While entering

Mr. A works in the IT team of a large company. As the number of SaaS apps used by in-house employees has increased, the number of contracts and purchases that need to be processed has increased. Internally, developers want to focus only on development, so when a request is made to pay for a SaaS app, the payment is processed on a daily basis. It supports individuals to use all SaaS if they wish, and they often sign up and use personal Gmail or Naver Mail. There are concerns about data leaks, but the general manager emphasizes that we should just trust people.

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The need for SaaS management was mentioned internally, and there was a suggestion from the team leader to determine the number of SaaS subscriptions and the number of SaaS accounts. I collected the payments made by departments or individuals, and today I first submitted an offer from 13,000 users to process the SaaS subscription fee.

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As shown in the example above, companies are struggling with SaaS management as the number of SaaS apps used within the organization increases. SaaS is mostly used by departments or individual subscriptions, and it is in a management blind spot. In the case of enterprises in particular, there are many SaaS services that need to be managed due to the large number of employees, but is it possible to manage them by hand on a spreadsheet?

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In this article, we'll look at 3 challenges enterprises face when managing SaaS and look at how POPs can solve them.

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The challenges of SaaS management

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1. User management that must be done on a daily basis

SaaS accounts are repeatedly granted and withdrawn every time an employee joins or leaves the company. Tasks related to SaaS operations, such as suspending employee accounts, reissuing passwords, and reallocating licenses, will increase in proportion to the number of SaaS used within the organization. According to a Gartner report, as of 2022, the average number of SaaS apps used by enterprises is 125. Automating SaaS management tasks is an inevitable trend. Writing and managing spreadsheets by hand is extremely counterproductive. An 'management tool' is necessary for efficient user management.

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2. Limited visibility, wasted costs

Since various SaaS apps are used within the organization, it is difficult to grasp the overall SaaS usage status and cost trends. Unlike software purchased in bulk by companies, SaaS is mostly used as a department or individual subscription, so cost waste due to duplicate use of the same SaaS is increasing.

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According to Roger Waters, Gartner's vice president of research, 30% of SaaS spending is being wasted. Nexlink's analysisAccording to the report, based on the 30 tools most used by enterprises and associated licensing costs, the global waste would amount to 45 million dollars per month. In particular, for BI tools, the monthly license cost was only $83 per user, yet only 38% of purchased licenses were used. Achieving visibility into SaaS usage can reduce leaking costs.

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3. Increased security vulnerabilities

Security vulnerabilities are increasing in terms of authentication rights and account management, as employees sign up and use SaaS with personal emails or are granted more permissions than necessary. There are also cases where an employee who has actually left the company accesses a SaaS app from their previous workplace. It is essential to establish appropriate security policies within the organization to ensure that sensitive data generated within SaaS is well protected.

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Easily manage SaaS with POPs

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1. Automation and self-service

Customers with existing directories can sync users with LDAP and Google Workspace directory integrations. You can manually sync specific users or set policies to automatically sync on a regular basis. You can synchronize and import not only users but also organizational units in a directory. It reduces the hassle of setting up a separate directory and automatically applies changes made to the directory. If an account is created or deactivated in Google Workspace due to an entry/exit occurrence, this also applies to POPs.

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If you assign or remove users from the admin, you can also invite, add, enable, delete, or disable users in SaaS. Each SaaS reduces the time and cost of managing users on a daily basis.

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Additionally, SaaS invoices received by email can be automatically uploaded to POPs, making it easier to manage costs.

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2. Gain visibility into SaaS usage

You can view the overall SaaS usage status and status within the organization at a glance with a dashboard. You can check usage costs for each SaaS and set estimated usage costs to help with financial management.

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You can also check license users in real time using the API and view the licenses being used by each user. Since users can be checked for each license and licenses for each user, it is possible to reduce costs by organizing SaaS that has been used in duplicate or has not been used for a certain period of time.
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You can set license end date reminders for each SaaS to prepare subscription renewals and estimated costs, or consider terminating or replacing subscriptions.

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3. Apply single sign-on (SSO) and security policies

You can log in to all SaaS from POPs at once using SAML 2.0, OIDC, and OAuth standard methods. Since they log in from one place with a single ID, administrators can secure overall usage visibility and become a tool to identify shadow IT. Users can easily log in, improving productivity.

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PoPS supports the application of enterprise-wide security policies at once. It provides an environment where you can set two-step authentication, session timeout, IP restrictions, and password management in one console. Instead of setting security policies for each SaaS, you can manage them in one place at a time with POPs. For more information on security policies, see 'How should I set security policies for SaaS?Please refer to '

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At the end

In an enterprise environment, SaaS management is essential, but it's not an easy task. Difficulties range from various security threats to cost management, data integration, and service quality assurance. These challenges are as important to consider as the benefits of using SaaS.

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Success in SaaS management requires not only technical aspects, but also understanding, collaboration, and continuous improvement efforts across the organization. As part of this effort, it's important for enterprises to adapt to the changing environment and take full advantage of the benefits of SaaS while addressing new challenges. By understanding the challenges of SaaS management and developing strategies to address them, we will be able to achieve a more efficient and innovative digital transformation.

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The use of SaaS applications will continue to expand further in the future, and the importance of management will grow as well. It is necessary to overcome the challenges of SaaS management and strengthen the ability to accelerate business growth through continuous learning and improvement.

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If you have any questions about SaaS management, feel free to contact us. A POPS SaaS management expert will answer your questions.

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👉 Request a POPs demo

👉 Contact POPs

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