SaaS Management

  • 11 min read

Top 8 Mistakes to Avoid while Choosing a SaaS Management Platform

Team Zluri

17th August, 2023

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As a CIO, you must carefully navigate the landscape and avoid common mistakes to ensure a successful journey toward effective SaaS management. By understanding these pitfalls and making informed decisions, you can select an SMP that precisely addresses your organization's IT needs. 

Being a CIO, you understand the critical role that SaaS solutions play in modern business operations. However, managing multiple SaaS applications across your organization can be daunting without the right tools. This is where a robust SMP comes into play.

You can drive productivity and achieve your strategic objectives by choosing an SMP that offers centralized visibility and control, cost optimization, enhanced security and compliance, streamlined workflows, and scalability and flexibility. Make sure not to delay investing in the right SMP today to unlock the full potential of your organization's SaaS infrastructure and propel your business forward in this digital age.

Choosing the wrong SaaS management platform can lead to a lack of centralized visibility and control, inefficient cost management, security and compliance risks, manual and error-prone workflows, and limited scalability and flexibility. 

As a CIO, it is crucial not to rush when selecting the appropriate SMP. Hastiness in decision-making can lead to critical errors that have adverse effects on your organization's SaaS environment.

To avoid these detrimental outcomes, you must carefully select an SMP that addresses your organization's specific needs and provides the necessary features and capabilities to manage its SaaS ecosystem effectively.

Top 8 Mistakes to Avoid while Choosing a SaaS Management Platform

Here are the top 10 mistakes you must avoid while choosing a SaaS management platform for your organization. 

1. Neglecting the importance of a powerful discovery engine

Neglecting the power of a robust discovery engine can have detrimental effects on your SaaS management. Without it, your IT managers will struggle to effectively manage, optimize, and secure SaaS apps. This can lead to overspending, underutilization of licenses, and increased security risks.

To avoid this mistake, carefully assess the discovery capabilities of the SMP you're considering. Look for an SMP that offers automated scanning, continuous monitoring, and integration with various data sources. This ensures comprehensive visibility into all apps, real-time discovery, and accurate insights for decision-making.

By prioritizing a powerful discovery engine, you empower yourself to take control of your SaaS environment, optimize costs, streamline operations, and enhance security measures. Don't underestimate its importance—choose an SMP that can effectively discover, manage, and secure your SaaS apps.

2. Failing to prioritize cost optimization capability 

One common mistake most CIOs like you make is neglecting the importance of cost optimization features when choosing an SMP. This oversight can result in significant budget wastage and strain your organization financially.

For example, you might have multiple teams using different project management tools, each with its own separate license. Without visibility into actual usage, you continue paying for licenses that are not fully utilized or offer similar functionality to other apps already in use. This results in wasted funds that could have been allocated more efficiently.

To avoid this, prioritize evaluating the cost optimization capabilities of the SMP. Look for direct integrations with a wide range of SaaS apps, as they provide granular usage data for informed decision-making. The more integrations available, the better your team understands actual usage and potential savings.

A reliable SMP should offer insights into unassigned licenses, overlapping app functionalities, and opportunities to downgrade license tiers. These features enable your team to identify redundant or underused apps and make informed decisions about optimizing your SaaS stack.

3. Not evaluating the SaaS risk management capabilities

Risk management is a critical aspect of IT management, especially when it comes to SaaS apps. Failing to acknowledge and address the risks can have severe consequences, including data breaches and non-compliance with industry regulations.

By underestimating the importance of risk management, you leave your organization exposed to potential security threats. SaaS apps often contain sensitive information, such as customer data, intellectual property, and confidential company information. Ignoring the risks associated with these apps can lead to unauthorized access, data leaks, and compromised security.

To avoid this mistake, prioritize risk management in your SaaS management strategy. Seek an SMP that offers robust security features, such as threat assessments, compliance monitoring, and user access controls. Implement measures to identify and mitigate risks, including regular security audits, employee training on best practices, and incident response protocols.

By proactively addressing the risks, your team protects your organization's data and reputation, ensuring compliance with relevant regulations. Emphasizing risk management demonstrates your commitment to maintaining a secure SaaS landscape and instills confidence in your stakeholders.

