3 TIPS THAT ARE GUARANTEED TO SAVE YOU MONEY WITH SaaS

20. April 2022/Torben Kramer

Software is changing in companies. Away from classic on-premises solutions and towards Software-as-a-Service (SaaS). There are good reasons for this. SaaS offers several advantages compared to on-premise software:

-Employees can flexibly use applications that increase their productivity

-The company saves costs in its own data centre and on personnel

-The SaaS provider is responsible for trouble-free operation

-The software is always up-to-date and security patches are also installed centrally

-Local installations are no longer necessary

However, the change also leads to higher costs for SaaS in your company. Some costs are unavoidable and justified. All others must be avoided.

Regardless of whether the SaaS cost increases in your company were necessary, explainable, or unexpected, I have three tips for you that are guaranteed to save you money with SaaS.

1. PAY ATTENTION TO THE RENEWAL DATES

Not monitoring renewal times is a common mistake with SaaS. But you can save costs very easily.

Employees often book their accounts independently. This results in many different renewal times. The amounts involved each time are rarely more than €100. It is therefore not worth checking whether the renewal makes sense. Your time is valuable and should be used to make big savings. According to an analysis by Zylo, the average company has 234 renewals per year. That’s more than one renewal per working day. You would have to tie up a lot of resources to process all the renewals. In terms of value, you can hardly optimize anything, as the amounts of the renewals are often very small. There is no basis for discussing more favorable conditions with the SaaS provider.

What can you do?

Synchronize the renewal dates for each vendor.

Introduce a renewal calendar.

For important SaaS providers: Negotiate longer, fixed terms.

You can synchronize renewal dates by linking the end of the term of subsequent purchases to the end of the term of existing subscriptions.

With synchronized renewal dates, you can better estimate the quantities and at the same time talk about a higher value for the renewal.

However, make sure that not all renewal dates of the different manufacturers are in a similar period. This will allow you to better prepare for the individual renewal negotiation. The use of a renewal calendar will help you with this.

With the SaaS providers that are important for your company, longer and fixed terms are worthwhile. This can help you achieve additional cost savings.

2. CHECK WHICH EDITIONS ARE REALLY NEEDED

Many SaaS applications can be booked in different editions and prices. The different editions come with different functionalities. Individual employees often find it difficult to judge which edition is sufficient. They therefore tend to book the higher editions, even if this functionality is not required.

What can you do?

Make employees aware that an edition that is too expensive costs the company an unnecessary amount of money.

Create technical possibilities to find out whether the additional functions of the expensive editions are being used at all.

With expensive products, it is worth asking employees regularly whether the product/edition is still needed.

Involve the employees. You can make agreements that the cheapest edition is booked first. If functionalities are required that go beyond this, the employees will get in touch. This measure reverses the process and saves you the effort of checking.

If this is not feasible, some SaaS providers allow you as an administrator to view which employees use which edition’s functionalities. This mechanism makes it easier to decide which edition is the right one. Some SaaS management tools can also help here. You can then downgrade the accounts correctly.

If the technical evaluation option is not available, ask the employees whether the functions of the expensive edition are necessary. This procedure is time-consuming but can be worthwhile for high-priced SaaS applications.

3. MANAGE SAAS PROCUREMENT WITH ONE PROCESS

If you do not yet have a process for procuring SaaS applications, each employee can book whatever they need. Security aspects are not considered. In addition, the bouquet of different SaaS applications continues to grow. It is neither sensible nor necessary to use 37 different project planning tools in the company. One, or at most two or three, is sufficient. Otherwise, your SaaS landscape will become confusing and difficult to manage.

What can you do?

Proactively identify SaaS products that meet your company guidelines and have proven their usefulness.

Provide employees with an internal SaaS product catalogue.

Create an efficient approval process for products that are not included in the catalogue.

Provide employees with an internal SaaS product catalogue. For each job role, employees can book accounts for the approved SaaS applications as required. You can support this process by proactively checking and adding SaaS products. Also check the security aspects.

Also be prepared for the fact that SaaS applications are required that are not yet included in the product catalogue. Create a fast, efficient, and cost-effective approval process. If the process takes too long, employees will bypass the process the next time they procure SaaS applications.

CONCLUSION

The increasing share of SaaS applications in the software products used in companies leads to high SaaS costs. But even if costs are soaring, you shouldn’t panic. Think about the possible reasons for this increase.

Existing software license management processes are not very suitable for getting SaaS costs under control. There are easy-to-implement tricks to reduce SaaS costs:

A renewal calendar with synchronized renewal times for each vendor saves you money and time.

If a user only needs a small range of SaaS application functions, it is worth downgrading to a cheaper edition.

Provide an internal SaaS product catalogue from which employees can easily and independently book SaaS applications. This reduces the number of different applications and framework agreements can be utilized.

Do you want to establish successful SaaS management? We are happy to help:

-We determine your maturity level in SaaS management

-We support you in negotiations with SaaS providers to synchronize renewals

-We identify unused subscriptions and incorrectly selected editions

-We help you build a SaaS catalogue and support you in testing new products

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The Author

Torben Kramer
License analyst of SAMtoa GmbH

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keywords

Product catalogue, Produktkatalog, Renewal, SAM, SaaS

3 TIPS THAT ARE GUARANTEED TO SAVE YOU MONEY WITH SaaS

1. PAY ATTENTION TO THE RENEWAL DATES

What can you do?

2. CHECK WHICH EDITIONS ARE REALLY NEEDED

What can you do?

3. MANAGE SAAS PROCUREMENT WITH ONE PROCESS

What can you do?

CONCLUSION

The Author

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