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Mr. A works as an IT security officer at a midsize company with 3,000 employees. Today, too, I take a taxi after working overtime without fail. Due to a data leak that broke out 1 year and 6 months ago, I was suddenly appointed as an internal SaaS manager, and overtime work became a daily routine. It took 6 months to find the types and numbers of SaaS used by large and small organizations, such as teams/TF/groups, and the person in charge of each app, and time is being spent on checking network leaked traffic one by one. When can I get away from repetitive work and overtime work?

The role of IT teams in today's enterprise environment is becoming increasingly important. IT teams are facing new challenges, especially due to the spread of SaaS. SaaS increases employee productivity and improves enterprise operational efficiency, but it also increases management complexity and security risks. As shown in the example above, IT professionals are faced with the challenge of managing numerous SaaS applications and continuously monitoring the costs, security, and user access rights associated with them.

In this article, we'll share 3 key know-how that can help IT teams maximize work productivity and reduce the complexity of SaaS management.

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An era where SaaS management has become essential

During the COVID-19 pandemic, companies accelerated the transition to a cloud environment where they can work from anywhere, and demand for SaaS, which allows applications to be used on the cloud, also skyrocketed. According to the “SaaS Market Research Report (2021-2030)” of global market research firm AMR (Allied Market Research), the size of the global SaaS market is expected to grow at an average annual rate of 18.82% from 2021 to 2030.

Currently, the number of SaaS apps used by a company is 125, and the number is increasing by 15-20% each year, so “SaaS management” tasks have become essential for IT personnel. However, it's almost impossible to find out how employees use SaaS, and it makes even less sense to stop using SaaS apps they've already started using for security reasons. Eventually, it became an era where it was essential for companies to manage SaaS.

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3 essential requirements to address IT staff pain points

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1. Get visibility into the access and activity of the SaaS apps you use

In order to manage SaaS, the first thing to do is to understand what kind of SaaS employees are using, such as the type, number, and accounts of the SaaS they are using, and what kind of SaaS they are using. Unlike software that companies buy in bulk, SaaS is mostly used by teams or groups on individual subscriptions, leaving a blind spot in management. The first step in SaaS management is to understand our organization's SaaS usage, such as what SaaS is being used by the company, whether SaaS is being used well according to the purpose of use, whether permission access is being managed properly, and whether there are any wasted costs.

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2. Efficiently manage SaaS through a centralized console

In order to see the status of SaaS usage at a glance and operate it easily, it is necessary to be able to manage all SaaS from a single console. Instead of the hassle of tracking the SaaS usage status and information of each employee in an old fashion or obtaining each account information for each SaaS and the person in charge processing costs one by one, the automation and efficiency of IT personnel will increase the work automation and efficiency of IT personnel. Also, you should be able to reduce costs and prevent double charges by checking the user's app login history to check whether the user is logging in to a specific app or using SaaS.

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3. Set up SaaS according to the security guidelines set by the enterprise

SaaS management is carried out in a single console, and the person in charge must be able to apply a pre-set security regulation template to all SaaS and set it according to the permissions of employees. Most of the actual employees don't know whether they are using SaaS in a secure environment. The SaaS usage environment should be restricted so that it cannot be accessed from outside the company, or it is also necessary to immediately restrict use depending on the situation.

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Automation of SaaS management tasks, POPs that increase IT staff productivity

SaaS management tasks are essential, but IT personnel face a number of structural issues that reduce the productivity of those tasks. Since SaaS management tasks span multiple teams, including IT teams, finance teams, and general affairs teams, they spend a lot of time on repetitive tasks due to the ambiguity about the scope of work and the need to take care of SaaS-specific account information and access on a daily basis. This will soon have a negative impact on IT staff job satisfaction and work productivity. As SaaS usage increases, securing visibility through a console that can view SaaS usage status such as users, licenses, costs, and security management at a glance will save IT staff time and be able to focus on more important tasks.

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POPs is a SaaS Management Platform (SMP, SaaS management platform) that can efficiently manage and use an overflow of SaaS. PoPS provides a central management console function to manage and enable the discovery, management, automation, and optimization of SaaS used by employees. It is based on single sign-on (SSO) and two-factor authentication, making it easy to assign and retrieve user rights, and securing visibility into costs and usage, so you can effectively manage SaaS.

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