3 reasons behind SaaS price increases

The report delves into three key drivers behind the escalating SaaS prices, which are causing organizations to face budgetary challenges: 

• Vendors will link price increases to inflation: One of the primary reasons cited by SaaS vendors for price hikes is the impact of inflation. It is reasonable for vendors to adjust their prices in response to inflationary pressures. The research reveals that these uplifts often surpass standard inflationary indexes, with contracts sometimes increasing by as much as 30%. Despite high net margin rates, SaaS vendors are demonstrating intent to grow revenue at the rate of inflation, vendors are seeking to not only cover their increased costs but also are also applying inflation rate increases to enhance their profitability. As a result, organizations must scrutinize these justifications carefully. Leaders are recommended to respond to significant uplifts identified by the vendor as defensible through inflation rates and request detailed explanations from vendors regarding how inflation is genuinely impacting their costs. 
   
• Labor rate increases will be blamed for SaaS subscription cost increases: Demand for IT talent is at an all-time high. The ongoing IT talent shortage is significantly driving up labor rates and this constraint impacts the cost of hiring talent to develop the software, affecting both internal development costs and professional services provided to customers. Most IT service providers are reporting high attrition levels and are grappling with the challenge of attracting, hiring and retaining skilled IT professionals, resulting in higher operational expenses. Unfortunately, these increased labor costs are being transferred to customers in the form of higher subscriptions rates. 
   
• Environmental sustainability standards set by the vendor will allow them to charge a premium: The growing focus on environmental sustainability has become a significant CEO business priority, and according to the 2022 Gartner CEO and Senior Business Executive Survey, key stakeholders are exerting pressure on enterprises to adopt sustainable practices. Consequently, SaaS vendors are incorporating standardized environmental sustainability contractual clauses in their contracts. Vendors with leading sustainability commitments will be in a stronger position than their competitors when responding to solicitations that require vendors to meet certain sustainability criteria. Such a leading position means they can, and will in some cases, charge more, albeit their costs of executing environmentally sustainable business will most likely be below the line rather than explicitly disclosed to buyers.  

3 recommendations for negotiating SaaS contracts

To successfully navigate SaaS contract negotiations and mitigate the impact of price increases, leaders and practitioners are encouraged to adopt the following strategies: 

• Challenge inflation-driven uplifts: When faced with vendor-proposed uplifts linked to inflation, organizations must assertively insist on detailed explanations from vendors regarding how inflation is genuinely impacting their costs. Armed with this information, organizations can better assess the validity of the vendor’s claims and negotiate accordingly. 
   
• Analyze labor-related increases: Sourcing, procurement, and vendor management leaders are advised to closely investigate the vendor’s talent management strategies and attrition levels by analyzing quarterly and annual statements to learn about IT talent shortage impacts. Analyze proposed subscription uplifts against labor indexes such as the Employment Cost Index when the vendor is tying an increase to an increased cost of labor to set appropriate negotiation levels. 
   
• Evaluate environmental sustainability claims: Compare desired vendors against competitors with stronger commitments or a better track record to achieving environmental sustainability objectives. Verify vendors’ claims and require evidence during the request for proposal (RFP) process to minimize the risk of greenwashing. 

¹Gartner, Thought Leadership, “Predicts 2022: 3 Reasons Why SaaS Vendors Are Raising Prices and What You Can Do About It” by analysts: Hannah Decker, Quintin Casper, Melanie Alexander, Dawn Hubbard, Gunjan Gupta, Stephen White, 26 August 2022.  

Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in its research publications, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings or other designation. Gartner research publications consist of the opinions of Gartner’s research organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Gartner disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.   

Gartner is a registered trademark and service mark of Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates in the U.S. and internationally and is used herein with permission. All rights reserved.   

The post 3 Recommendations to Safeguard Your SaaS Budget: Insights from the Gartner® Report appeared first on Snow Software.

Security is touted as the main concern, but mass adoption of AI will also have sweeping impacts on cloud and SaaS spending. Considering there are organizations that have yet to migrate to the cloud, we are seeing the beginning of a massive disparity in how organizations operate; while tech giants are full steam ahead on AI adoption, the majority of organizations will be more cautious in their approach. The amount of progress being made in this space is staggering considering the time frame. And while exciting, we are still only in the early stages of generative AI.

The latest forecast from Gartner ranks worldwide cloud spending at $597.3 billion by the end of this year and SaaS spending is expected to reach $200 billion. As organizations continue to rely heavily on their cloud infrastructure and services to fuel their business, IT professionals must balance innovation, productivity, and risk. How they are accomplishing this was the topic of our latest survey, with a focus on SaaS.

To better understand the current state of SaaS reliance, Snow Software surveyed 1,000 IT leaders from organizations with more than 500 employees in the US and UK. How is IT handling the relentless appetite for SaaS? What keeps them awake at night? The results are eye-opening. 

Security presents top challenge for SaaS management in 2023

When respondents were asked ‘what is most challenging about managing SaaS applications at your organization,’ the top concern is now managing the security of SaaS applications, with 46% of respondents stating it is the most challenging aspect. 

The second biggest challenge is identifying SaaS application configuration issues (41%), followed closely by controlling the total cost of SaaS application investment (39%). This is no surprise to anyone following the news around AI. SaaS applications have been a historic challenge for IT teams to manage since their widespread adoption, and AI implications will only make this work more challenging for risk mitigation and governance.

