SaaS Archives - My TechDecisions https://mytechdecisions.com/tag/saas/ The end user’s first and last stop for making technology decisions Thu, 07 Dec 2023 14:15:57 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://mytechdecisions.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/cropped-TD-icon1-1-32x32.png SaaS Archives - My TechDecisions https://mytechdecisions.com/tag/saas/ 32 32 Now’s The Time to Focus on IT Productivity https://mytechdecisions.com/it-infrastructure/nows-the-time-to-focus-on-it-productivity/ https://mytechdecisions.com/it-infrastructure/nows-the-time-to-focus-on-it-productivity/#respond Thu, 07 Dec 2023 14:15:57 +0000 https://mytechdecisions.com/?p=49125 How efficiently are you working? If you’re like many people, probably not as efficiently as you could – sometimes due to no fault of your own. The business impacts of this can be significant, however. Productivity plays a huge role in a company’s financial health. Recent data from McKinsey & Company shows that productivity has […]

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How efficiently are you working? If you’re like many people, probably not as efficiently as you could – sometimes due to no fault of your own. The business impacts of this can be significant, however.

Productivity plays a huge role in a company’s financial health. Recent data from McKinsey & Company shows that productivity has barely grown in the U.S. (1.4%) since 2005. They also estimate that boosting U.S. productivity represents a $10 trillion opportunity.

Few teams feel the effects of unproductive work quite like IT. Their teams are typically small, and yet their work is overwhelming and mission-critical to keeping businesses moving forward. For instance, countless SaaS applications are now integral to the operations of every company, and yet one, often lean team is responsible for their upkeep and management.

That makes IT operations a potential bottleneck. Unsurprisingly, according to Evanta (a Gartner company), CIOs say increasing efficiency and productivity are top priorities for 2023.

The Manual Trap

SaaS applications, from project management, CRM and collaboration to MarTech and expense tools, are inseparable from our daily work. And our IT stacks are continuously increasing, with companies worldwide using an average of 130 apps in 2022.

My experience in the IT space has taught me that most IT teams still manage SaaS applications manually, attempting to track their licenses, users, and renewals via spreadsheets and provisioning/deprovisioning access to applications one by one. These bandwidth-crunched teams are wasting valuable (and expensive) time completing important yet mundane and repetitive tasks that are humanly impossible to keep up with – and, therefore, prime candidates for an automation-driven productivity boost.

The Onboarding/Offboarding Bottleneck

Two of the most time-intensive IT operations are onboarding and offboarding employees from SaaS applications.

Consider this scenario: A company is growing rapidly, hiring to fill the gaps they have across their organization to keep up with the high volume of work required to hit their increasing targets. Maybe they bulk-start new employees on one specific day, every two weeks.

If they have five employees starting on that day, IT first needs to receive the information that those employees are starting. They need to learn what departments those employees will work within and what tools are required for their roles. From there, they must provision access to those applications per employee and application. Endless Slack messages, clunky application backends and likely incomplete information eat up their day.

By the time they finish provisioning that group of new hires, the next group is likely just about to start. Any failures along that scattered onboarding process create a less-than-ideal onboarding experience and derail a new employee’s initial productivity.

On the flip side of this process is offboarding employees.

Manual offboarding requires IT to work with a departing employee’s manager to learn what apps they used (a less than scientific endeavor, particularly when you consider that many employees subscribe to apps on their own without others’ knowledge), and then manually deprovision them from every application. Beyond the time sink for IT, there is also a risk factor — failing to deprovision an employee from even one could leave sensitive company information accessible.

While handling these critical tasks in this manner is inefficient, it’s also indicative of the wasteful nature of manual IT operations. IT pros are highly technical and talented. Having them spend their time on tedious tasks distracts them from working on higher-value projects.

Related: ChatGPT-Like Microsoft 365 Copilot Will Be Coming to Microsoft Productivity Apps

Increase IT Productivity Through Automation

Gartner predicts that by 2025, 70% of organizations will implement structured automation to deliver efficiency, an increase from just 20% of organizations in 2021.

Despite that, Torii’s  survey of over 200 IT professionals found that less than half of respondents have fully automated most tasks, and only 13% reported great success with automation.

So what’s stopping IT from automating? Time: 58% cite insufficient staffing or time as significant challenges in automation implementation. It’s a chicken and egg scenario.

The only way forward is through investing in tools that help manage their SaaS stack, that also include intuitive automation capabilities.

Investing in any old automation, won’t cut it either. In the context of IT, how that automation integrates and interacts with your SaaS stack is key.

Solutions such as SaaS Management Platforms, with automation built-in, provide the visibility IT needs to understand their SaaS stack and associated users and costs, as well as with the actionability required to manage it.

For the onboarding/offboarding bottleneck, this means automatically discovering and surfacing every application in use at your company, first and foremost. From that point of centralized visibility, you can create workflows that automate previously time-intensive tasks (and eliminate the chance of things falling through the cracks) to free up your IT staff’s time (and improve results).

For example, the system can detect which department new hires work in and automatically provision access to the applications they’ll require. Equally for offboarding, when an employee leaves — since you’re aware of every application they’re utilizing, the same platform can automatically deprovision them once triggered by your IDP or HRIS.

These are just small examples of the automation opportunities for IT, but when you compare them to the manual alternatives, it’s easy to imagine the productivity gains you can garner.

As companies continue looking to save costs, greater productivity could fit the bill — as it improves the value of every dollar spent.

