Remember those massive spreadsheets tracking your company’s software licences? If you’re still relying on them, you’re not alone but you might be falling behind. As organisations embrace digital transformation, SaaS portfolios have grown wildly complex, creating headaches that Excel simply wasn’t designed to solve.
The SaaS Management Muddle
Let’s be honest most IT leaders are shocked when they discover the true extent of their SaaS landscape. Some enterprises now use well over 300 cloud applications, with many companies underestimating this figure by half or more. What’s caused this perfect storm?
For starters, department heads can now purchase software with just a credit card and a few clicks. Marketing signs up for a new analytics tool while Sales adopts another CRM add-on. Meanwhile, Finance might not even see these expenses until months later, buried within departmental credit card statements.
The result? A tangled web of applications, with overlapping functionalities, unused licences, and a complete lack of visibility into what’s actually being used.
The Real Cost of Keeping Things Manual
If you’ve ever faced an unexpected auto-renewal notification with just days to decide whether to continue, you understand the pain. But the costs run much deeper:
“We discovered we were paying for three different video conferencing tools across departments,” shared a CIO at a mid-sized financial services firm. “Each team thought they had the best solution, but we were essentially paying triple for the same functionality.”
Beyond duplicate tools, organisations frequently maintain licences for departed employees or pay premium rates simply because they lack the data to negotiate effectively. For a company with 1,000+ employees, these inefficiencies typically waste hundreds of thousands of pounds annually.
A Fresh Approach to Managing SaaS
Forward-thinking companies are binning the spreadsheets in favour of more sophisticated approaches:
Actually seeing what you’ve got
Rather than piecing together information from various teams, modern solutions automatically identify SaaS applications through network traffic and financial system integration. One healthcare company recently discovered 42 applications nobody had reported.
Understanding usage patterns
Instead of guessing, what if you knew exactly which features your teams use in each application? Modern platforms show precisely how employees engage with tools—revealing whether that expensive enterprise plan is actually delivering value.
Comparing what you pay
Imagine walking into a renewal meeting knowing exactly what other companies of your size pay for the same service. That’s the power of benchmarking against thousands of real contracts, often delivering savings of 20% or more without sacrificing functionality.
Getting ahead of renewals
No more last-minute scrambles. Centralised renewal calendars with automated alerts ensure you have months, not days, to evaluate options before signing on for another year.
Beyond Just Saving Money
While cost reduction is brilliant, sophisticated SaaS management delivers broader benefits:
“Gaining visibility into our SaaS landscape helped us identify security vulnerabilities we didn’t know existed,” notes a CISO from a manufacturing company. “We found sensitive data being stored in unapproved applications that hadn’t gone through proper security review.”
Other organisations report improved collaboration when teams use consistent tools rather than competing platforms with limited integration.
Taking the First Step
For many organisations, the first step beyond spreadsheets involves partnering with specialists like Vertice, who combine technology platforms with procurement expertise. These solutions apply real market intelligence and negotiation experience to transform what has traditionally been a chaotic process.
As SaaS continues to dominate corporate technology, getting a handle on these investments isn’t just good housekeeping, it’s becoming a competitive necessity. The spreadsheet era is ending, and tomorrow’s leaders are already embracing what comes next.