Last year, IT leaders were still swimming in unsanctioned SaaS use that first exploded during the pandemic as employees adjusted to remote work models. This was both a budgetary issue and a compliance risk. This year, organizations seem to have made headway on that front, as 61% of respondents said they have extensive data classification and security policies and tools in place to govern what data can be shared with any SaaS application. And yet, fears around security persist.

That security has taken over as the top concern while generative AI technologies stormed onto the scene earlier this year is no coincidence. When asked which types of applications are most concerning to IT from a security perspective, the top answer was generative AI applications such as ChatGPT (23%), followed by open-source applications (19%) and file-sharing applications (17%).

While 90% of respondents said they know how their SaaS vendors manage and secure their data, AI remains an unknown, as data privacy assurances aren’t yet in place for this early-stage technology. Fifty-seven percent of IT leaders said they would feel ‘alarmed’ if their SaaS vendor was using generative AI in their technology without their knowledge and would need full insight into how the technology is being used and the risks involved, although they would continue to use the application.

Not perfection but progress

Whether it’s about cost control or security, the job of managing SaaS weighs heavily on IT leaders. The good news is progress is being made.

If a SaaS issue comes up (like security, governance, cost, usability, etc.), 95% of IT leaders said they know who to call within their organization for help. While security is a big concern, nearly all respondents (96%) are confident in the security measures they have in place for SaaS. When it comes to budget, respondents are also very confident they can quickly and efficiently find savings/areas to optimize when needed (90%).

Over half of respondents (54%) indicated they would create a SaaS application buying training and require all employees who have purchasing power to take the course, if budget, resources and time were not a factor. Interestingly, 13% say they would do nothing because their organization doesn’t have any SaaS sprawl.

Though efforts are constantly being made to get a handle on the complexities of SaaS management, the rapid adoption of emerging technologies like generative AI will only compound these frustrations. For organizations without the right tools in place, SaaS applications will pose even greater risks to intellectual property, organizational health and overall governance. Having the right controls in place to find and act on unknown and shadow SaaS – including newcomers like ChatGPT – will be crucial for safeguarding against use, but also usage.

The post New SaaS Survey Reveals Generative AI as Top Threat to Security appeared first on Snow Software.

IT leaders have employed any number of processes and controls to combat shadow IT and impose order, but it seems to be a losing battle for most businesses. Why? Why does shadow IT persist despite the best efforts of organizations to eliminate it? The answer most often lies in the good intentions of high-performing employees just looking to do their jobs as efficiently as possible. 

The go-getter

Often the most successful employees are those predisposed to action. They can go from idea to execution in the blink of an eye, and the last thing they want is some pesky IT roadblock standing in their way. 

Thanks to SaaS delivery, the only thing required to get up and running with new software is an internet connection and a credit card, and even the credit card isn’t necessary when dealing with free or trial software. The go-getter knows that doing his/her primary job effectively is more important than always following the rules – better to ask for forgiveness than permission. 

The result is something between controlled chaos and the Wild West – dozens, if not hundreds, of SaaS applications running in an organization’s environment. IT is unaware of these apps, along with the waste and redundancy, security/regulatory threats, and data loss that typically accompany shadow IT.

Waste and redundancy

When purchasing is decentralized and taking place in silos, waste is almost unavoidable. Typical problems include:

• An unassigned or unused license purchased by one division can’t be transferred elsewhere in the organization if no one outside of the division knows of its existence. 
• Multiple divisions individually purchasing the same software miss out on possible discounting and other negotiating leverage that come with volume.
• Managers come and go, and they may leave behind software that auto-renews when it’s no longer in use by anyone on the team.

Siloed purchasing doesn’t only result in waste. Redundancy is a factor as well. Having multiple tools that address the same use case – file-sharing, instant messaging, project management, etc. – is inefficient for purchasing and results in unnecessary support costs.

In an environment where every dollar counts, this type of waste is something any IT leader is eager to avoid.

Security and regulatory threats

All shadow IT represents a security threat in some form. Software that is unknown to IT presents security risks, because they are:

• Not accessed via your SSO platform, so there are the threats that come from weak and commonly used passwords
• Not configured by IT, so misconfigurations open up attack vectors
• Not vetted by IT, so it’s unlikely anyone has reviewed the security protocols and precautions employed by the software vendor
• Not subject to standardized offboarding procedures, so (1) ex-employees can retain access to company data via the apps they once used, (2) the service can continue to run, and (3) data can continue to leave the organization without any oversight

Similarly, it’s unlikely anyone has reviewed the data handling and data storage procedures of these vendors. This increases the risk that you’ll run afoul of regulations such as GDPR and HIPAA when dealing with customer information. 

Data loss

Employees share all sorts of data with the apps they use, but who owns that data once it’s sitting on a SaaS vendor’s servers?  What happens to the data when you are no longer a paying customer? These are questions you can’t possibly answer for apps you’re not even aware are in use in your environment. 

Additionally, just as faulty data handling and data storage practices, or lack thereof, can lead to the security threats described above, they can also lead to data loss. There are few assets you have that are more valuable than your data, so it’s critical to be fully aware of how it’s handled, how it’s stored, who owns it and how you get it back once you part ways with the vendor.

How to bring order to chaos

Preventing shadow IT by layering more and more processes and controls on employees is bound to cause dissatisfaction internally and is unlikely to fully address the problem. After all, the more roadblocks you erect, the greater the incentive for the go-getter to find a workaround. 

A better path is to couple reasonable purchase procedures with comprehensive visibility of everything running in your environment. That’s where Snow Software comes in.