By better using time, you’ll enable your organization to optimize resource use and focus on the objectives that drive revenue. Those that invest in productivity now stand to earn more from the efficiency gains of the future.

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Airtame & Jabra Partner to Deliver Seamless Hybrid Meeting Experience https://mytechdecisions.com/unified-communications/airtame-jabra-seamless-hybrid-meeting-experiences/ https://mytechdecisions.com/unified-communications/airtame-jabra-seamless-hybrid-meeting-experiences/#respond Thu, 12 Oct 2023 16:41:55 +0000 https://mytechdecisions.com/?p=49029 Airtame, creator of the hardware-enabled SaaS platform that allows screen sharing, digital signage and videoconferencing collaboration in businesses and schools, has partnered with Danish-based Jabra, a leader in professional audio and hybrid work solutions, to provide a comprehensive, cross-platform meeting solution that eliminates common challenges in hybrid meeting spaces. “Partnering with other industry leading companies […]

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Airtame, creator of the hardware-enabled SaaS platform that allows screen sharing, digital signage and videoconferencing collaboration in businesses and schools, has partnered with Danish-based Jabra, a leader in professional audio and hybrid work solutions, to provide a comprehensive, cross-platform meeting solution that eliminates common challenges in hybrid meeting spaces.

“Partnering with other industry leading companies is critical to us so that we can provide end-users with the flexible solutions and support required to thrive while collaborating across hybrid workspaces,” says Jonas Gyalokay, Airtame co-dounder. “Joining with Jabra allows Airtame to stay true to our mission of delivering a seamless hybrid meeting experience to anyone, anywhere, at any time.”

The Airtame hybrid conferencing platform stands out as the most versatile option available on the market. It is specifically designed to integrate with peripheral manufacturers, providing the most technologically advanced wireless hybrid meeting experience possible, with additional compatibility with Microsoft Teams, Zoom, and soon, Google Meet and Webex. By integrating with Jabra’s  collaboration solutions, it allows for optimal integration without compromising the quality or performance of either solution.

The speaker phones in the Jabra Speak lineup, the PanaCast 180 degree FoV meeting room camera and PanaCast 20 personal webcam, and the PanaCast 50 all-in-one video bar are all available for pairing with the Airtame Hub. With this compatibility, Airtame’s hybrid conferencing platform provides hybrid meeting solutions for small, mid-sized and large conferencing spaces.

Integrators and end-users can now leverage the capabilities of Airtame’s hybrid conferencing platform, combined with compatible Jabra solutions, to enhance communication and collaboration in their organizations, schools and hybrid workspaces.

“Our partnerships within the collaboration technology ecosystem provide solution options for customers,” says Holger Reisinger, SVP, Jabra Enterprise Video Solutions. “The Airtame solution provides a choice for customers who want a flexible solution for their hybrid environments.”

Another version of this article originally appeared on our sister-site Commercial Integrator on October 11, 2023. It has since been updated for My TechDecisions’ audience.

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MCi Protects Its Customers Worldwide With Quorum Cyber’s Enterprise-Grade Cybersecurity https://mytechdecisions.com/project-of-the-week/mci-protects-its-customers-worldwide-with-quorum-cybers-enterprise-grade-cybersecurity/ https://mytechdecisions.com/project-of-the-week/mci-protects-its-customers-worldwide-with-quorum-cybers-enterprise-grade-cybersecurity/#respond Tue, 30 May 2023 14:21:45 +0000 https://mytechdecisions.com/?p=48623 Serving state, local governments, and global Fortune 100 companies in the energy, mining, manufacturing, and chemicals industries, Management Controls, Inc. (MCi) needed to transform its cybersecurity to the world-class level expected by its long list of prestigious customers. As a software technology and services provider, MCi provides critical Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) solutions and its TRACK platform […]

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Serving state, local governments, and global Fortune 100 companies in the energy, mining, manufacturing, and chemicals industries, Management Controls, Inc. (MCi) needed to transform its cybersecurity to the world-class level expected by its long list of prestigious customers. As a software technology and services provider, MCi provides critical Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) solutions and its TRACK platform for tracking and managing contract labor, equipment rental and material spending. MCi counts many of the world’s largest companies as loyal customers, some of whom it has served for over twenty-five years.

Privately owned, the Houston-headquartered business has ambitions to grow in the U.S. healthcare, automotive, aerospace, chemical and upstream energy sectors and extend its footprint across North America, Europe, Asia, Australasia and Africa. Safeguarding its customers’ data is essential to achieving its international expansion plans.

Customers demand world-class security

“Our customers are increasingly asking us detailed questions about our security, including disaster recovery and how we’ll respond to severe incidents. We must confidently reassure them that we have enterprise-grade protection in place,” explains Daniel Iturbe, VP of infrastructure, security & compliance at MCi.

“To achieve this, we have implemented rigorous security protocols and business continuity and recovery plans that ensure the safety and confidentiality of our customer’s data. Our team of experts is continuously monitoring and updating these measures to stay ahead of potential threats, Iturbe says.

“We understand that our customers trust us with their sensitive information, and we take that responsibility very seriously. Rest assured, our commitment to providing top-notch security measures is unwavering, and we are always ready to respond swiftly and effectively in any security incident,” he says.

After completing a comprehensive program of preparation internally, MCi was ready to find a cyber security partner to provide a security operations center (SOC) that would match their business needs and meet the high standards of cybersecurity demanded by their customers worldwide.

