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Getting Rid of Shadow IT with SaaS Spend Management Tools

StackShare Editors

Yonas Beshawred

October 20, 2021
Getting Rid of Shadow IT with SaaS Spend Management Tools

While SaaS tools have greatly improved development and organizations for the better, the continued growth in platforms and apps has led to app sprawl. Annual market trends are reinforcing the obvious, ever-increasing expansion within organizations on SaaS and open source tools.

This influx requires spend mitigation and consolidation to ensure organizations are effectively empowering their engineers and managing the costs. Private StackShare for Teams compliments SaaS Spend Management tools by unearthing the open source tech stacks and shining light on tool redundancies, version discrepancies, and underutilized or even unused assets.

SaaS and Open Source Management Landscape

In April 2021 shared that the annual SaaS market growth rate is projected to increase nearly 21% this year. As organizations and teams expand SaaS and Open Source tech stacks, application management will also continue to bloat and into access, permissions, versions, and use frequency will diminish.

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visibility

Year-over-year waste on duplicate and orphaned applications grows. In 2019, Blissfully reported that duplicate subscriptions increased 80% annually. Orphaned or forgotten tools suffer similar trends, with Zylo finding that an average of 40% of users have never logged into an app they have access to.

As apps expand features and increase offerings with acquisitions and internal expansions, SaaS churn also continues to increase. In that same Blissfully report, they found that on average organizations churn through their apps upward of 30%, with SaaS product growth rates averaging near 27%. Between new tools and platforms deepening toolsets, this trend will continue to be an ever-present hurdle for organizations to manage.

Source: Blissfully

User changes and project shifts can be a culprit to licenses being abandoned. Overpaid licenses or forgotten cancelations when IT is not notified to cancel the subscription inflates organization spend and wastes budget.

Another crux in tech stack management is the lurking shadow IT. Although individuals might perceive one-off purchases and subscriptions to apps as a minimal risk, purchasing and using tools and resources without approval often results in overlapping toolsets, mismanaged subscriptions and invoices, and dilutes visibility into tools and ownership.

These trends are the reason for the increase in SaaS Spend Management apps. But are these tools arming organizations enough to combat this continuous battle?

How StackShare Sees SaaS Spend Management

Ignoring your orgs app expansion isn’t an option. And it is not enough to look only at SaaS tools when assessing spend management. Visibility into open source tech stacks is critical to get a holistic view of your team’s and organization’s tech stack. Observability into the entirety of your SaaS and open source apps reduces functionality redundancies and consolidates dupe subscriptions and license variations.

Source: Medium

At StackShare, we believe you shouldn’t make tech stack decisions in a silo – let your developers and teams connect the dots and share insight into tools. By complimenting your SaaS Spend Management app with Private StackShare for Teams, you can fully expand your visibility of tech stack overlaps to include open source visibility, and proactively streamline licenses across your engineering teams.

How to Better Manage Open Source & SaaS Spend

In a previous blog post we covered the top alternative ways to track your tech stack (sans Excel, of course). When it comes to tracking AND managing your spend for apps, there are options for SaaS spend insights that combine well with Private StackShare to give you the missing open source stack visibility. Combining these tools you can focus on eliminating duplicate licenses, reducing redundant versions, and prioritizing your budget with a full map of your tech stack within your organization.

At a Glance: SaaS Spend Management Tools

There are many tools that support SaaS Spend Management and offer insight into your SaaS app sprawl and shadow IT. These platforms are intended to empower your organization with a single source of truth for your SaaS stack. Many of these tools offer workflows and automations that streamline collaboration and give visibility into SaaS tech changes. With SaaS spend tracking, they enable teams to budget and forecast, as well as secure your organization's access management and auditing functionality.

Check out some of the SaaS Spend Management tools on the market today:

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Blissfully

Torii

BetterCloud

LeanIX SMP/Cleanshelf

Private StackShare for Teams complements your SaaS Spend Management platform by automatically detecting package changes and receiving Stack Alerts from your connected repos. Plus you get a live inventory of all your tech stacks and the people using them in one dashboard. With Tool Reports, you can also see all versions of your tools in use and updates when versions change.

You won’t truly be able to get the full picture of your tech stack and SaaS spend without including intel on your open source tech as well. Including Private StackShare for Teams with your SaaS Spend Management tool will give you full access into what open source and SaaS tech your engineering teams are using inside your company, why you’re using it, and who is the best person to talk to about it.

Check out Private StackShare on the GitHub Marketplace and sign up for free today.