Our SaaS management platform goes straight to the source – the user – to provide market-leading visibility into the SaaS applications running in your environment. We discover not only paid applications but also the free and trial applications that so often escape detection.

The post With Perfect Processes, How Does Shadow IT Happen? appeared first on Snow Software.

“I’m shocked. I had no idea we were using this many SaaS applications.”

This is the #1 piece of feedback we get after speaking to new customers using Snow Software for the first time. This is no surprise. There are tens of thousands of B2B SaaS companies in the market today, all with their own suites of SaaS solutions targeted at individuals or departments, creating an overwhelming number of applications available. The average organization uses at least 125 SaaS applications, and this is not even counting the free ones.

It is no wonder that IT is drowning in SaaS sprawl with the never-ending proliferation of SaaS apps and the bloated budgets associated with them. The very aspects that make SaaS so appealing to end users is wreaking havoc on the IT, Finance, Procurement, and ITAM teams that need to manage out-of-control software portfolios.

To support these teams, Snow is expanding its portfolio of solutions for solving the challenges of managing SaaS applications with Snow SaaS Management. In March, we made Snow SaaS Management available to a select number of customers, and today we are excited to share that is now in general availability.

Snow has over 10 years of experience supporting Software Asset Managers (SAM) to rein in SaaS sprawl. We launched our first SaaS solution – SAM for Cloud – as an extension of Software Asset Management in 2013. Our ten years of experience in the management of SaaS is telling us something: the market for B2B SaaS is about to change tremendously.

The rise of product-led growth, the shift from user-based to usage-based pricing, and the increased cybersecurity and data risks felt in IT from shadow SaaS means the tools we have been using to address SaaS sprawl must change. Technology innovation never stops and the tools that manage technology, like Snow, need to stay ahead of changes.  

Snow SaaS Management, our fourth-generation SaaS Management solution, is our solution to do this by:

• Building the most complete discovery engine in our industry with first-to-market agentless browser extensions for web application metering
• Launching an advanced optimization framework with deep insights by SaaS application built on our learnings from advanced optimization for M365 and Adobe Creative Cloud
• Empowering users with hybrid data to manage complex enterprise applications
• Taking a user versus device-centric view of the world (user-centric views, new to Snow SaaS Management, are critical in SaaS as IT needs individual insights for use cases like chargeback)
• Delivering this as a service on Snow Atlas, which means the end of waiting for a software upgrade – innovation is delivered on-demand
• Enabling users to buy SaaS Management without requiring them to purchase our Software Asset Management module first

Get the details on Snow SaaS Management

Here’s more on how Snow SaaS Management enables you to see what other solutions don’t and extract savings from SaaS that are impossible to do with other vendors in this space:

Consolidated visibility across all SaaS discovery methodologies

One of the reasons IT fails to rein in SaaS sprawl is multiple usage discovery methodologies, including connecting to SaaS vendor portals, importing SSO data and tracking browser data, are required for complete visibility. This is no easy task for IT to do on its own. Snow automates this by combining all discovery sources and providing comprehensive usage data at the application and user level.

Optimization insights at your fingertips

All Snow solutions move beyond simply providing raw data by transforming it into Technology Intelligence.

Snow SaaS Management now has “Insights” cards that recommend areas for optimization based on duplicate users or unused licenses.

In addition, Snow SaaS Management has broadened optimization capabilities from 8,000+ to over 23,000 SaaS applications, so you can see more and extract more savings across your entire SaaS portfolio.

User-centric views

Snow SaaS Management provides the ability to see all applications and subscriptions associated with each user. User views are also required to reduce risk when offboarding employees. In this scenario, IT must ensure access is removed not only for IT-managed SaaS but unknown applications that may have been procured by a department or individual.

Usage views not available anywhere else

While some SaaS management vendors can tell whether someone has used an application within the last 30, 60 or 90 days, Snow provides granular verified usage information with logs detailing how long an application has been used and when.

Given SaaS applications contain critical user data that would be lost if access rights were erroneously removed – usage data versus simply the financial data other SMPs provide – is a game-changer for IT departments seeking to improve license management, negotiate better deals at contract renewal and provide Security the data necessary to prevent shadow SaaS.

Optimization of complex, hybrid applications

One of the most expensive, difficult-to-manage SaaS applications are hybrid applications—such as Microsoft 365—that allow for both installed and cloud-based usage. Only by gathering and analyzing both usage types can IT and procurement leaders perform advanced optimization, such as selecting the most efficient license type based on usage. This choice can be critical considering the significant price difference between licenses such as M365 E5, E3 and E1.

Snow not only discovers and consolidates all hybrid application usage but provides actionable insights to highlight optimization opportunities.

Looking for more reasons to try out our newest solution for SaaS management? Here are 3 more:

1. Snow is the leading SaaS management vendor for tracking trial software and free applications such as ChatGPT.
2. We are the only SaaS management vendor with a SaaS cost optimization framework that combines installed and cloud-based hybrid application usage for applications such as Microsoft 365 to enable advanced license type optimization such as E5 vs. E3 vs. E1.
3. The combination of coverage of known and unknown SaaS applications – combining multiple discovery methodologies including a browser extension, vendor portals and SSO data – with our Data Intelligence Service gives you unparalleled visibility and management of SaaS.

As great as we feel about reaching general availability, we are just getting started.

Upcoming Snow SaaS Management innovations include new usage discovery methods, more specialized optimization capabilities for complex vendors, and even greater application rationalization capabilities, ensuring organizations have complete visibility of SaaS usage and optimized spend.

