In Part 1, I talked about Shadow IT SaaS usage being an epidemic that is overwhelming to IT departments where 80% of budgets are still spent on maintaining the existing infrastructure. The idea of efficiency and control as a road to cost management is virtually impossible when so much is in the “shadows.”

In addition, the proliferation of silos increases cost and introduces both security and governance risk. These silos of SaaS are proliferating based on LOB usage that totally masks their adoption from IT. Whether they are marketing services, graphics design capabilities or sales automation tools, this is problematic from both a cost, governance and efficiency perspective. These first two are closely followed by two more.

3) Common IT Strategies for SaaS risk reduction can lead to more waste. While counter-intuitive, SaaS over-subscription is the equivalent of shelf-ware waste. Over subscription happens when IT takes a defensive position against potential risks, using the highest level of “enterprise wide use” pricing to reduce the risks of non-compliance with vendors.

Must Do: Forensically track intensity of usage across the organization to gain visibility into actual usage and identify areas where subscriptions can be recycled or cut entirely.

4) The number of SaaS Applications are increasing rapidly. According to Forrester, the average number of different SaaS applications in use or planned for use per organization was 50 in 2014. This is projected to increase to more than 65 in 2015. This is mirrored in where are the software dollars going. IT spending on software is growing at about 4.7% but SaaS growth is moving beyond 17.0%. This is largely driven by vendors piling on and making the shift from on premise to SaaS.

Must Do: Deploy tools that allow for continuous tracking of the environment to provide on-going discovery and detection of usage. Make it a process, not a one-time event.

One Proven Approach to Creating Actionable SaaS Intelligence

Scalable’s Asset Vision® can give you the intelligence you need, the ease of implementation you require, and the adaptable reporting to both create precise SaaS application baselines to enable you to take action. Asset Vision can provide precise, accurate discovery and forensic-level usage analysis for SaaS applications deployed throughout your organization.