How To Find and Eliminate Overlapping SaaS Applications

What are overlapping SaaS applications, and why do they occur?

How can organizations systematically identify overlapping SaaS applications?

What are the best practices for preventing overlapping SaaS applications in the future?

Is your organization spending on duplicate SaaS apps like QuickBooks, Google Workspace, and more apps because different teams independently adopted the same-featured tool?

If so, these overlapping SaaS applications can quietly drain your organization’s budget, complicate your business workflows, and put your organization at security risks (as data is scattered across many tools).

In this blog post, you’ll learn how you can identify & eliminate overlapping SaaS tools using our SaaS & AI management software, CloudFuze Manage, and the best ways to prevent them in the future.

Key Takeaways:

  • Overlapping SaaS tools waste your money and increase data security threats.
  • Our unified solution, CloudFuze Manage, provides 360° visibility and simplifies the identification of overlapping SaaS.
  • Our tools’ distinct features include SaaS usage analysis, cloud apps license management, and instant audit reporting.
  • Organizations can prevent SaaS overlaps with continuous app monitoring, proper IT approvals, quarterly audits, and app standardization.

What Are Overlapping SaaS Applications and Why Do They Occur?

Overlapping SaaS applications are duplicate or functionally similar tools used by different teams within your organization for the same purpose. For example, multiple teams across your organization (such as QA, marketing, and sales) independently use functionally similar SaaS apps like Asana, Microsoft Teams, and other digital tools, leading to SaaS tool overlaps.

Why does this happen?

  1. Different teams within your organization buy the same tools without IT oversight, leading to tool duplication.
  2. Without a unified tech dashboard, it’s hard to track and manage SaaS usage across your organization.
  3. Employees without proper training turn to shadow IT tools even if there is already a standard list of approved tools.

How Can You Identify Overlapping SaaS Applications with CloudFuze Manage?

In a large enterprise, manually identifying SaaS overlaps is tough. However, with our cloud-based solution, CloudFuze Manage, you can manage your SaaS tools on a single, intuitive platform. Here’s how our tool helps:

1. Discover Overlapping Tools in Your SaaS Stack

Our platform automatically detects overlapping digital tools in your tech spectrum, so that you can consolidate them to optimize your digital environment.

2. Get App consolidation Report

Our tool tracks SaaS user activity, identifies consolidation opportunities, and displays them in the “App consolidation Report” for easy access.

3. Analyze SaaS Usage and Cost

Our SaaS & AI management platform, CloudFuze Manage, shows you:

  • How many active users each SaaS app has.
  • Which SaaS features your teams actually use.
  • SaaS apps with low adoption or overlapping features.

With this SaaS usage data, you can cancel or consolidate the overlapping apps and save up to 30% of your annual spend.

4. Shadow IT

With our tool, CloudFuze Manage, organizations can identify Shadow IT within their organization. This can limit the entry of unapproved duplicate/overlapping tools to your tech stack.

Alongside the SaaS, CloudFuze Manage now manages your AI tools as well.

CloudFuze Manage’s AI-hub at a Glance

With our unified SaaS & AI management platform, CloudFuze Manage, you can:

  • Track AI Adoption: See who uses which AI tools and how often.
  • Measure Developer Productivity: Check your developers’ productivity through accepted AI-suggested code lines.
  • Optimize AI Costs: Forecast monthly AI spend and attribute costs per user in a single platform.

Best Practices to Prevent Overlapping SaaS Applications in the Future

Here are a few best practices to prevent SaaS overlaps:

  • Monitor your SaaS usage and optimize your overall costs with our unified SaaS & AI management platform, CloudFuze Manage.
  • Make sure to set up IT approval before purchasing any new digital tool for your team.
  • Regularly run quarterly SaaS audits to catch app redundancies in your tech stack.
  • Educate your teams on how duplicate SaaS tools increase costs and create data security risks.
  • Always maintain a standard approved list of tech apps for your teams that they actually need.

Automatically Detect Overlapping SaaS Applications with CloudFuze Manage

Manually managing overlapping SaaS applications in a large enterprise with thousands of employees is a challenging task.

With our industry-leading SaaS & AI management solution, CloudFuze Manage, you get 360-degree visibility into your SaaS stack, identify SaaS app overlaps, and reduce your SaaS spend by 30% without any hassle.

Optimize your tech stack with CloudFuze Manage!

Contact us for a free demo!

Frequently Asked Questions

1. What are the best methods for identifying overlapping SaaS and AI applications?

One of the best methods is to use our SaaS & AI management platform, CloudFuze Manage, to centralize visibility across your tech stack and analyze SaaS usage and cost data. Also, run quarterly audits to identify and eliminate redundancies before consolidating tools to maximize your business ROI.

2. What are common pitfalls to avoid when eliminating overlapping SaaS applications?

Common pitfalls include rushing into tool consolidation without assessing your organization’s integration needs, failing to analyze SaaS app usage before removing apps, and refusing to verify your SaaS compliance to prevent security risks. By addressing these pitfalls and using our all-in-one SaaS & AI management solution, CloudFuze Manage, organizations can manage their overlapping tools efficiently.

3. How can organizations measure the effectiveness of eliminating overlapping SaaS applications?

With our platform, CloudFuze Manage, SMBs and large enterprises can measure effectiveness by automatically detecting overlapping SaaS tools and consolidating them to eliminate redundant apps and maximize business ROI.

Take Control of Your SaaS Stack Today

Use CloudFuze Manage to securely manage all your SaaS apps. Manage users and licenses, optimize spending, cut unnecessary costs, identify and eliminate shadow IT, ensure compliance, and do a whole lot more!