterCloud is the solution.
If you’d like to learn more about what this comprehensive SaaS lifecycle management tool can do for your business, request a demo to start automating your entire tech stack, optimizing software spend, safeguarding sensitive company data, and more.
