Procurement
• 5 min read
How to Manage SaaS Renewals
26th July, 2022
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Massive usage and increase in numbers of SaaS apps head to unmanaged SaaS renewals. This post will walk you through the different ways to manage your SaaS renewals.
Too many SaaS apps in the organization give rise to issues in managing SaaS renewals. It is quite time-consuming to keep track of a large number of SaaS app renewals.
When the renewal dates arrive, you get very less time to work on them, and auto renewals happen if you don’t manage renewals properly.
Due to lack of time, you are incapable of analyzing the renewal or terminating the renewal for unnecessary applications. Before any SaaS renewal, it is substantial to scrutinize the renewals for SaaS apps.
In case you are looking forward to terminating the subscription, you might be late depending on the cancellation terms in the SaaS agreement. For example, if the cancellation policy requires 60 days prior notice and you just have a week before the renewal, you have to end up renewing the app.
The situation is worse when your contracts are set for auto-renewal. In this case, you get to know about the renewal once the amount is deducted, and you receive a “thank you for your payment” notice.
In addition, you might lose renewing the important apps if you miss the expiry date of the contract renewal. This may lead to an operational shutdown in the organization.
For example, if the IT teams miss out on renewing the Figma app contract, which is an important tool for the graphics team, then the work in the team will be affected until the renewal, and it will impact the productivity of the team.
A proper SaaS renewal helps you to reduce the financial impacts of missed renewals and gives you leverage for better negotiation.
In this article, we will discuss in detail the three ways to manage SaaS renewals in your organization.
3 Ways to Manage SaaS Renewals
1. Spreadsheet
A spreadsheet is a manual way to manage the SaaS app renewals. But maintaining spreadsheets is time-consuming and ineffective.
For smaller organizations with a few SaaS apps, it is fine to manage renewals on spreadsheets. But as the number of apps increases in the organization, it becomes difficult and pretty time-consuming to manage the SaaS renewals.
Considering the easy accessibility of SaaS apps, users sign in for new apps almost regularly. Therefore, the spreadsheet needs to be updated regularly to be proactive with the SaaS renewals.
If the spreadsheets are updated monthly or quarterly, then you need to wait patiently for the complete period for the update, and still, the data may not be accurate. It may lead to unmanaged SaaS renewals and unnecessary SaaS spending.
2. Software Asset Management Tools
Software asset management (SAM) tools is a business practice that manages the software applications within the organization but majorly focuses on on-premise software. It manages the traditional licenses that are installed on your computer.
Through SAM tools, you will be able to manage the on-premise software licenses and their renewals in the organization. Note that most SAM tools focus on traditional on-premise software licenses and not SaaS apps.
In that case, the SaaS apps and renewals remain sometimes rather mismanaged.
3. SaaS Management Platform
A SaaS management platform in place will help you gain visibility into the SaaS landscape of your business. Moreover, it will assist you with the SaaS renewals and optimize your SaaS spending.
Lack of visibility is one of the biggest causes of SaaS wastage, and SaaS contracts get auto-renewed before being renegotiated or terminated.
Zluri, a SaaS management platform, provides complete visibility to the SaaS landscape in the organization and helps you track apps, eliminating unauthorized apps.
It uses five discovery methods to find 100% of SaaS apps in your organization: SSO & ID providers, Finance & Expense Management, Direct Integration through APIs, Desktop Agents (optional), and Browser Extension (optional).
You will have real-time data on who has purchased the apps, who uses them, and how frequently they are used. Zluri helps you to optimize your SaaS spending by identifying the SaaS apps that are not being used or the least used apps and downgrading them to a suitable license tier as per requirements.
You can keep an eye on the number of apps purchased, their spend value, and the date of purchase. This will help in unsubscribing unnecessary applications and renewing needed applications on time.
Zluri gives renewal insights, overview, and visibility to all the upcoming SaaS renewals. The Renewal Calendar helps you avoid surprises and prioritize preparations based on the size of the renewal and time.
With Zluri, you can get notifications of the renewal date and insights on rightsizing the licenses, if required. For contracts, you get alerts 30 days, 15 days, and one day in advance. For payment, you get seven days and 1-day alerts.
Also, you can set custom alerts, which helps you prioritize high-value contracts.
Lots of factors contribute to prioritizing the contract. However, it is crucial to evaluate and balance various factors and requirements of the business.
The high contract value is one of the essential factors in prioritizing contract renewals. Similarly, there are factors like high threat level apps, which can be terminated if not required for the business. These apps can cause damage to the business.
If the renewal date is known to you, then proactive renewal decisions can be made on renewing or terminating the contract. You can review the original purchase contracts and work on negotiation strategies. It guides you in renegotiating each app months before the renewal date.
Renewal calendars prevent auto-renewals. Zluri offers insights on the usage of the applications. This will help you to terminate the applications that are not in use or abandoned apps. Moreover, it helps you to prepare for renegotiation of apps that are used less.
Additionally, it reminds you to pay on time and no missing payments for the required apps. Hence, the work operates smoothly without any break.
With Zluri, you can see the apps' threat levels, usage of the apps, etc. These insights will help you prioritize the contract renewal and prepare for it.
Zluri gives you a view of Licenses that include licenses, subscriptions, contracts, and perpetual.
It will provide you with a proper insight into contracts.
It maintains a system of records for storing important information and files associated with contracts.
While the documents are readily available, it helps you to quickly revise the contract and find out if there are any hidden contract terms. It is possible that you might have overlooked any points which are mentioned in the SaaS agreements. It will further help in negotiating with the SaaS providers.
An important aspect of SaaS renewal management is determining the owner of SaaS applications and relevant metrics to show utilization. It will help you to understand the usage and how important the app is to prioritize its renewal.
Usage monitoring gives you insights into the regularly used applications and is crucial for the company to operate smoothly. Also, insights on applications that are not benefiting much. This knowledge will help you negotiate better with proper clarifications.
SaaS buying is tricky, but SaaS management platforms like Zluri can make your SaaS buying a cakewalk. It offers SaaS buying and negotiation as a service. It knows the SaaS marketplace well and can direct you to get the best SaaS stack for your company.
Zluri’s procurement team empowers you with strategic resources and benchmark data to make procurement easy and saves up to 50% of the SaaS cost.
Zluri scans through the purchase history, usage needs, current market data, and the most used applications for making decisions for your renewals and buying of SaaS. It helps you to manage contracts and subscriptions.
Zluri is the best solution for SaaS renewal management. It gives a view of the insights that are required for the IT teams to optimize the SaaS renewals.
From discovering apps, maintaining contracts, SaaS usage insights, and renewal calendar to helping in better negotiations, Zluri is a single solution offering you real-time data that will help optimize your SaaS renewals.
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