MCi searched Quorum Cyber online, and a local Microsoft representative assured them they were worth talking to. Founded in 1989, MCi is predominantly in the cloud, and its cloud hosting is 100% provided by Azure. Hence, being a Microsoft-only house and a Microsoft Solutions Partner for Security, Quorum Cyber seemed like a good candidate. However, there were many other companies to assess as well.

Five essential criteria for a long-term partner

MCi took a diligent approach in selecting a long-term cybersecurity partner. They conducted an exhaustive Request for Proposal (RFP) discovery and execution phase over five months. During this time, they carefully evaluated over ten cybersecurity companies and thoroughly assessed their service offerings. Price was not the only determining factor, and the companies were assessed based on several essential criteria:

  1. Vendor qualifications: Experience, expertise and financial stability.
  2. Technology and tools: A vital matrix component consisted of selecting a SOC company focusing only on Microsoft Azure Security Stack and Azure toolsets.
  3. Service Level Agreements (SLAs): Response times, escalation procedures, and reporting capabilities needed to comply with MCi contractual and compliance requirements.
  4. Flexibility and customization: The ability to tailor and customize services to meet MCi annual reports and audits for MCi customers.
  5. Security and compliance: SOC requirements to have Microsoft and industry-accepted certifications and accreditations.
  6. Cost and value: SOC’s pricing structure, schedule, add-on services, and overall were collectively categorized and analyzed independently.
  7. Reputation and references: The SOC’s reputation in the industry and references from current and past customers were scored using an internal MCi review process.

After evaluating all proposals, MCi trusted Quorum Cyber as their long-term cybersecurity partner. This decision was made after considering the added complexity of working with multiple vendors and that Quorum Cyber met all their requirements, including their need for an experienced and reputable Microsoft partner with a complete set of security competencies, certifications, advanced SIEM services, and strong customer support.

A true partner that lives and breathes cybersecurity

“I strongly believed that we needed a partner dedicated solely to the Microsoft ecosystem, who deeply understood cybersecurity and could fully support our Security Operation Center’s needs. We wanted a partner who would invest the time to comprehend our cloud infrastructure, unique business model, and even our customers and be part of our growth journey and continued success,” says Iturbe.

Moreover, MCi needed an expert in Microsoft Sentinel, Azure, and cloud computing that can proactively detect and defend against zero-day attacks and possess strong automation skills to improve efficiency and reduce the risk associated with cyber incidents. The ideal partner should also have experience working within a single, integrated security ecosystem.

After onboarding MCi onto their SOC in early 2022, MCi is confident that Quorum Cyber, whose SOC team runs the Microsoft Sentinel Managed Detection & Response (MDR) service, has already helped to improve its cybersecurity posture and security scores significantly.

“I am thoroughly impressed by the exceptional customer service provided by Quorum Cyber. Their attention to detail, quick response time, and efficient triaging of information by their SOC is outstanding,” says Iturbe.

Iturbe continues, “The single-pane-of-glass view offered by their customer portal, Clarity, has been an invaluable asset to my team. This enables us to access all the necessary information from one dashboard easily. Quorum Cyber’s technical expertise and account management skills are second to none, and their professionalism is truly commendable. They maintain continuous communication with their customers and offer top-notch customer support, a rare quality in today’s business world.”

Iturbe says, “Overall, Quorum Cyber is a fantastic extension of our organization and a true partner. Their unwavering commitment to excellence is reflected in every aspect of their services, making them a top-class provider in the cyber security industry.”

Peace of mind around the clock

“We couldn’t get the security and visibility of the SOC by recruiting more people to cover the same things in-house,” concludes Iturbe. “In a nutshell, MCi has been able to catapult our cybersecurity posture to an enterprise-grade level, thanks to the mutual partnership in working towards the same goals.”

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How to Spring Clean Your SaaS Apps – and Find New Savings https://mytechdecisions.com/news-1/how-to-spring-clean-your-saas-apps-and-find-new-savings/ https://mytechdecisions.com/news-1/how-to-spring-clean-your-saas-apps-and-find-new-savings/#respond Thu, 18 May 2023 18:00:28 +0000 https://mytechdecisions.com/?p=48411 As “Spring Cleaning” comes to an end, stop and ask yourself — did you consider your SaaS applications? Many organizations are looking to trim their budgets. With that in mind, cleaning out your SaaS stack is a great place to focus. It can be like finding change under the couch cushion (except the totals can […]

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As “Spring Cleaning” comes to an end, stop and ask yourself — did you consider your SaaS applications?

Many organizations are looking to trim their budgets. With that in mind, cleaning out your SaaS stack is a great place to focus. It can be like finding change under the couch cushion (except the totals can add up to hundreds of thousands of dollars). Most organizations don’t even realize they have SaaS clutter (and spend) problems. According to Gartner, organizations have over 125 different SaaS applications, costing them on average $1,040 per employee annually.

You can’t save without seeing your full stack

You wouldn’t clean your house in the dark. The same principle applies to your SaaS stack. The process of transforming SaaS sprawl to SaaS savings requires visibility. You can’t optimize what you can’t see.

This is especially relevant as shadow IT is an ongoing challenge. Shadow IT are unsanctioned applications that employees purchase, or get for free, without making their IT team aware. As tech-savvy generations enter the workforce, apps are easier to sign up for and start using, and expenses are easier to submit — shadow IT continues to increase and wreak havoc on budgets and more. We found that 75% of CIOs believe their inability to identify wasted SaaS spend is a threat to their company’s success.