4. Overlooking automation capabilities

Let’s say, as your company expands, managing the ever-increasing number of SaaS tools and subscriptions becomes overwhelming for you and your team. Realizing the need for an SMP, your team starts evaluating different options.

However, in your haste to find a solution, you overlook the importance of automation capabilities. You select an SMP based solely on its user interface and pricing without considering its automation features.

Once the SMP is implemented, you discover an opportunity for improvement. Without automation, your team is still manually provisioning and deprovisioning user access to various SaaS tools. This manual process takes up much of their time and leaves room for errors.

To avoid this, it is crucial to assess the automation capabilities of the SMP. Look for features that streamline employees' onboarding and offboarding processes, enabling them to quickly gain access to the necessary SaaS tools and preventing frustrating delays. Automation can significantly save time for your team and also improve employee productivity from day one.

Additionally, consider the SMP's ability to automate approval processes. This feature can save significant time for IT teams by eliminating manual intervention and ensuring transparency in SaaS purchases. Configurable workflows and customizable approvals enable a smooth and efficient process, preventing the entry of shadow apps and ensuring compliance.

5. Neglecting collaboration and business enablement

Neglecting collaboration and business enablement can have serious consequences. It hampers productivity and communication, leading to miscommunication and inefficient processes. This lack of coordination causes delays and inefficiencies, and you may miss out on valuable innovation and growth opportunities. 

It also negatively affects customer satisfaction, increases costs, and causes project delays. Poor employee engagement and high turnover rates become common. To avoid these outcomes, prioritizing collaboration and business enablement is crucial for organizational success.

To prevent these consequences, prioritize collaboration and business enablement when choosing and implementing IT systems, tools, and processes. Foster a collaborative culture and invest in solutions that facilitate cross-functional collaboration to improve productivity, communication, innovation, and overall performance.

An effective SMP should catalyze cross-department collaboration, enabling IT to support business growth instead of hindering it. It should facilitate seamless communication and collaboration between IT, finance, HR, procurement, and other departments.

When evaluating an SMP, look for features that promote collaboration, such as shared app ownership and task delegation. These features empower department heads and stakeholders to actively participate in managing SaaS apps, fostering ownership and accountability.

Additionally, seek functionalities that streamline workflows, automate onboarding and offboarding, and provide employee self-service solutions. These capabilities enhance productivity and improve the employee experience.

6. Not evaluating vendor transparency and support

Vendor transparency is crucial when evaluating and selecting an SMP vendor. Insufficient transparency can lead to a limited understanding of the SMP's functionality and potential issues, resulting in implementation challenges and inadequate ongoing support. This oversight can also cause missed opportunities for improvement.

To avoid these problems, assessing the vendor's transparency is important. A reputable SMP vendor should provide clear information about their product's features, capabilities, and limitations. Look for vendors who offer detailed documentation, including information on their discovery engine, integration methods, and data collection processes. 

This transparency enables you to make an informed decision and grasp the SMP's capabilities and limitations.

Moreover, consider the level of customer support provided by the vendor. Look for vendors who offer prompt and reliable customer support channels, such as dedicated support teams, online resources, and responsive communication channels. This ensures you can receive assistance when facing implementation challenges or requiring ongoing support.

By prioritizing vendor transparency and support, you can ensure a smooth implementation process, comprehensively understand the SMP's functionality, and access reliable support when needed. Don't overlook these crucial factors—choose an SMP vendor that values transparency and offers excellent customer support to maximize the benefits of your SaaS management solution.

7.Not involving relevant departments in the procurement process

When an SMP is selected without input from relevant departments, it can lead to a mismatch between the functionalities of the platform and the diverse needs of different teams. Each department within an organization has its own unique requirements, workflows, and challenges. 

By not involving them in the selection process, you risk implementing an SMP that may not fully meet the needs of these departments, resulting in inefficiencies, frustrations, and a lack of adoption.

To prevent this, it is essential to actively involve relevant departments in the procurement process of an SMP. By doing so, you can gather valuable insights into the specific requirements and challenges faced by departments such as finance, HR, and procurement when it comes to managing SaaS applications.

