SaaS application rationalization
Tame your SaaS sprawl: Rationalize your application portfolio for cost savings and efficiency
The rapid adoption of SaaS has created a new wave of challenges: application sprawl, shadow IT and uncontrolled spend. Flexera SaaS Application Rationalization solutions empower you to move from chaos to clarity. We provide the complete visibility and usage insights needed to identify redundant applications, eliminate waste and build a streamlined, cost-effective SaaS portfolio that drives business value.
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Make informed SaaS application rationalization decisions
Optimize SaaS usage
Buy what you need, eliminate what you don’t
Reporting on active, inactive and never active users, as well as cost per user is essential to rationalize your applications. Accurate reporting enables you to buy only what you need and eliminate monthly subscriptions for users who aren’t deriving value.
SaaS application rationalization
Rationalize SaaS use
Many organizations struggle to gain verified SaaS usage data to comprehensively understand their SaaS environment, down to the hours and minutes of application use. With this visibility, you can quickly identify unused and unassigned licenses, eliminate redundant applications and standardize your SaaS applications.
SaaS estate optimization
Rationalize your entire SaaS portfolio
With a combination of several powerful discovery mechanisms, you can gain key insights on known and paid applications and the unknown and free applications that so often go undetected. This comprehensive visibility allows you to rationalize the entirety of your SaaS portfolio, eliminate underutilized applications and licenses and maximize the value of your entire SaaS estate.
SaaS application rationalization
Rationalize SaaS for business optimization
Before you can start controlling your SaaS footprint, you must have a clear picture of the assets in use across your organization. Flexera makes it easy to see your total number of SaaS accounts, total monthly cost, percentage of users without login activity by application, and many other metrics. Make confident rationalization decisions across your entire SaaS estate based on usage, active/inactive users and cost.
Hidden SaaS costs
Why your unmanaged SaaS portfolio is costing more than you think
With SaaS spend now accounting for over 31% of the average IT budget, the lack of visibility into what’s being used—and what’s redundant—is a major financial drain. From multiple departments buying similar project management tools to employees expensing unapproved apps, these hidden costs and risks accumulate quickly.
- Redundant application spend: Paying for multiple SaaS tools with overlapping functionality (e.g., several collaboration or project management apps)
- Wasted license costs: Thousands of assigned but unused or underutilized SaaS licenses accumulating monthly charges
- Increased security and compliance risks: Proliferation of shadow IT applications that haven't been vetted by security and legal teams
- Data silos and integration challenges: A fragmented application landscape hinders data flow and cross-departmental collaboration
- Operational inefficiency: Increased complexity for IT support and a confusing experience for employees
SaaS Insights
Discover, analyze and rationalize your entire SaaS estate
Effective SaaS rationalization starts with a complete and accurate inventory. Flexera provides total visibility into your SaaS environment by leveraging multiple discovery sources. This allows you to see all sanctioned and unsanctioned applications, analyze usage patterns and make data-driven decisions to optimize your portfolio.
- Comprehensive SaaS discovery: Uncover your full SaaS footprint, including managed, unmanaged and shadow IT applications, to get a complete inventory
- Identify application redundancy: Automatically categorize applications by function to easily spot overlapping and redundant tools
- Analyze true usage and adoption: Go beyond login counts to see which features are used and who the power users are, helping you standardize on the most valuable applications
- Informed renewal and decommissioning: Make confident decisions on which applications to keep, consolidate or retire based on cost, usage and business value
- Manage the entire lifecycle: From discovery and rationalization to managing renewals and offboarding users from retired apps
Simplify your SaaS
A step-by-step approach to a leaner SaaS portfolio
Flexera supports a structured process to help you systematically rationalize your SaaS applications and achieve lasting results.
- Discover and inventory: Get a complete list of all SaaS applications in use across your organization
- Categorize and analyze: Group applications by business function to identify overlaps and redundancies
- Measure and evaluate: Analyze usage, cost and business value for each application to determine which provides the best ROI
- Decide and act: Make data-driven decisions to consolidate platforms, eliminate redundant apps and reclaim unused licenses
- Govern and automate: Implement policies and automated workflows to prevent future SaaS sprawl and manage the application lifecycle
Strategic SaaS value
More than just savings: The business impact of SaaS rationalization
While reducing costs is a primary driver, the benefits of a well-rationalized SaaS portfolio extend throughout the organization, fostering a more secure, agile and productive work environment.
- Maximized ROI on SaaS investments: Ensure every SaaS application in your portfolio delivers clear business value
- Reduced operational and security risk: Minimize your attack surface by eliminating unvetted shadow IT and ensuring proper data governance
- Enhanced employee productivity: Standardize on best-in-class tools and reduce the confusion caused by redundant applications
- Improved IT and business agility: A leaner, more efficient application portfolio enables faster adoption of new technologies and more nimble business processes
- Stronger vendor negotiation position: Consolidate spend with preferred vendors to gain better pricing and terms
The Flexera and Snow advantage
Unmatched visibility for confident decisions
Flexera’s SaaS management solutions, including Flexera One and Snow Atlas, are built on a foundation of comprehensive discovery and data intelligence, providing the insights you need to confidently rationalize your SaaS estate.
The most complete discovery |
Intelligent analysis and action |
|---|---|
| Multi-source data engine: We combine data from financial systems, expense reports, API connectors, SSO providers and browser extensions to find SaaS that other tools miss. | Automated application categorization: Powered by Technopedia and AI, we automatically categorize apps to quickly identify redundancies. |
| Verified usage metering: Go beyond simple login data to understand how deeply applications are being used. | Business service context: Understand application dependencies to avoid disrupting critical business processes when decommissioning SaaS tools. |
| Automated reclamation workflows: Easily set up automated processes to deprovision licenses and offboard users from retired applications. |
Gain the complete and reliable data you need to rationalize your SaaS portfolio, reduce costs and eliminate complexity.
Real-world success: Reducing application sprawl
Snow has helped the bank reduce the time it takes to deal with requests. Users are more satisfied with IT and can quickly access the software and services they need to be productive. Importantly, there’s been significant cost savings as we have been able to reduce the size of the service desk.
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Frequently asked questions
Your SaaS rationalization questions answered
Yes, Flexera supports software reclamation initiatives. This includes reclaiming licenses for applications that haven’t been used within a specified number of days. Prior to revocation, the application user can be informed to ensure they can take appropriate action. This solution also helps automate the joiner, mover, leaver process.
While the goal is the same (eliminate waste), SaaS rationalization places a stronger emphasis on discovering shadow IT from decentralized purchasing and managing a high volume of subscriptions with varying renewal cycles.
Flexera discovers all applications in use and automatically enriches this data with functional categories from Technopedia. This allows you to easily see where you have multiple applications (e.g., five different project management tools) performing the same function.
The decision is based on a combination of usage data (how many people use it and how often), cost per user, functionality and employee sentiment. Flexera provides the data you need to make an informed choice.
By discovering all applications, including unsanctioned shadow IT, you can assess their security posture, ensure they meet your company's data governance standards and eliminate risky applications from your environment.
Yes, Flexera provides workflow orchestration capabilities that allow you to automate the deprovisioning and offboarding of users from applications you've decided to retire, saving significant administrative effort.
Industry insights to help keep you informed
Informing IT, Transforming IT
Ready to streamline your SaaS portfolio?
Move from reactive SaaS management to a proactive strategy that cuts costs, reduces risk and boosts efficiency. Discover how Flexera can help you rationalize your SaaS applications with confidence.