Combating the risk and cost that come with Shadow IT requires discovering every single application currently or previously in use at an organization. Once you’re able to see every application, it’s that much easier to pinpoint redundancies, understand every single place your IT spend is going, and pinpoint waste and risk.

Related: Is a Reliance on Cloud, SaaS Apps Leading to Shadow IT?

Going beyond discovery

Visibility doesn’t end there, though. No different than how you’d know a particular room will require more cleaning due to its usage, application usage is equally important.

Understanding the usage of applications at your organization, in real-time, makes it easy to see where licenses are underutilized or abandoned. This is critically important as you undertake the process of application rationalization (more on that next).

Usage alone will also only get you so far. Your team needs to have an easy way to understand the cost of each application to compare against that usage. How much is each license costing your company, and is that cost justified by how often it’s used?

Some tools, such as SaaS management platforms, have a solution for this problem. By integrating with each application, including financial systems such as Netsuite, they automatically pull usage and cost into one, centralized location. This real-time, single source of truth makes it easy to compare the total cost against the usage.

What is application rationalization?

With all of your SaaS information centralized and easily accessible, you can leverage it to make data-driven decisions. That’s important, as 73% of CIOs say their organization does not have a strategic framework for evaluating app rationalization and license usage.

Application rationalization, put simply, is an evaluation process for applications. It helps IT understand what apps to keep, cease, or expand in usage. It’s like going through your home and deciding which clothes and clutter you’re ready to get rid off.

In practice, it’s a multi-step process that leverages the information you’ve gathered to make educated decisions to save costs and reduce redundancies across your organization.

How to use data to compare applications

This involves finding the difference between widely used applications and applications used rarely or by small groups of employees. Once you have the required information on usage rates and license amounts, savings opportunities will reveal themselves. It’s also important to understand the purpose of applications and how they’re used by respective teams to ensure that you’re not cutting impact along with cost.

Some solutions make this process easy, grouping applications by their type and purpose. Maybe you’re paying for two similar project management applications, such as Monday and Asana. Viewing the usage of each one side-by-side lets your IT team see which app is used more often, compare their costs, and helps you come to a data-driven decision on which application to cut.

How to optimize SaaS application licenses

No different than those old t-shirts in the back of your closet, application licenses can quickly grow dust if not used efficiently. Except, in the case of these licenses, that dust is an added cost for your organization.

Another important part of application rationalization involves license management. Rather than buying a new wardrobe every season, let’s up-cycle — it’s time to reclaim underutilized licenses and re-assign them.

Once you have usage information, it’s easy to reach out to employees who rarely use their licenses for certain apps and ask if your team can reclaim them for future use (some solutions even let you automate this process). From there, you can recycle existing licenses for new employees and even reduce your license count when the opportunity arises.

This active optimization helps clutter from starting in the first place, saving you time and cost now — and lessening the need to spring clean SaaS sprawl in the future.

Turning practice into a process

While cleaning out the clutter in your home may only make sense seasonally, the practice of optimizing your SaaS stack is an ongoing task that grows easier the more consistent your actions become — turning into an almost automated process over time.

Some SaaS Management Platforms make this easy, by providing automated recommendations for opportunities to cut costs through notifying you of underutilized licenses and redundant apps.

Even outside of automation, your team can more easily track spending when you’re gathering real-time information in a centralized location. Having the opportunity to view your total SaaS spend in one easy place, versus collecting that information manually once or twice per year, makes it easy to see when you’re rising above your allotted IT budget. It also makes it way easier to collaborate with Finance, Procurement, and other interested stakeholders on a consistent basis.

After all, the easiest way to clean out clutter and wasted spend is to avoid it building up at all — the same rings true for your SaaS stack.


Uri Haramati is co-founder and CEO of Torii, whose automated SaaS management platform helps modern IT drive businesses forward by making the best use of SaaS. A serial entrepreneur, Uri has founded several successful startups including Life on Air, the parent company behind popular apps such as Meerkat and Houseparty. He also started Skedook, an event discovery app. Uri is passionate about innovating technology that solves complex challenges and creates new opportunities.  

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Nearly Three-Quarters of CIOs Lack Insights into their Cloud App Spend https://mytechdecisions.com/it-infrastructure/nearly-three-quarters-of-cios-lack-insights-into-their-cloud-app-spend/ https://mytechdecisions.com/it-infrastructure/nearly-three-quarters-of-cios-lack-insights-into-their-cloud-app-spend/#respond Fri, 28 Apr 2023 16:01:53 +0000 https://mytechdecisions.com/?p=48153 Torii’s latest research reveals that 75% of CIOs are concerned about wasted SaaS spend, but lack good visibility and effective frameworks to evaluate their investment. The distributed SaaS management platform provider’s “State of IT Mind Report” also highlights CIOs’ challenges with cybersecurity and outdated technology. “Many IT teams are lean and don’t have the human […]

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Torii’s latest research reveals that 75% of CIOs are concerned about wasted SaaS spend, but lack good visibility and effective frameworks to evaluate their investment. The distributed SaaS management platform provider’s “State of IT Mind Report” also highlights CIOs’ challenges with cybersecurity and outdated technology.

“Many IT teams are lean and don’t have the human or technology resources needed to keep on top of their ever-changing app landscape and its associated risks. As the State of IT Mind report makes clear, IT pros urgently need an easy way to gain visibility and insights so they can effectively manage spend and curtail risk,” said Uri Haramati, CEO of Torii, in a statement.