Existing customers, be sure to subscribe to our blog, so you don’t miss our latest product updates and industry news. Not a customer yet? Join 700 other SaaS customers and schedule a demo of Snow to see the power of SaaS management and Technology Intelligence.

The post Snow Launches the Industry’s Most Complete Discovery Engine and Cost Optimization Framework to Rein in SaaS Sprawl appeared first on Snow Software.

Today, application stacks are comprised of hybrid applications and infrastructure. Many organizations lack visibility to cloud environments added in recent years, and it has become increasingly challenging for IT leaders to see overlaps in technology and identify opportunities for application rationalization during the M&A process.

Businesses experiencing multiple recent acquisitions and mergers have an even greater challenge with SaaS sprawl, resulting in redundancies, risk and waste. According to a Snow survey, 73% of IT leaders have seen an increase in the use of SaaS applications in the last year. And, many of those leaders have reported a host of other challenges when it comes to managing SaaS.

So, what’s the best way to face this integration process?

Due Diligence Pre-Acquisition

One of the most time-consuming tasks of buyer due diligence is understanding risk related to material contracts, including hardware and software IT asset contracts.

The purpose of due diligence is to understand risk of buying the target and what mitigating activities should be prioritized post-deal. Often, M&A triggers audit activities, so it’s important to understand license compliance and contract status to create a mitigation plan that can be acted upon quickly.

To prepare, you should try to understand:

• What are the most expensive contracts, and will the acquiring company have rights to the software after the deal goes through?
• Are there non-cancelable clauses of these contracts? How many licenses are owned, how many are allocated and in use by the target organization?
• If the vendor is in use by the buyer, what does the combined license position look like?
• What are the key upcoming renewal dates you’ll need to be prepared for once the ink has dried?
• What are the significant renewals that have taken place over the last year and the details of these contracts? Once the deal is closed, you might lose access to employees with knowledge of these key contracts so it is important to document these details during the due diligence process. 

If the target organization has a software asset management practice and related tools in place, it should make due diligence a little easier. Due to the maturity of software asset management practices managing modern cloud environments, you may have visibility gaps to overcome.

Mitigating Post Deal Risk

Once the ink is dried, you can get to work on assessing license compliance status and optimization opportunities by discovering software in use throughout the organization, compared to licenses and subscriptions owned.

Another area of risk to assess is whether you have applications running that are out of maintenance. Reporting on application version details will also help your team understand how important it is to standardize on one or few versions to reduce impacts related to patch management.

Even though you’ve identified software contracts and terms, there are likely SaaS applications in use that you’re not aware of. These applications can be free or licensed. Applications that have not been vetted by IT can put your organization at risk for license compliance, and more importantly at risk of compliance failures and data leaks. To reduce risk, but avoid impacting productivity, you should consider implementing guardrails for your organization.

Identifying Post Deal Synergies

Once your risk posture is under control, and you’ve identified all the applications in use in the combined organization, you can get to work on identifying redundant applications in use. This activity can save not only software and maintenance costs, but also IT operations costs for integrating applications and responding to application performance issues.

Looking at application usage through the lens of the application category will also help your team get consistency on how applications are used in the combined company. For example, pre-deal, perhaps both Teams and Zoom were in use and your team decided to standardize on Teams to drive down cost. Monitoring usage of both applications will help IT determine how quickly the acquired organization has moved to the new standard and what additional education is required.

Before going down the path of M&A, it is critical to get your own house in order from a software asset management perspective so that your organization can move quickly to realize efficiencies from the combined organization.

The post Why Application Rationalization Is Key To Accelerating M&A Synergies appeared first on Snow Software.

While we talk extensively about the best SaaS management practices, you simply may not realize where you’re introducing trouble into your current processes. In fact, the most commonly employed SaaS management methods often present the biggest struggles along the way. By learning from these four common pitfalls, you can pave the way for a smoother and more successful SaaS management journey.

Using internal surveys

Let’s start with one of the more straightforward and basic methods organizations employ to uncover SaaS in their IT environment – an internal survey. When you want to know what SaaS applications your employees are using, why not just ask them? 

Unfortunately, this method falls short for a number of reasons. First, the results of the survey are likely to be inaccurate and incomplete, because some percentage of employees simply won’t respond. Of those who do, it’s unlikely they’ll provide a comprehensive account of all the SaaS applications they’re using either due to honest oversights or to a reluctance to list apps they have a hunch would not be approved for internal use. 

Secondly, employees are prone to overstate the value an app provides. No one wants to admit to wasting company resources, so the natural inclination is to ascribe value to a purchase even when that value may not be there. 

Finally, even if it were possible to gather a perfect account of all SaaS apps in your environment via this method, it would be out of date the moment the survey was complete thanks to the decentralized and often spontaneous nature of SaaS procurement. Today’s survey won’t capture the additional waste, sprawl and risk that will be added to your environment tomorrow.

Creating spreadsheets

Tracking and managing SaaS apps via spreadsheets has been the fallback for many organizations for as long as SaaS apps have been around. While certainly better than doing nothing at all, spreadsheets are notoriously tedious and difficult to manage when dealing with dozens, if not hundreds, of SaaS apps each with their own pricing, usage terms, start and end dates and internal ownership. 

Like surveys, spreadsheets are perpetually out of date and backward-looking. Users come and go within organizations; new SaaS apps are added while licenses for others expire. And, as with any human endeavor, spreadsheets are prone to human error in the form of mistyped entries, inadvertent omissions or other data inaccuracies. 

