How SaaS Optimization Brings Finance And Procurement Together

Teamwork feels good. And tackling big projects requires organizational teamwork. Dealing with shadow IT problems and spiraling cloud software costs represent a key challenge for many organizations.

In the area of SaaS optimization, these two important functions find their interests closely aligned. Alpin is a tool used by finance and procurement execs to automatically manage cloud applications. If you want to know how to take back your day and get rid of mundane tasks, read on!

Is Taking Action on SaaS And Shadow IT Just More Work?

If you’ve felt this way, then you are not alone. However, companies are discovering that cloud applications are being managed, just poorly. Fewer excuses remain to handle them haphazardly. New strategies and tools have emerged for managing and optimizing SaaS.

Moreover, optimizing SaaS helps procurement and finance departments achieve their core objectives.

The Benefits Of Optimizing SaaS For Procurement and Finance

Improving Reporting And Setting Priorities By Analyzing Employee Expense Accounts

Handling large amounts of expense data can be cumbersome. And unfortunately, employees expense a significant portion of software costs.

Finance can use detailed SaaS expense data to better categorize and attribute expenses, including getting one view of all software expenditures. Areas for cost reduction, consolidation, or better deals may become very obvious if you’re looking at at the right data, presented the right way.

Procurement can see what types of software are being used, what is growing in popularity, or what is in desperate need of a cost-saving enterprise agreement. A well-constructed category tree means you can view expenses not just individually, but also by SaaS category. This can help procurement prioritize projects in order to truly drive value, not cost savings alone.

Cutting Costs And Making Data-Driven Decisions By Drilling Down On Users And Licenses

Finance can quickly find and cut costs on a large scale. See our post on cutting SaaS costs for more details. We discuss saving up to 30% on SaaS costs because it’s very common to find many unused or underused licenses. At Alpin, we recently saw one case where a former intern, long gone, still had software being paid for every month.

Procurement can view, in intricate detail, who uses what software. And by using clever discovery methods, they can see free or freemium apps that are rising in popularity and might soon become big cost items. Using this data along with employee sentiment scores for various applications, procurement leaders can justify their priorities.

Improving Forecasting And Contract Management By Consolidating Renewal And Contract Information In A Calendar

Finance might appreciate being able to see, in one place, the total SaaS expenses they can expect to incur. Better, faster forecasting and planning — who can complain about that?

Procurement may never again miss a renewal date. On the contrary: a consolidated SaaS renewal calendar not only prevents surprises, it also fuels timely negotiations. And while procurement negotiates, they’ll also have user data to use as leverage with any SaaS vendor.

Interested in seeing some of these benefits for yourself? We’d be glad to do a demo for both you and a counterpart in procurement or finance. Get started by emailing info@alpin.io.

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