Key Findings from Torii’s State of IT Mind Report

Cybersecurity, the Perennial Threat 

Spend (cited by 61% of overall respondents), used to be lower on IT pros’ lists of concerns, says Torrii, but now it ties with cybersecurity (62%). The fear that their organizations’ technology stacks lag behind competitors follows closely at 59%. For CIOs in particular, SaaS spend is top of mind. Seventy five percent of CIOs say their inability to identify wasted SaaS spend is a threat to their company’s success.

CIOs feel blind to SaaS Spend Management

Despite CIOs’ concerns, 73% say their organization does not have a strategic framework for evaluating app rationalization and license usage. Thirteen percent say they lack even basic visibility into SaaS spend; thus, indicating that IT organizations need to invest in tools that give them this visibility and, at the very least, instruct teams to create frameworks for assessing and taking action on SaaS investments.

IT isn’t confident in the methods they’re using to thwart cybersecurity threats

Fifty percent of respondents point to leadership’s cybersecurity experience and awareness as a strong contributor to their company’s cybersecurity preparedness. However, only 27% cite cybersecurity systems and tools, and an even slimmer 16% say their companies are strong in training and education. Training must be more of a priority since employees are typically unwitting conduits for bad actors wanting to gain access to company networks and data.

IT Prefers Centralized IT models

Sixty eight percent of respondents work in a centralized IT model – and 82% would prefer it – over having IT services embedded throughout their company. This could make it difficult for lean IT teams to scale and effectively manage their SaaS ecosystems when the majority of cloud apps are acquired via Shadow IT, unless they have tools that enable better visibility and distributed management, says Torii.

Read Torii’s full “State of IT Mind” report here.

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Sonos Pro Enters Commercial SaaS Market, Expands Offerings https://mytechdecisions.com/news-1/sonos-pro-companys-entry-into-commercial-saas-market/ https://mytechdecisions.com/news-1/sonos-pro-companys-entry-into-commercial-saas-market/#respond Tue, 18 Apr 2023 18:28:19 +0000 https://mytechdecisions.com/?p=47945 Sonos is getting into the recurring monthly revenue (RMR) game with the introduction of Sonos Pro, a new  Software as a Service (SaaS) solution that allows businesses to deliver audio content to their various store fronts for a $35 per month subscription fee per location. Commercial audio represents a new category for Sonos, and the company points out […]

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Sonos is getting into the recurring monthly revenue (RMR) game with the introduction of Sonos Pro, a new  Software as a Service (SaaS) solution that allows businesses to deliver audio content to their various store fronts for a $35 per month subscription fee per location.

Commercial audio represents a new category for Sonos, and the company points out the subscription-based offering includes an easy-to-navigate dashboard to allow users to manage their systems across multiple locations to deliver commercially licensed music, personalized support, and more. Sonos boasts the service works seamlessly with a business’ existing Sonos hardware to fill any space with immersive sound. Sonos Pro is immediately available in the U.S. with additional markets to follow.

“As consumers return to brick-and-mortar, retail stores and restaurants are leveraging music, visuals and scents to create a sensory in-store experience that builds an emotional connection with customers,” comments Patrick Spence, CEO of Sonos.

“We’ve seen incredible organic growth for Sonos in commercial spaces as businesses invest in sound solutions to engage customers, which presents a huge opportunity for us. After testing different features in hundreds of business locations to better understand the needs of businesses and the complexities of commercial audio, we’re proud to deliver a simple solution that was designed from the ground up to meet the needs of this audience.”

Sonos Pro Brings Familiar User Experience to Businesses

Sonos states the combination of its SaaS offering for businesses along with its hardware streamlines the process of bringing audio into commercial environments.

“Music is the foundation for creating ambiance and keeping customers coming back for more,” says Audra Kinsley, VP and GM of Sonos Professional.

“Sonos Pro was designed to make it easy for brands to reinforce their vision and lifestyle through sound, with tools to curate content and create distinct sound experiences that resonate with customers.”

Outlining some of the benefits that Sonos Pro provides businesses, Sonos emphasizes its new SaaS platform provides these advantages:

  • Manage and monitor from anywhere: Sonos says users can access a bespoke Sonos app experience that includes remote management capabilities, including a web-based dashboard that allows businesses to view and manage activity across locations. Other features the app provides includes preset playlist schedules, set administrator permissions, delegate access to trusted employees and access on-demand premium support from anywhere.
  • Set the perfect brand tone: According to the company, businesses can access its Sonos Backgrounds, a commercially licensed music service that features a range of music from independent artists, as well as quick access third-party streaming services like Mood Mix, Soundtrack Your Brand or Rockbot to create a consistent brand experience and engage customers at every location.
  • Experience the best sound in business: Sonos says Sonos Pro enables businesses to fill each location with quality sound that’s driven by thoughtful hardware design and intuitive control.
  • Customize and scale systems: Users of the new commercial platform can outfit their business locations with a few compact speakers or a mix of smart speakers and components across multiple locations. In addition, the company points out that as businesses grow, users can expand their systems with more speakers and adjust their subscription plans.

Another version of this article originally appeared on our sister-site CEPro on April 18, 2023. It has since been updated for My TechDecisions’ audience.

