Why Is SaaS Sprawl A Challenge?
According to a report by McAfee, enterprises are using 1,427 distinct cloud services, with the typical employee using 36 different cloud applications during their working day. Though SaaS helps increase productivity and proves to be effective, it also has downsides. Gaurav Dhillon writes for Compare the Cloud about the causes of SaaS sprawl and the defense mechanism a company should take over to handle it.
Here is what he says:
The SaaS apps that are signed up are not connected and are used in isolation, making IT lose visibility.
Managing them and keeping track of them is a real challenge.
Security and compliance are the second challenges, as there is a constant need to check if the apps are updated and follow the compliance guidelines.
Since there are plenty of apps, it is difficult for IT to check each one of them independently.
With so many SaaS applications, managing the data flow is difficult. You never know where your data is stored and is safe.
A research report says 1/5th of employees from large enterprises are unaware of where the data is stored in other departments.
The first method to solve is realigning the relationship between IT teams and other departments.
Find a person in a department to remain a liaison between IT and the department to discuss the benefits and downsides of an application.
The true value of SaaS cannot be obtained if the data being stored in them is inconsistent, redundant, or incomplete.
Reigning SaaS apps is not about removing IT headaches but ensuring that the business as a whole is equipped to become more data-driven and deriving the maximum value from them.
What We Think?
With SaaS procurement being democratized and each department having permission to purchase the software they need on their own accord, IT heads of organizations should look for solutions that allow them to keep a check of all the SaaS in their organization without too much manual effort. According to a study we did earlier, close to 50% of the 157 IT leaders surveyed have already deployed or plan on deploying a SaaS Management Tool in the next 12 months.
You can read the full article here.