Relying on a CASB or network monitoring tool

As cloud adoption has continued to expand, organizations have turned to Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASBs) or other network monitoring tools to provide some governance and security over their cloud footprint. These tools sit between the cloud application and the user to monitor activity and enforce security policies. They can help discover SaaS applications present in the environment and shed light on who is using what. 

Relying on a CASB to monitor SaaS, however, can leave you with multiple visibility gaps, as a CASB only sees activity taking place on the corporate network. When employees are working outside the office (at home or on business travel, for example), the CASB won’t be able to track activity unless the user is on a VPN. 

CASB’s also provide no information on license terms or application costs, so getting a complete picture of your SaaS environment requires marrying multiple data sets with the information provided by the CASB, which can be cumbersome and time-consuming.

Not using the right SaaS management platform for your organization

An increasing number of organizations are using SaaS management platforms (SMPs) to get visibility into their SaaS environments and begin to eliminate waste and mitigate risks. An SMP combines in a single, unified location information the presence and usage details of an app, with additional data such as:

• License start and end dates
• License cost information
• Application type
• User department and location
• App approval status

This information is automatically updated eliminating the need to manually gather the data, like in the methods above. As apps and users come and go, the platform should reflect these changes, so you always have a real-time view of your SaaS environment. Not all SMPs are created equal, so you’ll want a platform that has the latest capabilities to keep your organization looking forward. Keep in mind, a SMP is only as powerful as the discovery methods it relies on for SaaS visibility, and many of these methods only tell a part of the story. Consider API and single sign-on connectors. APIs allow you to connect to vendor portals and bring into your SMP any license and usage data the vendor provides. SSO connectors allow you to leverage the login data maintained by your SSO platform, so you can track app usage. Both methods, however, are only good for apps you already know are in your environment. All of those unknown apps accessed and put into use without the knowledge of IT will remain unknown when relying on these discovery methods.  

Another common discovery source is financial data. This method involves connecting to your expense management tools to find the SaaS apps that have been purchased within the organization. While financial data can reveal both known and unknown applications, any free applications will escape discovery. It’s not unreasonable to assume, for example, that nearly every organization with more than a handful of employees has at least one experimenting with the free version of ChatGPT. This usage would go undetected by financial data.

There are also significant differences in the types of usage data SMPs provide. Some provide little or no data regarding when and how often an app is used, or they provide that data for only a subset of the apps discovered. Others rely on API and SSO connectors, which provide limited usage information such as logins. Without detailed usage information, including the actual hours and minutes a user spends in an application, it’s difficult to fully understand its true value and make informed optimization decisions.

How to improve your SaaS management processes with Snow Software

When it comes to discovering assets and improving SaaS management processes, you want the most comprehensive view of your SaaS environment possible. Whether it’s paid, free, or known and unknown applications, you don’t want to develop blind spots with significant costs in the form of waste or regulatory and security risks.

At Snow, we provide the most comprehensive SaaS discovery on the market, allowing you to gain complete visibility into your SaaS landscape. By accurately identifying all SaaS applications across your organization, you can eliminate shadow IT and regain control over your software environment. We couple that with the cost and usage insights you need to get the most out of your SaaS expenditures. This level of visibility and cost optimization empowers you to make informed decisions, rightsize licenses, and reduce unnecessary costs.

The post Are You Making These Common Mistakes in Your SaaS Management Practice? appeared first on Snow Software.

• Detecting usage of shadow SaaS applications to identify security and compliance issues 
• Finding budget savings by identifying licenses that are not being used 
• Identifying redundant applications to reduce complexity, risk and spend 

But, what does good SaaS management look like in practice? We’ve pulled together a few pointers based on real-life use cases to inspire your own SaaS management program at your organization.

Understanding the players involved

The short answer is it depends on your organization’s goals, who is motivated to invest in a SaaS management platform and time/internal resources your organization is able to devote to these objectives.  

First, you’ll want to understand the objectives of your organization and who holds these responsibilities (and potential budget to help solve these challenges). Here are some of the most common priorities of key executives to consider as you explore a SaaS management solution. 

• Chief Information Officer: CIOs want to drive efficiency in their organizations, which can be done by streamlining the number of applications in use, reducing costs, and improving end-user experiences with better application and service performance. End-users are rarely able to differentiate between on-premises and SaaS applications. When there is a problem, they simply call IT. SaaS management helps IT reduce complexity by identifying areas for rationalization, but it can also help understand adoption of SaaS investments.  
• Chief Information Security Officer: According to a recent Snow survey of IT leaders, security was the top concern in managing SaaS applications. And for good reason: The average cost of a security breach is $4.35M, according to IBM. It’s impossible to secure applications you can’t see. While IT organizations have heavily pressure-tested corporate applications, the reality is end users are doing their own thing. For example, the corporate decision may be to use SharePoint for file sharing, but the marketing team may decide to use another file sharing tool that might be easier to use with external vendors. Automating the discovery of SaaS applications in use, including unsanctioned and free applications, will help your security team protect your customer and employee data and determine which end users need additional security education. 
• Chief Procurement Officer: One of their top priorities is driving operational efficiencies measured by saving time, reducing spend and improving the organization’s cash position. SaaS management helps contracts and procurement staff gather and make sense of application usage data for all SaaS applications much faster than manually gathering details from multiple sources. With faster and more detailed insights, the team is better equipped to deliver more value to the business. They can also avoid costs by identifying overlapping applications, multiple contracts with the same vendor and application subscriptions purchased versus actually used.  

Taking the next steps to great SaaS management

Once you’ve determined your top priorities, the second step in developing a top-notch SaaS management program is to scope the potential outcomes you are driving for. Here are some questions to help you narrow on where you can get the biggest bang for your buck!