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The Inconvenient Truth about SaaS Management https://mytechdecisions.com/managed-service/the-inconvenient-truth-about-saas-management/ https://mytechdecisions.com/managed-service/the-inconvenient-truth-about-saas-management/#respond Fri, 24 Feb 2023 13:05:33 +0000 https://mytechdecisions.com/?p=47152 Companies today are incredibly reliant on cloud applications (SaaS). These tools enable us to do meaningful work, at high speeds, in a globally distributed workplace. However, for all their promise and opportunity, cloud apps also present new and growing challenges for budgets, security and overall efficiency. It all stems from a lack of control and […]

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Companies today are incredibly reliant on cloud applications (SaaS). These tools enable us to do meaningful work, at high speeds, in a globally distributed workplace. However, for all their promise and opportunity, cloud apps also present new and growing challenges for budgets, security and overall efficiency.

It all stems from a lack of control and insight. Simply put, you can’t govern, secure and optimize what you can’t see. And much of what’s happening in the SaaS tech stack is hidden.

Why? Because many (if not most) cloud applications are acquired by end-users, without the knowledge of IT or procurement teams. These end-users are searching for the best tools to accomplish their job. But for the most part, they’re not sensitive to the downstream impacts on IT, procurement, security and finance.

The Scary Truth of Distributed App Adoption

Ownership and data associated with cloud apps are distributed across the company—but most organizations are either not aware, not accepting of, or not adapting to this reality. We see this illustrated in recent studies. In its Market Guide for SaaS Management Platforms, Gartner states, “SaaS spending continues to grow by 15-20% annually, as organizations maintain an average of over 125 different SaaS applications totaling $1,040 per employee annually. IT typically is aware of only a third of those due to decentralized ownership and sourcing.”

And they don’t see this threat alleviating on its own. Gartner predicts that organizations that fail to centrally manage their SaaS life cycles will be “five times more susceptible to a cyber incident or data loss” and will “overspend on SaaS by at least 25%.”

This sounds stark, but there is hope. It starts with a new perspective on how to manage SaaS.

A New Approach to SaaS Management

The traditional approach to software management – where IT has centralized command and control – is simply not possible anymore. There are too many apps, too many owners, and too many ongoing changes to users and licenses. Instead, management must empower key stakeholders – IT, app owners, procurement, security and finance teams – to contribute their voices and efforts to managing SaaS.

This does not mean IT is removed from leadership; rather their work becomes more strategic.

IT is no longer the sole bearer of SaaS responsibility, but they still lead the charge. Their orchestration skills, familiarity with automation, and insight into technology place them at the nexus of Distributed SaaS Management. The difference is, IT no longer executes this strategic vision alone – they enlist the aid of other stakeholders.

Not only does this share the workload and make effective SaaS management possible, but it also scales the company’s ability to address security and budget concerns head-on without fear of limited bandwidth. The result is a more flexible, responsive, and mutually invested SaaS management approach that doesn’t burden any single person or group with all the work or all the accountability for things they don’t control. Instead, departments and app owners become teammates in their shared goals, and IT’s role is akin to the coach.

4 Phases of Distributed SaaS Management

There are four crucial phases of modern Distributed SaaS Management:

  1. Comprehensive discovery
  2. Strategic decisions
  3. Collaboration through automation
  4. Cost optimization

At each phase, the picture of SaaS becomes more clear. Phase one, discovery, is about uncovering which tools exist within your SaaS portfolio and pulling together relevant data about contract terms, ownership, utilization rates, and more. The second phase focuses on making strategic decisions based on newfound, data-driven insights. Phase three is about enabling everyone – especially the app owners – to help in the effort of SaaS management. Notably, phase three becomes much more effective if critical bottlenecks are automated. For example, task delegation via manual emails or isolated ticket systems adds friction and can hamper a collaborative effort. By trying to automate these processes, overall cross-team workflows become more efficient and sustainable. Things like offboarding former employees from apps happens automatically with information from HR systems feeding directly into SaaS management systems and triggering offboarding workflows.

Related: How Can IT Companies Manage Their Spend With Digital Procurement

Finally, the fourth phase of Distributed SaaS Management is about the impact of SaaS Spending. Today, more than ever, companies are focused on reducing technology costs – but doing so in ways that don’t negatively impact productivity and results. To do this, they must uncover the true cost and value of their applications. But without the right data, insights are hard to find. And, to make matters worse, research shows that collaboration between IT and Finance and Procurement departments has some of the lowest rates in a company. When we surveyed 300 IT pros, only 14% reported collaborating “often.”

Distributed SaaS Management offers a solution for better cost optimization. By following the four phases, SaaS spend becomes another set of data points ready for action. Finance can ask questions, IT can provide centralized insights (through their discovery of applications and the usage and cost data associated with them), and application owners can take actions across their various apps to eliminate wasted spend on idle or unassigned licenses, and eliminate apps that have redundant functionality. With time, this process becomes systemic, with app owners conducting license utilization reviews on a regular basis.

Similarly, Procurement has a single source for their contract data. This will reduce or eliminate surprise renewals and break the cycle of sprinting from one renewal negotiation to another without the proper insights.

As SaaS adoption continues to grow, so will the risk of cybersecurity threats, spiraling spend, and general inefficiencies – unless IT can change course. With a Distributed SaaS Management strategy designed for today’s scattered app reality, course correction becomes much easier, collaboration is streamlined, and goals around productivity, SaaS savings, security and innovation are much easier to achieve.

Uri Haramati is co-founder and CEO of Torii, whose automated SaaS management platform helps modern IT drive businesses forward by making the best use of SaaS. A serial entrepreneur, Uri has founded several successful startups including Life on Air, the parent company behind popular apps such as Meerkat and Houseparty. He also started Skedook, an event discovery app. Uri is passionate about innovating technology that solves complex challenges and creates new opportunities.

