Reimagine SaaS management

SaaS management is now a business problem – not only an IT issue

Today’s global economic landscape has made cost pressure concerns a significant topic in the agendas of most businesses, especially CFOs. At the same time, the costs of technologies and their associated supply chains are also rising – in particular for Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) and SaaS software management.

SaaS consumption is special in the sense that decision making is primarily in the hands of business lines and not only for IT organizations.  In fact, only 26.1% of SaaS applications are controlled by the IT organization, while around 70.1% are purchased by lines of businesses.¹ This means that, in reality, everyone is a buyer when it comes to SaaS. 

Considering that SaaS totals 60% of the average software spend budget for many organizations, prioritizing proactive SaaS management to protect operating expenses (OpEx) must now become a standard practice.² 

Going further, this is more than just cost savings and unlocking new value. It’s about addressing potential security and compliance risks that come with unused licenses, which may contribute to sensitive data leakage. It reinforces cybersecurity, while also optimizing management over SaaS tools, apps, and contracts. 

To put it simply: SaaS technologies and services are maturing, but their ways of management remain quite basic in most organizations, compared to what is invested.

The drivers of SaaS cost

SaaS costs are evolving due to several factors occurring side-by-side. The convergence of vendor price hikes, AI-enabled SaaS features, growing popularity in decentralized purchasing, and ongoing license complexity are increasing costs and consumption.

Take a proactive SaaS management approach

This is the moment where a SaaS management solution will facilitate the management of those drivers. Technologies constantly evolve, meaning it’s not enough to conduct cost-out on SaaS as a one-off activity – continuous SaaS optimization is critical to success. It’s imperative that organizations develop an active understanding of the inventory, licenses, and renewals, while keeping a vigilant watch on how these services are impacting costs. 

It’s also important to consider the functional overlaps between SaaS, as well as the limitations linked to a lack of SaaS integration where overlaps do occur. To be specific, where are SaaS applications covering similar business processes and are these teams sharing data to avoid siloes, data duplication, and inconsistencies?  

It requires an understanding down to the level of license type deployed to users, and what business metrics are tied to the value of these licenses by the purchasing department. Additionally, understanding how collaborative models work, so that they can discourage isolated purchasing behaviors.

However, this is only part of the story.

Take a pragmatic SaaS approach

It’s vital to analyze SaaS management needs from a business perspective. There is a critical need for executive sponsorship to understand the waste incurred by ineffective SaaS management.  

A practical first step for SaaS software management that any company can make is a “first-in, first-out” approach. In this case, it means examining the top SaaS contracts by proximity to their renewal, aggregated costs, and determining the volume of unused licenses. It can be tempting to look at the biggest contracts first, but our experience has shown that their complexity and length of negotiation can often degrade significant value from lower tier ones. 

That is why contracts near their renewal dates should be prioritized for review. This helps companies determine if a particular SaaS contract is being used to its fullest potential and if it is worth renewing or adjusting. It helps ease the process as well, given the abundance of SaaS contracts a company may have, which may mean dealing with a handful of renewals every week.

The case for a unified SaaS management strategy

This requires a complete analysis not only of the costs involved, but of the total value that a SaaS application is bringing to the business. If a SaaS app does have overlap between business processes, what is the total value it’s delivering for them?  

For example, if two separate business processes are leveraging a SaaS application, is this building greater value and efficiency for the company, and will the impact of reducing access to the SaaS application negatively impact that value? Will it lead to teams being locked out, unable to access the SaaS application at a critical moment to support another team? These kinds of questions need to be deeply considered during the analysis process. 

But this kind of approach, while highly rewarding, also requires specialized skills that may not be present within an organization or that are not readily available in the market. The best solution is to leverage an ecosystem of partners who can unlock value quickly, while also actively supporting and building additional SaaS management capabilities. 

Start your on-demand SaaS management evolution

Overall, re-thinking SaaS management is one part of a wider challenge in addressing all on-demand technologies, such as Cloud, Gen AI, AI infrastructure, and, of course, SaaS. It’s imperative to re-think this through a business lens to help control cost, consumption, security, and overall usage.

Capital expenditure governance systems are not structured in a way that can optimally navigate these continually evolving technologies. This is an era where everyone is a buyer, and every click is a micro-cost that can (and will) result in large costs later if left unchecked.

We’re ready to discuss how to drive greater value from your SaaS portfolio. We can support you with stronger insights and agile, proactive SaaS management advisory.

It’s time to stop asking, “What’s the cost of a click?”.

It’s time to know the cost of a click.

Reference: _{1. SaaS Management Index, 2025; 2. IDC Spending Guide, 2024}