COVID-19 and SaaS Sprawl

As IT budgets for 2021 are reviewed and adjusted, many organizations are seeing the impact of COVID-19 on their priorities and tech spends. For many organisations, the cost of simply doing business is on the rise.

IT Spending Review

For many organisations around the world COVID-19 forced an immediate shutdown, those lucky enough switched to working from home. This sudden change in remote working caused organisations to invest in additional tech solutions including video conferencing, whiteboarding, and document collaboration. Millions rushed out and signed up to Zoom, and in doing so established Zoom as a verb in the English language. Established products from Microsoft (with Skype) and Cisco (with Webex) missed a significant opportunity as businesses, families, communities, and even governments quickly shifted to the Zoom video conferencing platform. And, even though Google announced that it enabled people to use the Google video meeting tool, Meet, for free, this transition left Google as well as other leading vendors behind. Interestingly, while Zoom had a higher daily user count (300 million participants), Google Workspace has close to 15 times more actual users than Zoom does. However, the primary Google Workspace use case is email, and not video meetings.

Now that there a light at the end of the tunnel, in the form of a COVID-19 vaccine, and organisations start to talk about Hybrid Working Environments (which isn’t the solution by the way) there is now a need to review existing contracts for services and products and see if they are fit for purpose.

SaaS Sprawl

Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) has made it easy for organisations to rapidly implement digital solutions within their businesses, however, with this ease comes new challenges and risks. Research shows that the typical worker uses around three dozen cloud-based apps – every day! If left unchecked this unmanageable digital estate can lead to all kinds of business risks. An unruly sprawl of untamed cloud applications and services can quickly become an angry nest of vipers, potentially causing serious harm to your organisation.

There is also the pull of cloud resellers trying to fix clients on 3 and even 5 year contracts, while customers, in uncertain times are looking for a more short-term and flexible approach to help them manage their digital estate through the coming months.

That is why we feel that it’s wise to take stock with a complete Software Audit of your business. We’ve managed to save our customers significant SaaS over-spend by merely focusing on two main areas, duplications and redundancy. We’ve been surprised to see organisations using and paying for similar software solutions such as Google Meet (which is included with Google Workspace) and Zoom. Or Dropbox and Google Drive (again included in Google Workspace). As well as duplications many organisations forget or don’t correctly offboard users who have left the organisation or suspend licenses for those who have been furloughed. According to a Gartner report, most organisations are overspending on software by up to 30%. SaaS resources are wasted, which now seems to be accepted as the norm. In fact, when we work with new clients, we typically find a massive waste in SaaS resources.

Get in touch with our team for a complete SaaS review and we’ll guarantee that we will save you money, strength your security, and help you remain compliant.