 

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Aryaka Invests in Bringing Managed SD-WAN & SASE to More Markets https://mytechdecisions.com/network-security/aryaka-invests-in-bringing-managed-sd-wan-sase-to-more-markets/ https://mytechdecisions.com/network-security/aryaka-invests-in-bringing-managed-sd-wan-sase-to-more-markets/#respond Fri, 17 Feb 2023 15:04:52 +0000 https://mytechdecisions.com/?p=47105 Aryaka, the SASE solutions provider is increasing investment in its hyperscale point-of-presence (POP) footprint across the globe for cloud-based services delivery. The company will also deploy its AppAssure solution across all current and new POPs to enable SaaS acceleration for improved application performance for the hybrid workforce. In addition, it is enhancing its Last Mile […]

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Aryaka, the SASE solutions provider is increasing investment in its hyperscale point-of-presence (POP) footprint across the globe for cloud-based services delivery. The company will also deploy its AppAssure solution across all current and new POPs to enable SaaS acceleration for improved application performance for the hybrid workforce. In addition, it is enhancing its Last Mile Services offering by supporting wireless connectivity worldwide, simplifying last-mile link procurement and operations.

The San Mateo, Calif-based company says it plans to establish 27 new POPs in 21 countries and in 15 major metropolitan areas worldwide to further expand its global hyperscale infrastructure. The POPs are expected to deliver low latency end-to-end for faster connection speeds, along with cloud-delivered services for network, security and observability, while meeting each geographic location’s regulatory requirements and performance needs.

Aryaka’s AppAssure technology will be deployed on POPs, providing insights into jitter, latency, and loss per app and per user for optimal application performance for both on-site and remote users. Furthermore, Aryaka is enhancing its SD-WAN offering based on its industry-unique FlexCore – a dual layer 2 and layer 3 global backbone and adding intuitive navigation to its MyAryaka customer portal for simpler self-service.

Related: Aryaka Announces Zero Trust WAN Based on Unified SASE Architecture

“There are steady increases in SaaS deployment models, public cloud spending, and use of internet WAN across businesses of all sizes, and our POP investment sets the foundation that our customers and future customers will need to be successful in a constantly evolving business landscape,” says Renuka Nadkarni, chief product officer of Aryaka. “With escalating security threats and any businesses becoming a distributed enterprise, companies of all sizes and in any vertical are looking for a partner that can offer business continuity and IT resilience, operational simplicity on a global scale, and unified security enforcement. There are very few providers that can offer all three elements effectively as part of a Unified SASE offer.”

As part of its commitment to providing operational simplicity, Aryaka is offering customers more options and an enhanced experience for last-mile services with wired and wireless connectivity with a single point of contact. Aryaka’s last-mile connectivity services enable fully managed LTE, 4G, and 5G connections in over 90 countries utilizing Cradlepoint Wireless Edge and NetCloud.

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Enterprises Waste More Than 10% of Budget on Software, SaaS & Cloud Infrastructure https://mytechdecisions.com/it-infrastructure/enterprises-waste-more-than-10-of-budget-on-software-saas-cloud-infrastructure/ https://mytechdecisions.com/it-infrastructure/enterprises-waste-more-than-10-of-budget-on-software-saas-cloud-infrastructure/#respond Wed, 08 Feb 2023 21:00:28 +0000 https://mytechdecisions.com/?p=46936 Half of enterprises are wasting more than 10% of their annual budget on software, SaaS and cloud infrastructure, according to new research from enterprise technology mangement provider Oomnitza and global market research firm YouGov.  In addition, a third of respondents reported wasting between 10%-20% of their annual application expenditures due to unused, unaccounted for or […]

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Half of enterprises are wasting more than 10% of their annual budget on software, SaaS and cloud infrastructure, according to new research from enterprise technology mangement provider Oomnitza and global market research firm YouGov. 

In addition, a third of respondents reported wasting between 10%-20% of their annual application expenditures due to unused, unaccounted for or mismanaged SaaS and Software subscriptions and licenses.

While many organizations have instituted automated processes to manage SaaS and cloud, the majority (54%) rated their workflows to govern authorized use and licensing of SaaS applications and cloud infrastructure only as “satisfactory.” Further, 9% of organizations said they have experienced unplanned spend and budget issues due to immature or nominal process automation maturity. 

“Oomnitza’s research underscores the double-sided sword that cloud and SaaS represent,” says Valerie O’Connell, research director at EMA. “Anyone with a credit card can spin up resources. That’s great for adoption and ease of access, but it’s also a recipe for overspending. Cloud instances, that for whatever reason become abandoned, can keep racking up charges for underlying compute, network and storage resources. Effective process automation capabilities add much needed control and optimization of SaaS, software and cloud investments.”  

