1 Introduction

The way businesses use software has evolved considerably over the years, driven by advancements in information technology, and changing business needs and end-user expectations. The most significant changes have come with the introduction of cloud computing, which revolutionized the way companies use software.

Companies have shifted rapidly from installing software on individual computers to relying increasingly on cloud-based software services. The shift to cloud-native and cloud-first policies has enabled greater flexibility, scalability, and cost effectiveness.

In more recent times, the shift to the software as a service (SaaS) cloud-based delivery model was even further accelerated by the COVID-19 Pandemic, as companies sought to provide employees with the software tools they needed to work from home.

This rapid adoption of the SaaS model has delivered the benefits of quick and easy deployment, while relieving companies of the burden of maintaining and updating software installed on premises.

However, the easy procurement of a vast and rapidly growing number of SaaS applications has led to several challenges. These stem mainly from the fact that not only has there been a proliferation of SaaS applications, but many of them are not being procured through official channels, resulting in a massive increase in what is commonly known as shadow IT. As a result, employees in some organizations are using thousands of SaaS applications without the supervision or support of the IT, security, privacy and compliance, or procurement teams.

Consequently, many companies struggle to keep track of what applications are being used, who is using them, what they are being used for, and if licenses are being utilized fully.

This makes it difficult for IT and security teams to create and maintain an inventory of all the SaaS applications being used, to manage user access, to monitor SaaS application usage, to ensure applications are configured safely, and to deprovision SaaS applications securely when employees leave, exposing firms to the risk of security breaches. It also makes it difficult for security teams to ensure users have appropriate access to applications, and for procurement and finance teams to keep track of licensing costs, ensure reliability and availability, and manage renewals effectively by monitoring SaaS performance and identifying under-utilized or redundant applications.

The demand for greater visibility and control when it comes to SaaS applications has inevitably led to a new market for SaaS Management software to provide the tools, support, and processes that companies need to manage and optimize SaaS applications. These tools are also needed to maintain control of entitlements to ensure users are not given more access than necessary to do their jobs and that entitlements are revoked when no longer required, which is increasingly necessary for regulatory compliance.

There are already several SaaS Management solutions on the market to help optimize the use of SaaS applications within an organization. These solutions typically focus on a range of capabilities, including application inventory, user provisioning and deprovisioning, cost optimization, security, compliance, integration, performance monitoring, vendor management, and task automation.

Only with complete visibility of SaaS applications and related data, does it become possible to manage and optimize them by supervising their procurement, allocation, security, compliance, and appropriate entitlements to improve efficiency, cut costs, and reduce security and compliance risks.

Figure 1: Unknown assets or software can hurt organizations