For example, the finance department may have specific requirements related to financial reporting, budget tracking, or integration with accounting systems. HR may require features related to employee onboarding, offboarding, and performance management. Procurement may have specific needs related to vendor management and contract tracking. 

By involving these departments in the selection process, you can identify and prioritize the features and functionalities that align with the requirements of each department.

Moreover, involving relevant departments helps build a sense of ownership and collaboration among different teams. When departments feel included in decision-making, they are more likely to support and actively engage with the chosen SMP. This leads to better adoption, smoother implementation, and improved overall platform effectiveness.

8.Failing to consider scalability and future growth

Consider an example of a growing company that initially chooses an SMP based solely on its current requirements. At the time, the SMP adequately handles the existing number of SaaS applications and user base. However, as the organization expands, more applications are adopted, and the user base grows significantly.

With a non-scalable SMP, the company quickly reaches a point where the platform's capabilities are exceeded. This can lead to several problems. 

• First, the system might become slow and unresponsive under increased workload, affecting user experience and productivity. 

• Second, the SMP may have limitations on the number of applications it can handle, causing bottlenecks and preventing the adoption of new tools critical for the company's growth.

In such a scenario, you must adopt a new SMP to meet increased demands. This process is time-consuming, expensive, and disruptive to the operations. It requires migrating data, training users on the new platform, and ensuring a smooth transition, all while managing the day-to-day tasks. 

Additionally, you might experience delays and complications during the transition, impacting overall productivity.

To avoid these challenges, it is crucial to assess the scalability features of an SMP during the selection process. Look for a platform that can accommodate your organization's future growth. Consider factors such as the maximum number of applications the SMP can handle, the ability to scale up user licenses easily, and the platform's performance under an increased workload.

For example, a scalable SMP should have the capability to support a growing number of SaaS applications without sacrificing performance. It should provide flexibility in adding new applications seamlessly as the organization expands. Additionally, the SMP should allow for easy scalability in terms of user licenses, enabling you to onboard new employees without constraints.

How Zluri Helps Avoid Common SaaS Management Mistakes

Countless organizations have fallen victim to common pitfalls, leading to wasted budgets, security breaches, and inefficiencies. But fear not, because Zluri is here to rescue you from these costly mistakes and empower you with seamless SaaS management. Let's dive into how Zluri's cutting-edge features ensure you stay ahead of the game.

• Discover SaaS apps with unparalleled precision

Discovering SaaS apps precisely and efficiently is essential for managing, optimizing, and securing your SaaS ecosystem. This is where Zluri's revolutionary discovery engine comes in. With an app library that is unparalleled in size, currently featuring over 225,000 apps, and continuously growing, Zluri ensures comprehensive coverage.

To achieve this, Zluri employs five powerful discovery methods.

First, it leverages SSO and ID providers to identify apps accessed by users within your organization. Second, it integrates with finance and expense management systems to uncover apps related to financial operations. Third, Zluri uses API integrations to access and discover apps through their interfaces directly.

In addition, Zluri offers optional desktop agents and a browser extension as discovery methods. They can be used to track and identify apps accessed through desktop devices or web browsers. By utilizing these diverse methods, Zluri guarantees that no app goes unnoticed, eliminating the presence of shadow IT.

With Zluri's game-changing discovery engine, you can achieve full visibility and control over your SaaS ecosystem. Learn more about the discovery engine here.

• Optimize your SaaS spend like a pro

Zluri is here to help you master cost optimization effortlessly. With direct integrations with over 800 SaaS apps, Zluri offers unparalleled access to granular usage data, ensuring that you no longer have to make decisions blindly.

Zluri empowers you to uncover unassigned licenses, identify apps with overlapping functionality, and discover opportunities for downgrading license tiers. By leveraging these insights, you can make informed choices to optimize your SaaS spend and maximize your budget's efficiency.

But Zluri doesn't stop there. The platform also provides robust contract and license management features, simplifying the complexities of vendor negotiations. 

With Zluri, you can gain better control over your SaaS contracts, avoid unnecessary spending, and ensure you get the most value from your vendor relationships.

