Strategies for Reducing SaaS Expenses and Risks While Maintaining Productivity

The primary driver behind the surge in SaaS adoption is productivity. Today, there are specialized tools available for nearly every aspect of modern business, making it incredibly easy—and tempting—for employees to adopt these tools without going through the formal IT approval and procurement processes.

However, this trend has expanded the attack surface, leading to increased security and governance challenges that are often seen as the sole responsibility of IT and security teams. IT security leaders need scalable solutions for discovering and managing this growing attack surface.

At the same time, finance teams are focused on reducing technology expenses (rather than cutting salaries or headcount), particularly targeting underutilized or excessive SaaS licenses, which Gartner estimates make up about 25% of all SaaS subscriptions.

The critical question is: how can you minimize your SaaS attack surface and reduce costs without affecting productivity? This is where effective SaaS governance comes into play, and Nudge Security proves to be an essential tool.

Identify Actual Usage Across Your Organization

As the saying goes, you can’t secure what you can’t see. The first step in managing SaaS security is to gain a complete inventory of the technologies in use and their users.

Nudge Security provides a comprehensive view of all SaaS applications introduced within your organization shortly after starting a free trial. It reveals who the initial user was, a list of all users, authentication methods, and more. This enables you to quickly assess the integration of each app and verify if security best practices, such as multi-factor authentication (MFA) and single sign-on (SSO), are in place.

Evaluate Redundancy and Overlap Among Similar Tools

Understanding that your organization uses multiple project management suites is one thing, but to effectively reduce SaaS sprawl by consolidating apps or licenses, you need to grasp who is using each platform and for what purposes.

Nudge Security simplifies this process. For each application in use, it provides a Venn diagram that shows user overlap between similar apps. You can click on the diagram to view a list of users shared across different app combinations. Larger circles indicate more accounts for a particular application. This information helps you identify which tools are heavily utilized and crucial for productivity, and which might be candidates for elimination.

Additionally, Nudge Security allows you to send prompts—referred to as “nudges”—via Slack or email to users, asking if they are still actively using a specific app. This helps determine which accounts are genuinely needed without the hassle of managing numerous spreadsheets.

Evaluate and Compare Vendor Security Profiles

Beyond app usage, the security of SaaS providers is crucial when deciding which services to retain or cut. Nudge Security aids in this process by offering security profiles for each SaaS provider used within your organization, as well as those you might consider. This streamlined approach makes it easier and quicker to conduct thorough vendor risk assessments.

The vendor profile provides comprehensive details on the provider’s security measures, including multi-factor authentication (MFA) methods, single sign-on (SSO) availability, breach history, and more. This allows you to compare similar vendors and ensure that your organization selects providers that meet your security and compliance standards.

Analyze SaaS Spending

Nudge Security also simplifies the process of adding and analyzing spend data for each application, helping you understand the costs of various options and identify opportunities to cut expenses. While finance or procurement systems may track SaaS spend, they often lack insights into usage and security. Nudge Security integrates usage, spending, and security data into one platform, making it easier to assess and prioritize consolidation opportunities.

Manage SaaS Sprawl Ongoing

Maintaining an organized SaaS environment can be challenging, much like keeping a closet neat. Nudge Security helps by allowing you to publish a directory of approved applications for your workforce. This makes it simple for employees to locate and request access to the tools they need, helping to keep your SaaS ecosystem streamlined.

Additionally, you can set up alerts to notify you whenever new apps are introduced. This will automatically prompt users to provide details on why the app is needed and how it will be used. When new apps are added, you can also encourage users to suggest similar, approved applications or justify the use of a different one.

A Scalable Approach to SaaS Governance

In many organizations, SaaS governance is fragmented, with finance managing one set of data, IT security focusing on another, and uncertainty about actual usage. Nudge Security integrates risk, cost, and productivity considerations, providing a comprehensive approach to technology consolidation and governance.

Start a 14-day trial today at www.nudgesecurity.com/getting-started