Questions to ask when reducing waste on enterprise applications:

• What are your top SaaS contracts in terms of spend?
• Is someone managing those licenses consistently (particularly when employees join/leave the organization)?
• Or, has your organization had a lot of change in the number of employees, but no one has looked into potential savings for these apps yet?
• Do these applications have different license tiers based on feature usage? 
• Do you have multiple divisions using the application but have multiple contracts for the application across your organization? 

“Snow Atlas pinpoints those areas where we are paying for subscriptions that are not being used, either because employees have left Investec or because we are seeing low adoption. Thanks to Snow, we will be able to reduce our Adobe footprint and costs by 15 percent and our spend with Microsoft by 12 percent when we come to renew licenses.”

Nathan Snyman, microsoft software asset manager at investec

Questions to ask when reducing license waste for long-tail applications:

• Are purchasing departments distributed across multiple geographies and divisions?  
• Has your organization undergone heavy M&A in recent years?  
• Does your purchasing department frequently get surprise renewals? 

“…We have negotiated five new framework agreements with major vendors. We can procure licenses at a significant discount, assigning them to the Panasonic companies from a single pool, while ensuring compliance.”

Ulf kuetemeyer, senior manager of contracting & procurement at panasonic information systems company europe

Questions to ask to mitigate your organization’s risk:

• Are you in a regulated industry? For example, healthcare organizations must obtain a business associate agreement from providers who store, create, receive, maintain or transmit protected health information (PHI). The business associate agreement provides assurances of how the provider will safeguard PHI data. To obtain this agreement, organizations must know about all applications employees are using that are storing, transmitting, creating and receiving PHI. There are numerous examples of organizations being fined for not assessing provider risk by obtaining a business associate agreement. 
• Is your security team short staffed? According to a recent study, 84% of enterprises have less than five security analysts. Visibility to cloud applications used in your organization (free and paid), can significantly aid your security team on where to tackle SaaS security issues.  

“We used Snow to help rationalize and validate our licenses with multiple vendors, including Prometheus GWOS, K2, OMADA, AutoDesk, AirWatch, OpenText, Oracle, Acquire Sentinel, Cloudera, VMware, and many more.”

cobie nel, senior specialist, license and asset management at sasol

Putting great SaaS management into practice

We are inspired by transformational stories and are here to help you no matter what stage of your SaaS management journey you are on.

If some of the questions in this post were hard for you to answer, it might be time to try out our free SaaS discovery service.

This free, 14-day trial will:

• Configure SaaS discovery for 200 devices of your choice
• Report on discovered SaaS application usage across all 200 devices
• Provide recommendations on managing key SaaS applications to optimize and control risk and costs

You can get started today for free and be one giant step closer to achieving great SaaS management at your organization.

The post What Does Good SaaS Management Look Like? appeared first on Snow Software.

Snow Atlas customers can now identify critical software vulnerabilities.

• Identification of critical software vulnerabilities
• Discovery of applications that may expose personal data (PII, GDPR)
• Proactive evaluation of new software for critical risks before deployment

Check out the demo video below to find out more about how you can identify and remediate software vulnerabilities in your IT environment with Snow Risk Monitor.

Beta programs: Cloud cost visibility and containers

Good news for any Snow customers interested in getting a sneak peek of—and value from—our upcoming product features. We currently have two beta programs focused on getting visibility to assets in the cloud.

Current Snow Atlas customers will automatically see these new features. On-premises customers interested in beta testing can fill out this form or reach out to their Snow Account Manager or partner.

Snow Atlas uptime visibility

Providing customers, partners and users with visibility into their IT landscapes is at the heart of Snow’s mission. A new feature in Snow Atlas, Snow’s technology intelligence platform, shines a light on ourselves.

Snow Atlas customers and partners now have access to the status of all major Snow Atlas regions, providing full transparency into Snow Atlas uptime. This new capability will enable greater efficiency and peace of mind.

Expanded control over Snow Atlas access

Snow Atlas customers are gaining more control and visibility to users accessing the platform to improve overall security.

Customer administrators can now set a time limit for how long a partner and Snow Support users have access to the Snow Atlas partner console.

Partners and customers will enjoy increased visibility to all authorized end users and the ability to audit or investigate users provisioned over time, lowering their risk profile.

Friendly Lenovo models out of the box

Years ago, for their machine naming, IBM decided to use both a model number and a more user-friendly model name. Lenovo took over not only that data model but also the pesky habit of storing these pieces of data in different parts of the Windows registry. We are happy to report that Snow now brings together this information and, by default, displays the user-friendly model name instead of the model number. Customers that previously created customizations to display the model name can retire them and get back to an out-of-the box configuration. See a few examples of model name vs. wmic # and get the full release notes.

Recognition of Java applications

We’ve leveled up our inventory scanning capabilities for Java applications distributed as JAR files. Now, our agent for Windows scans the metadata information to populate vendor and version information. This enables a number of benefits including more complete software recognition and helps Snow Risk Monitor to provide more complete reporting regarding software threats from JAR files. Get the full release notes and more details here.

Cloud financial management

To effectively manage cloud costs, Snow Cloud Cost offers full visibility into public cloud consumption, real-time monitoring, accurate forecasting and tailored savings recommendations. Recent improvements enhance business mappings to improve cost allocation and provide a better understanding of cloud consumption.

