Snow launches SaaS usage visibility to help businesses optimize cloud investments
Snow Software (Snow) introduced Snow for SaaS to give organizations visibility to their growing portfolio of SaaS applications in use within their enterprises. Businesses can use that insight to optimize investments, drive operational efficiency, manage risk and compliance and improve their products and services.
Business users are deploying SaaS applications to move faster and react to ever-changing business needs. Gartner expects SaaS to reach 45 percent of total application software spending by 2021. Organizations benefit from this shift in technology consumption, but neither business nor IT leaders have visibility into the totality of their SaaS usage. With this needed visibility, companies can invest in technology assets that drive business growth and agility without overspending, and at the same time ensure governance and compliance.
“We’re operating with a cloud-first strategy, so our use of SaaS applications and cloud environments is rapidly expanding,” said Jaswant Kalay, global software asset manager, Informa Group. “We’ve used Snow and its discovery agent for visibility and better control over our IT landscape. Office 365 is one of our biggest costs, and Snow has helped us optimize that investment.”
“As our customer base continues to shift from on-premises to cloud and hybrid environments, it is essential that we continue to leverage the leading SAM tools in the market and continue to provide strategic services to our evolving customer base. Working with Snow for SaaS in conjunction with SoftwareONE’s PyraCloud platform and services capability allows our joint customers the full breadth of services to better manage the entire software estate while managing overall budget and spend,” said Darryl Sackett, global director of software lifecycle management at SoftwareONE.
Snow for SaaS helps organizations discover, manage and optimize SaaS applications, in conjunction with on-prem and hybrid software applications like Microsoft Office 365. The solution enables customers to discover applications that are in use throughout the enterprise, providing insight into where they are used and by whom. This user-level picture is delivered by Snow’s agent technology without having to reconcile finance and IT data. By creating a view of SaaS application usage at the user level, Snow provides insight into SaaS usage regardless of where in the organization the application was selected or purchased.
Armed with usage data, Snow for SaaS helps ensure applications are used effectively, drives rationalization where needed and identifies savings opportunities and compliance risks. This allows organizations to achieve the true value of their SaaS investment, delivering business agility with governance. The solution also supports API-based data collection for those applications that are used heavily or may have expensive or complex subscription options. This more detailed data is used to drive recommendations for subscription optimization.
“CIOs and CFOs both have an interest in managing SaaS sprawl – but neither wants to slow down the business and prevent growth,” said Alastair Pooley, chief information officer, Snow Software. “SaaS purchasing decisions are often made within the business and IT is left with managing and rationalizing applications when they’d rather be supporting innovation and transformation efforts. CFOs naturally want insight and control over the costs. Snow for SaaS meets both IT and finance requirements without hampering business agility.”
“The SaaS consumption curve is a direct correlation to the appetite business leaders have for technology to drive business outcomes,” noted Vishal Rao, president and chief operating officer, Snow Software. “With the increasing adoption of cloud-based applications across the business, enterprises need new tools for understanding and driving the maximum leverage from their entire technology estate, and Snow is excited to deliver this market leading innovation for our clients.”