• Mitigate risks and safeguard your business

Zluri understands that identifying and addressing risky apps is crucial in maintaining a secure environment. The advanced technology scans your SaaS ecosystem, pinpointing any potential risky applications. By alerting users attempting to access these apps, it proactively prevents potential security disasters before they happen. With Zluri by your side, you can rest assured that your organization remains protected from malicious threats.

Furthermore, once all the applications are identified, Zluri enables your IT team to thoroughly examine each SaaS app, providing information about events, shared data, compliance, and security probes. 

• Events: By clicking on the events tab, your team can view all events related to the applications. Zluri fetches this information from multiple authentic online sources, including critical updates, data breaches, security vulnerabilities, and other news associated with the application.
  
  The score will vary depending on the event's impact; if the event has a high-security impact, the score will be low, and vice versa. For instance, the score will be low due to X application's multiple security breaches.

  

  

• Data shared: Moving ahead, in data shared, your team can view who has read-only, modify, and delete access. If any user has read-only access, the threat level is comparatively low compared to users having to modify and delete access. Also, the more sensitive the data that an app accesses, the higher the threat level. 

  

  

  
  For example, an app with access to Google Drive and the ability to delete files would be considered a high threat.

• Compliance: Furthermore, in the compliance tab, your team will be able to view which compliance standard the application adheres to. This lets your team ensure the application meets your company's compliance regulations. Moreover, Zluri's risk scoring system considers the number of compliance standards that an app complies with is taken into account. The higher the number of compliance standards, the higher the score; the lower the number of compliance standards, the lower the score. 

  

  

• Security probes: Lastly, in the security probes tab, your team can get a view of technical scanning, which is conducted every once a month. 

  

  

Zluri provides you with a clear and comprehensive picture of your security landscape, empowering you to make informed decisions regarding your software usage. By understanding which apps pose potential risks, you can proactively mitigate any vulnerabilities and strengthen your organization's overall security posture.

Offboarding employees can be a challenging task, especially when it comes to ensuring that their access to sensitive data is promptly revoked. With Zluri, this process is simplified and streamlined. The platform simplifies offboarding procedures, allowing you to efficiently revoke access to sensitive information and reduce the risk of data breaches or unauthorized access. 

By maintaining strict control over user permissions, Zluri ensures that your business remains protected even during personnel transitions.

• Automate your way to productivity

With Zluri, you can effortlessly create personalized onboarding and offboarding workflows tailored to your organization's unique requirements, automating the process and saving valuable time. These workflows can be saved as playbooks and reused for future onboarding, ensuring consistency and efficiency across departments and roles. With Zluri, you can schedule tasks to avoid last-minute hassles, making the onboarding experience seamless and stress-free. 

Zluri goes beyond basic workflow creation by offering contextual app recommendations. Based on an employee's department and role, Zluri suggests relevant applications to be added to the workflow.

Zluri understands that onboarding is not just about app access but also about seamless integration into communication channels and project management tools. With Zluri's in-app suggestions, your IT admins can easily add new hires to relevant communication groups, such as Slack or Cliq, while granting access to those platforms. 

As employees progress in their careers, they often require new tools and resources to excel in their roles. Zluri's Employee App Store simplifies and automates the process of approving and assigning new software and licenses. 

By decentralizing SaaS procurement decisions, employees can make informed choices about the apps they need, reducing wait times and empowering them with the tools that drive their productivity. Real-time updates and transparent communication make the approval process efficient and transparent.

Further, Zluri ensures a smooth and secure offboarding process when an employee leaves your organization. It automatically revokes access to devices, apps, and systems, preventing unauthorized access to sensitive data. 

Employee data is backed up and transferred to a new owner, preserving important information. Licenses are revoked, and SSO access is removed, ensuring former employees can no longer use organization applications. With Zluri, offboarding becomes a streamlined and efficient task that keeps your data safe and saves valuable time.

Don't let common SaaS management mistakes hinder your success. Zluri is your strategic partner, guiding you toward efficiency, security, and cost savings. Master the art of SaaS management and transform your IT department into a business enabler. Embrace the power of Zluri and unlock your organization's full potential. Your SaaS management journey starts here. Book a demo now!

About the author

Team Zluri

Team Zluri