Users can now easily map multi-cloud and Kubernetes spend. Business mapping allows users to accurately tag multi-cloud and Kubernetes spend data, assign shared costs equitably, and report cloud spend to drive FinOps collaboration. Recent updates have made mappings easier than ever to build and manage.

This includes allowing users to better understand cost allocations prior to viewing within the Cost and Usage Explorer. In addition, detailed rules and operators have been expanded to support values such as purchase option and line type. These updates offer users the ability to create the precise granularity they need.

You can also now gain better understanding of cloud consumption. Snow Cloud Cost’s Cost and Usage Explorer allows stakeholders to generate reports to analyze and manage cloud consumption.

Our latest update provides improved accuracy of amortized costs with AWS savings plans. Also, better usability for troubleshooting, warnings and errors enables stakeholders to make smarter cloud-investment decisions.

Improved user workflow for faster connector setup in Snow SaaS Management

SaaS Management on Snow Atlas users can now enjoy faster time to value with several workflow enhancements around API connector setup, including:

• The available connectors are now separated into two sections to show which connectors have been enabled for quick and easy reference.
• The connector discover page side panel now includes a description of specific data pulled by each connector, so users can quickly understand connector utility.
• The connector table now includes the ability to take actions such as run, test connection, edit, enable, disable and delete connector directly from the table.
• A new help button has been added to the connector discovery page to streamline actions to take in case the desired connector(s) are missing from the available connector list.

What’s next?

We have more product updates and innovations coming. Subscribe to our blog, so you don’t miss a thing.

Not a customer yet? Schedule a demo of Snow to see the power of Technology Intelligence.

The post What’s New at Snow Software: April 2023 appeared first on Snow Software.

Buried within that mountain of legalese are several critically important provisions that can impact your company data, productivity and bottom line. These provisions can be divided into three broad categories: commercial, service and data. In this article, we’ll examine all three, so you can ensure you’re approaching every vendor relationship with eyes wide open. 

Commercial provisions

The commercial provisions of a SaaS agreement cover a wide array of topics. Let’s start with the basics – when the agreement begins and when it ends.  

SaaS contract duration

Determining the start date of a contract can be more complicated than it might seem. Often the start date (or effective date) is the date the contract is signed; however, there can be many other actions or events that determine an effective date. Additional triggering events include activation of service, customer going live on the service, or installation of the service coupled with meeting some predetermined usage threshold. Some vendors may combine these events such that the contract effective date is the date of signature, while billing begins on deployment. 

Regardless of the methodology, it’s important to know the start date, as that’s fundamental to determining the contract end date. Organizations will want to be aware of the end date well in advance of its arrival, so that procurement teams are prepared to negotiate a new term with the same vendor, or there’s a plan in place for an alternative to address whatever use case originally led to the purchase of the app. 

SaaS renewals 

Most SaaS agreements are structured to automatically renew, and they require the customer to give notice if they intend to cancel. Typically, this notice must be provided no fewer than 30 days from the end date; however, some SaaS vendors require notice of 90 days or more. No one wants to get caught in a situation where they’re contractually obligated to renew a service they no longer wish to use. Staying on top of renewal dates can help you avoid this unpleasant situation. 

Price 

Price is the perhaps the most critical and obvious commercial provision in a SaaS agreement, and it can be calculated in a number of different ways. Three of the most common methods include: 

• Flat rate – A single monthly or annual rate with unlimited users and usage (perhaps the most straightforward pricing model) 
• Per user – Calculated based on the number of users with access to the software 
• Consumption or usage-based – Calculated based on a usage metric such as number of messages sent via an email platform or amount of storage used in a file storage system 

Billing for SaaS applications typically takes place monthly or annually. While monthly agreements provide more flexibility, annual agreements often come at a discount. 

Termination/Opt-out 

Unfortunately, not every product lives up to expectations, and you may find yourself regretting a SaaS purchase when it’s not meeting your needs. Many SaaS agreements include a termination clause that gives customers the right to end the relationship prior to the contractual end date. Exercising this right often comes at a price, so this can be an important item to negotiate when entering into the agreement. 

Service provisions

Service provisions in a SaaS agreement detail the vendor’s obligations regarding the performance of the product and the support the vendor will provide to the customer. 

Service-level agreement (SLA)

The SLA clause commits the vendor to meeting certain performance standards for the product. For example, uptime percentage is a critical component of an SLA. Obviously, when a SaaS product is down, it’s not providing any value to your organization, so uptime guarantees of 99% or more are typical. 

Other metrics in an SLA include maintenance, bug fixes and the penalties incurred by the vendor when they fail meet these requirements. 

Customer support 

SaaS applications often perform business-critical functions, so it’s important to know how the vendor will respond when you run into problems. Does the vendor provide comprehensive documentation detailing how to use the tool? Will you have access to support personnel, and, if so, on what timing? Making sure you have access to the appropriate level of support can determine whether your use of a SaaS application is a success or a failure for the organization. 

Data provisions

Data is the lifeblood of virtually every organization, and SaaS users routinely upload client data, intellectual property, and personal employee data to SaaS applications. Consequently, entrusting any SaaS vendor with something of such great value should be done with great care. Every SaaS agreement should provide details on data ownership, data storage and handling, and data access.  

Data ownership 

SaaS agreements should make clear that the SaaS vendor owns the software and the source code for the application, while the customer owns all data uploaded and developed using the application.   

Data storage and handling 

Due to privacy, security, and regulatory concerns, it’s important to know how and where a SaaS vendor stores your data. Is it in the cloud or a local data center? Does the geographic location of the storage facility comply with your country’s regulations? For example, storing the data of any EU citizen in the U.S. violates the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). Storing personal health information (PHI) is also subject to various regulations that differ depending on geography.  