Additional Survey Findings 

Key findings from Oomnitza and YouGov’s 2023 Snapshot Survey: SaaS and Cloud Spend Optimization & Automation report include:

  • 50% of respondents lost at least 10% of their annual expenditures on software and SaaS applications; 17% lost at least 20%
  • 53% of respondents reported spending more than 10% of their annual budget on underused, unmanaged or unaccounted for cloud resources; 19% wasted at least 20%
  • 63% of respondents reported that their organization experienced unplanned cloud and SaaS expenditures and issues with varying workflow automation maturity
  • Only 29% of respondents felt that their organization had mature process automation for software, SaaS and Cloud spend governance

Software, SaaS and Cloud Spend Trends by Company Size & Industry

There were some trends when the sample was analyzed by company size and industry:  

  • Large enterprises (more than 5,000 employees) appeared twice as likely to experience significant (30%) software and SaaS spend management issues compared to small enterprises (less than 5,000 employees)
  • 43% of utilities and infrastructure firms and 32% of professional services firms wasted between 10% to 20% of their annual software expenditures
  • Large enterprises were not immune from wasting expenditures on cloud resources with a reported 22% overspending by more than 20%
  • Nearly a quarter both consumer and public services firms (23%) and utilities and infrastructure firms (22%) overspent at least 20% on software and SaaS
  • 11% of large enterprises reported using mostly ad-hoc or manual processes to manage SaaS applications and cloud infrastructure, resulting in unplanned expenditures and issues
  • 75% of professional services firms reported either satisfactory or less than optimal use of automated processes to manage SaaS licenses and cloud resources

IT Leaders Must Reduce Spend  

Arthur Lozinski, CEO and co-founder of the San Francisco-based Oomnitza, says, “IT leaders must reduce spend and optimize resource use in order to survive the current macroeconomic climate.”

Oomnitza and YouGove’s research offers insight into quantifying the amount of software, SaaS and cloud expenditure waste. Lozinski underscores the need for enterprises to mature and expand their IT process automation capabilities to improve operational efficiencies.

“We’re living in an era where IT has to do more with less and that cannot be accomplished with manual ticket-based processes,” he says. 

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Axonius Updates SaaS Management Offering https://mytechdecisions.com/network-security/axonius-saas-management-offering/ https://mytechdecisions.com/network-security/axonius-saas-management-offering/#respond Tue, 20 Dec 2022 21:48:49 +0000 https://mytechdecisions.com/?p=46253 Axonius, the New York-based provider of cybersecurity asset management and SaaS management, released two new capabilities within Axonius SaaS Management to help organizations better understand their overall SaaS application risk. According to the company, behavioral analytics and SaaS app-to-device correlation allow IT and security teams to gain added visibility and context into the users and […]

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Axonius, the New York-based provider of cybersecurity asset management and SaaS management, released two new capabilities within Axonius SaaS Management to help organizations better understand their overall SaaS application risk. According to the company, behavioral analytics and SaaS app-to-device correlation allow IT and security teams to gain added visibility and context into the users and devices accessing SaaS applications, and whether suspicious activity is occurring for critical SaaS apps.

SaaS continues to represent an ever-expanding component of an organization’s attack surface. Not only does the increase in adoption of SaaS applications change IT and security operations, it also adds new role and skill expectations for IT and security team members – like using already scarce resources to track organization SaaS app utilization and identify misconfigured SaaS settings potentially exposing sensitive data. All of this adds to more complexity and can have a profound impact on an organization’s security posture, says Axonius.

“A lot of sensitive data is stored in and shared between SaaS applications, and oftentimes, it’s very difficult to understand which users and devices have access to those applications,” said Amir Ofek, CEO of AxoniusX, the innovation unit of Axonius, in a statement. “For IT and security teams tasked with protecting their organization’s entire SaaS app stack, they need the right information to help them better understand the who, the what, and the how of SaaS app usage. These new capabilities within our SaaS management solution will bring necessary context to the questions surrounding SaaS security.”

SaaS App-to-Device Correlation

SaaS App-to-Device Correlation helps understand if unmanaged and unauthorized devices are being used to access various SaaS apps. By leveraging Axonius Cybersecurity Asset Management and its hundreds of adapters across the technology stack, Axonius SaaS Management will now automatically correlate each SaaS user to their associated devices and provide a more comprehensive view of an organization’s security posture. Organizations will now have visibility into unmanaged or unauthorized devices accessing SaaS apps, and be able to decrease the risk of data loss.

“SaaS App-to-Device correlation ultimately helps organizations contextualize their SaaS application data,” continued Ofek. “Using both Axonius Cybersecurity Asset Management and SaaS Management products, organizations gain a more complete view of their device security posture than they might receive with standalone integrations. No other solution on the market today can offer this much comprehensive and rich data.”

Behavioral Analytics 

Over the past year, we’ve seen an increase in data breaches originating from SaaS applications. For example, the Okta breach in early 2022 demonstrated how one compromised SaaS application can often have a domino effect throughout an entire organization.

By adding Behavioral Analytics capabilities within Axonius SaaS Management, organizations will gain visibility into user behavior within SaaS applications over time – and be able to detect any anomalies or suspicious activity that could pose organizational risk. The solution aggregates log data across various sources, including Okta, Microsoft Azure AD, and Google Workspace, to identify suspicious activity, events and complex behavioral patterns. As a result, Axonius helps facilitate in-depth investigations by the incident response and SOC teams within the organization.

Beyond identifying suspicious behavior, the behavioral analytics capability can help organizations investigate temporary privileges granted for existing users, identify anomalous login activities that deviate from the user’s normal activity and other baselines, minimize data theft or leakage of confidential data, and more.

“These latest developments and the integration of the Axonius Cybersecurity Asset Management and SaaS Management products ensure comprehensive visibility and further correlation across SaaS applications, devices, cloud services, and users in an organization’s environment, streamlining efforts to reduce the attack surface amidst an increasingly complex cyber landscape,” said Ofek.

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