SaaS app sprawls increases in enterprises due to shadow IT
Since buying power has shifted to business units and departments, there has been an increase in SaaS sprawl.
The emergence of SaaS has shifted from the traditional software buying, which was done by IT. Now anyone in an organization can sign up for SaaS applications. An unmonitored SaaS library can push a company into the trap of SaaS sprawl. That too, after the pandemic, remote work culture has contributed majorly to this ongoing SaaS sprawl crisis, with enterprise being the most affected victims. Roberto Torres has written about the same in his article for CIODive.
Here is what he has written:
An analysis found that most departments are using between 40 and 60 different applications. Industry-wide, departments are using, on average, around 200 other apps. Security, engineering, and IT departments are using the most apps.
Applications bought and managed by departments enjoy higher average engagement rates than apps provisioned directly by IT departments.
When a company invests in a SaaS product outside of IT, they're expanding their security risk surface and massive impact on the business budget.
Three-quarters of IT leaders say security is their top concern regarding SaaS sprawl, according to a survey published by Zluri and Pulse.Â
Companies with most SaaS tools outside of IT control have to deal with unregulated SaaS budgets and higher ownership costs due to missed renewals.
Business users who have trouble with backlogs in their technology projects often turn to deploy solutions without IT oversight. Rather than wait for in-house applications to be ready for use already, they will often pull off-the-shelf software available to them that is quicker to deploy.
To combat SaaS sprawl, the first step is to audit every app used across the company. Then, once you know what's used and who uses it, evaluate your costs and behaviors.
You can read the full article here