The agreement should also describe how data is backed up, whether data is encrypted, and whether it’s shared with third parties. If data is shared with third parties, understanding the third party’s data storage and handling processes is equally important. 

Data access 

Finally, what happens to your data if you terminate the agreement with the vendor or if the vendor enters bankruptcy? Is there a defined process for retrieving your data and for making sure it doesn’t remain with the vendor? 

How Snow SaaS Management can help

The first step to managing your SaaS agreements is to have visibility into the SaaS apps present in your environment, including free apps. Snow SaaS Management’s unique combination of discovery methods provides the most comprehensive SaaS discovery available on the market today. Request a demo to see its unmatched discovery capabilities. Shine a light on your SaaS environment to discover all your applications that would otherwise go unseen. 


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The post SaaS Agreements 101: A Beginner’s Guide to Understanding the Terms appeared first on Snow Software.

Launch of Snow SaaS Management

This week, we announced the launch of Snow SaaS Management, our new SaaS management product on Snow Atlas. As SaaS expenditures continue to accelerate and decentralize, so do the costs and risks associated with shadow SaaS. We’ve added loads of new features to enhance our market-leading SaaS discovery and shorten time-to-value so customers can confidently manage their SaaS portfolios.

Customers can begin to secure and optimize SaaS environments more quickly than ever with enhanced visibility into known, unknown, paid and free apps. New capabilities include:

• SSO discovery – Connect to your SSO platform to pull data on SaaS logins. Quickly identify under-utilized apps and opportunities to eliminate waste. Compare this data with apps discovered from additional sources, such as our browser extension, to identify applications that should be accessed via SSO but aren’t. 
• Expanded optimization – We’ve broadened our optimization capabilities from 8,000+ to over 23,000 SaaS applications, so you can save money across your entire SaaS portfolio.
• Faster setup – Our streamlined onboarding process allows even non-technical customers to set up connectors in minutes and immediately identify opportunities to save. 
• User-centric view – See all applications and subscriptions associated with each user. Drill down into verified usage activity to identify apps adding value vs. those contributing to waste.

Snow SaaS Management can be used alongside our award-winning software asset management (SAM) solution or as a standalone product. It is currently in early access with general availability scheduled for this summer. Take a deeper dive into Snow SaaS Management and start a free trial to try it for yourself.

Application lifecycle management: software store and license reharvesting

Snow Productivity Optimizer, Snow’s SAM automation solution, provides new benefits for application lifecycle management, automation roles and processes, and a modernized look and feel:

• Request tags offer faster, more effective administration by allowing you to tag and filter your requests more granularly.

• Proactive service descriptions provide information transparency, leading to better governance and time/cost savings.
• Scheduled tasks enhancements give you more control and increase automation even more.

With all the above in place, Snow has delivered an automation refresh from the ground up.

Understand more about how Snow provides you with improved automated software governance and spend optimization within your guardrail boundaries in this new video.

Cloud financial management

Snow Cloud Cost is a FinOps-certified platform that enables visibility, monitoring, collaboration and cost optimization for the public cloud. Recent improvements enhance Kubernetes asset insights and enable managed service providers to share dashboards with their customers.

Kubernetes asset costs
As cloud adoption continues to grow, so does the demand for monitoring the costs of Kubernetes infrastructure.

Dashboards now provide an enhanced view of Kubernetes cluster costs by assets such as compute, data transfer and storage.  They’re used to identify spend drivers over time and to allocate costs.

Partner support for customer cloud cost optimization
Managed service providers can take the lead on cloud cost optimization by sharing a dashboard with their customers. Dashboards can provide a quick but thorough overview to help customers track spending and unit economics that have an impact on the bottom line.

Improved site navigation and experience

A seemingly small change with a potentially large benefit is coming soon to Snow Atlas customers. We have moved the navigation from the top bar to the left-hand side. User experience research and working with our customers has shown that side navigation makes it easier for users to navigate the product structure, enabling them to view all menu options at once without additional clicks. Additional benefits include: 

• Quicker access to frequently used features or pages 
• Better visualization of user’s current location within the application and improved understanding of application structure 
• Allows for more menu options to be displayed at once, reducing clicks 
• Enhanced visibility of key features such as search bars and user settings 
• Improved ability to accommodate many menu items without sacrificing usability 

Expanded license compliance logic and faster reporting for Snow Atlas

License compliance improvements for Windows Server

• Windows Server 2022 is now included in compliance calculation with the same coverage rules as Windows Server 2016 and 2019.
• New risks added for compliance calculation (such as having hardware that has less cores per machine/processor)
• Improved assessment logic so now Windows Server 2022 can also be recommended, lowering compliance risk and potentially identifying cost savings opportunities

Easier navigation

• Responding to customer feedback, adding agreements, licenses and custom objects moved to the corresponding list page as a link in the top right corner for faster and easier navigation
• Easier of execution of routine tasks by relocation of start compliance calculation buttons from navigation menu to page header

Faster reporting

• Improved generation speed for “Applications per computer” and “All computers” reports, delivering faster insight and greater efficiency
• Reports can now be distributed using .zip file format, making it possible to email large reports to team members

What’s next?

We have more product updates and innovations coming. Subscribe to our blog, so you don’t miss a thing.

Not a customer yet? Schedule a demo of Snow to see the power of Technology Intelligence.

The post What’s New at Snow Software: March 2023 appeared first on Snow Software.