Top 10 SaaS Management Best Practices for Enterprise IT Teams

Modern businesses rely on multiple SaaS applications to remain agile and scalable.

However, the actual challenge arises when SMBs and large enterprises like yours start adopting more SaaS apps, and you begin struggling to manage the SaaS environment.

Without a dedicated SaaS management software, businesses often end up fighting shadow IT, overspending on SaaS unused licenses, and scrambling during audits. To address these concerns, you need solid SaaS management best practices, along with the right SaaS management tool.

In this blog post, you’ll learn the top 10 SaaS management best practices for IT teams and how CloudFuze Manage helps you take control of your SaaS environment.

Top 10 SaaS Management Best Practices for IT Teams

Here are the 10 best practices that every IT team should follow to secure their enterprise’s SaaS ecosystem:

1. Centralize SaaS Management

Managing your SaaS apps through manual spreadsheets and emails? Start by centralizing SaaS management with a dedicated SaaS management platform.

Why a SaaS management platform? A SaaS management platform provides a single dashboard to track Saas apps, monitor SaaS usage, control software costs, and enforce compliance policies within your organization.

With a dedicated SaaS management tool, IT teams can stop guessing which department signed up for what tool and gain real-time visibility over their SaaS stack.

2. Implement Role-Based Access Control (RBAC)

Nowadays, security is essential for gaining and maintaining brand trust. RBAC ensures that only authorised employees have access to what they need and reduces the risk of business data leaks.
Here’s how RBAC works:

• Admins can define user access roles based on job functions.
• Compliance teams can audit SaaS user permissions regularly to prevent access privilege creep.
• IT teams can automate RBAC enforcement through your SaaS management tool.

3. Eliminate Shadow IT

Shadow IT puts your organization at risk of SaaS-related security breaches. Employees often sign up for SaaS applications without the IT team’s approval, creating gaps in SaaS compliance.

Fix Shadow IT by:

• Using a SaaS discovery tool that finds all active SaaS subscriptions.
• Categorizing SaaS apps based on department and their usage.
• Updating SaaS the inventory continuously at regular intervals.

4. Monitor SaaS Usage and Optimize Software Licenses

Companies waste up to 30% of SaaS spend on unused SaaS licenses. Monitoring SaaS usage helps cut license waste and save thousands of dollars.
You can save on a SaaS license by doing the following:

• Track SaaS user login frequency and new SaaS feature adoption among employees.
• IT teams can reassign or downgrade inactive SaaS licenses of your employees.

5. Automate Employee Onboarding and Offboarding

Is manual onboarding and offboarding slow, error-prone, and risky? Automate these user workflows for safeguarding your organization’s security.
Here are the benefits of automating user workflows:

• Faster employee provisioning without any access delays.
• Immediate SaaS user access revocation during employee offboarding.
• Lower risk of confidential business data leaks from ex-employees.

6. Enforce SaaS Security and Compliance Policies

Industrial regulatory compliance (GDPR, SOC 2 Type 2) is non-negotiable. Enforce privacy policies across all SaaS apps to avoid hefty penalties.

Tips:

• Use SaaS management tools with compliance monitoring.
• Compliance teams can run regular SaaS audits and generate reports.
• IT teams can implement MFA and encryption for sensitive business data.

7. Set Renewal Alerts to Stay Ahead of Renewals

Missed renewals or surprise auto-renewals can drain your software budget. Set renewal alerts to get notified about renewals well in advance.

Best practices:

• Configure renewal reminders 30/15 days in advance.
• Thoroughly review vendor contract terms before renewal.
• Align SaaS spending with departmental budgets.

8. Integrate with Identity Provider

Your SaaS management platform should integrate with Identity providers, such as Entra ID, for enhanced efficiency.

Advantages of using Identity Provider:

• Centralized ticketing for SaaS-related issues.
• Automated business workflows for SaaS app requests and approvals.
• Better collaboration between IT and other teams within an enterprise.

9. Review SaaS Usage Regularly

Not all SaaS apps deliver consistent value in an enterprise. Review SaaS usage and the app performance to maximize your ROI.

To maximize your ROI, check:

• SaaS environment’s uptime and reliability.
• Make sure employees are informed about feature updates and the alignment of the roadmap.

10. Educate Employees on SaaS Governance

Employees play a significant role in SaaS management. Educate them to reduce shadow IT and SaaS security risks.

Train employees on topics:

• Approved SaaS apps and SaaS usage guidelines.
• Data security best practices in your organization.
• How to report unauthorized app usage to the IT team.

Along with these 10 SaaS management best practices, businesses can start optimizing their SaaS costs and securing their cloud apps today with CloudFuze Manage.

CloudFuze Manage: Your Enterprise-Grade SaaS Management Solution

Managing SaaS manually isn’t sustainable. Our SaaS management platform, CloudFuze Manage, offers the following advanced features:

• SaaS App Discovery & Inventory: Enterprises can find every SaaS app in use (even Shadow IT ones).
• User Workflow Automation: Our SMP simplifies user onboarding/offboarding and SaaS license management with intelligent automation.
• AI-powered Invoice Parser: Our platform can automatically extract key details from the user-uploaded vendor invoice.
• Compliance & Security: Enterprises can easily enforce RBAC, MFA, and compliance monitoring from a single platform.
• Cost Optimization: IT teams can track SaaS usage and eliminate wasteful spending on unused software licenses.
• Integration with Entra ID: Businesses can connect our tool with an identity provider like Entra ID for smooth workflow automation.

Future-Proof Your Tech Stack with CloudFuzeManage

SaaS adoption is expected to continue growing in the future. By following these 10 best practices and utilizing our SaaS management platform, CloudFuze Manage, you can secure your SaaS ecosystem, reduce SaaS costs, and empower your teams.

Ready to take control of your SaaS stack? Contact us for a free product walkthrough!

Frequently Asked Questions

1. Can CloudFuze Manage help identify overlapping SaaS subscriptions?

Yes! You can easily detect overlapping SaaS subscriptions with CloudFuze Manage’s SaaS discovery feature. Our platform provides you with full SaaS visibility, enabling you to eliminate app redundancies, optimize software costs, and streamline your SaaS portfolio effortlessly.

2. Is CloudFuze Manage cloud-based, on-premises, or available in a hybrid deployment?

Our SaaS management platform, CloudFuze Manage, is fully cloud-based for future scalability and easy accessibility.

3. How does CloudFuze Manage differ from competitors like BetterCloud or Zylo?

Our SaaS management software, CloudFuze Manage, offers deep automation, advanced compliance monitoring, and seamless IdP integrations. Unlike our competitors, our platform combines AI, cost optimization, SaaS security, and workflow automation in one platform, providing you with complete SaaS control.