It wouldn’t be a surprise if you haven’t heard of SaaS or Software-as-a-Service, but it would be a little weird if your enterprise doesn’t use it. SaaS is a cloud-based service where you subscribe to applications rather than purchasing and downloading them onto your device. This might be a hard to believe, but the concept of SaaS has been lying around for the past few decades. Businesses turning to SaaS reap significant cost reduction, zero delays in software set up and many more benefits. With enterprises subscribing to more and more SaaS applications, the need to manage these apps also shot up. This is why SaaS operations management or SaaS Ops Management has grown significantly in the past few years.
What’s so great about SaaS tools?
Despite sounding like something complicated, SaaS tools are pretty simple. Rather than installing and maintaining an application, SaaS allows you to access it through the internet directly. How are SaaS tools better than traditional ones? Here are a few reasons why.
Pulling out all the stops
Imagine a scenario where you open your work application, raring to finish your task and bam. ‘Please wait while we finish installing your updates.’ Unlike traditional tools, SaaS tools are ready-to-use applications, so processes such as installations, updates and patches won’t affect you. Without any of these delays, you can do your work without interruptions.
Avoid unnecessary expenses
SaaS tools follow a subscription system rather than a ‘pay once, and you own it’ system. The problem with the latter is that, once you finish your work, the application becomes redundant. In the case of SaaS tools, once its purpose is fulfilled, you can cancel its subscription.
Anywhere, Anytime
Since all the data is stored in the cloud, you can access it from anywhere and anytime. So, employees can collaborate on a project regardless of when or where they are.
SaaS without Ops
Switching to SaaS tools is a wise decision, considering all the advantages it has over traditional tools. But nothing is perfect, SaaS included. Adopting SaaS comes with some drawbacks.
A Real Handful
SaaS is growing super popular, and the amount of SaaS tools in use within an enterprise is no joke. Statistics show that enterprises comprising more than 250 employees use more than 100 SaaS apps. Considering the number of tools to keep track of, it wouldn’t be a surprise if some of them slip through the IT admin’s fingers.
From the Shadows
Another practice came conjoined with SaaS. It sounds like the antagonist of a story but is undoubtedly a considerable hurdle for SaaS to overcome. Shadow IT refers to the use of SaaS tools without authorization from the IT team. It is estimated that around 20-40% of the company’s technology funds are spent behind the IT department’s back.
Cutting down expenses – Double or nothing
Sometimes, the enterprise might be subscribing to two or more tools serving the same purpose or subscribing to an unused app. In both cases, company funds are being wasted. Finding these double or unused apps among the entire SaaS tool directory can be a daunting task.
Tying up loose ends
In the good old days, when employees leave the company, they return their ID, office keys, and their name gets removed from the directory. Offboarding an employee is a lot more complicated nowadays. The procedure involves removing the employee access from every SaaS application. A few misclicks could retain their access, leading to potential data thefts or breaches. The struggle is real.
SaaSOps: Paving the way for a SaaS-ier Future
Now that SaaS is trending, most companies utilize a ton of SaaS tools to complete their work. By 2022, the SaaS industry is expected to shoot up to 138 billion US dollars. With the increasing number of SaaS tools, managing them has become a necessity. Managing the tools usually refers to minimizing the capital invested in unused software and utilizing SaaS tools to the maximum. You can realize this goal by relying on SaaS Operation Management or SaaSOps.
So, imagine you, an employee, integrated your Google Drive to a SaaS platform, like Slack. Your IT Admin had enabled your team to preview the documents shared on Slack. Okay, so this might seem kind of trivial, but it’s a huge deal. This action pretty much exposed all the documents in that Drive to Slack. This scenario shows how easily data can be disclosed. To prevent such situations and make up for their drawbacks, we have to track, manage and restrict SaaS applications. This is where SaaS Ops Management comes in.
SaaS Ops Management aims to centralize the supervision of SaaS tools used within the organizations, improving the efficiency and productivity of the employees and reducing exorbitant expenses. SaaSOps was defined and accepted in 2019 at a BetterCloud event. Ever since DevOps’ success in bridging the gap between operations and development tasks, we have seen many spin-offs attempting to close the gap between different enterprise departments. SaaS Ops Management, however, considers the employee as the customer, aiming to optimize the SaaS adoption process within the business.
6 Reasons to embrace SaaS Ops Management
When a new movement starts, it’s only natural to be wary of adopting it. Then again, you could be left behind if you choose to ignore it. So here are some good reasons why you should give SaaSOps a thought.
1. Managing SaaS Apps
2. Unearth Shadow IT
3. Automating SaaS Tool Identification
4. Reports
5. Access to SaaS tools
6. Onboarding and Offboarding Procedures
Hexnode Do: Do what has to be Done
Hexnode has already established itself as a prominent figure in the Endpoint Management Industry. With the growing demand for SaaS operation Management solutions, Hexnode has decided to venture into a new service with Hexnode Do, a product specializing in data loss protection and SaaS management features. Do, which is currently in the works, takes more of a precautionary stance. Once your data is lost, there’s pretty much nothing to do about it.
Hexnode Do gives heavy emphasis on securing the data on applications used within the enterprise. Do restricts the data flow between applications and limit accessing and sharing of corporate data. Coupling this with PIN and biometric authentication on application-level and application data encryption significantly decreases the odds of experiencing a data breach. Hexnode Do is scheduled to release soon, so stay tuned!
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TRY OUT HEXNODEThe end of the line
SaaSOps is a movement that came out of a necessity: new IT operations and liabilities in enterprise security brought by the surge in SaaS applications. SaaS Ops Management could eventually be accepted by every business utilizing SaaS tools by offering solutions to these challenges. Gartner estimates that 50% of all the enterprises using SaaS Applications will turn to SaaSOps by 2026. If the current trend keeps up (statistics show that it will), your IT admin will be overwhelmed by this wave of SaaS tools if not relying on SaaSOps.
A groundswell has formed among IT Admins stating that SaaSOps is indeed a paradigm shift and will play a vital role in an enterprise’s future. It has already garnered this much attention despite being only a few years old, so every business running on SaaS should give it some good thought. What awaits those who choose to adopt SaaS Ops Management? Definitely a SaaS-isfying experience. Get it?
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