The subscription economy is impacting our personal and professional worlds in profound ways. Employees who subscribe to Netflix, Spotify, or HBO, embrace the same subscription models through which SaaS is purchased in the professional world.
Just as SMBs have adopted SaaS at accelerated rates, enterprise business functions have independently sourced, purchased, and adopted cloud-based software subscriptions. The frequency of SaaS adoption is so high that enterprises have an average of one software subscription renewal every business day.
Now that 69% of total SaaS spend lives outside of IT in the average enterprise, IT leaders struggle to measure and drive value throughout the enterprise’s software stack. The manual capture of hard numbers, such as total spend and utilization, has become impossible: the decentralized purchasing of software within business units buries that data too deep.
Many of our customers, including Ryan Johnson, former Director of IT at Keap, adopted Zylo for the platform’s ability to provide the insights necessary to forecast and prepare for growth, all while mitigating risk and containing costs. Read on to learn how Keap took on SaaS optimization across the organization.
Ryan Johnson, Former Director of IT at Keap
“The role of IT is changing. With SaaS, my job is to help our employees adopt the right tools to make them more effective at their jobs. To do that, I tackle the technological blocks that hamper their ability to grow, while balancing enterprise-wide strategies.”
Keap is the only all-in-one sales and marketing software for small business that combines CRM, marketing automation, and e-commerce to convert leads into new customers while growing sales from existing ones. More than 188,000 users around the world harness the power of Keap’s marketing automation software to streamline their sales and marketing processes.
In 2016, Ryan Johnson was hired at Keap to manage the technology investments of the enterprise’s 700+ employees.
As a student of human behavior, Ryan believes that employees aren’t intentionally breaking IT’s rules. Instead, they are seeking solutions to real business problems. In the age of SaaS, Ryan believes that his role is first and foremost to equip Keap employees with the tools they require to drive efficiencies and value.
Zylo Discovers All Applications
“Zylo delivers a bottoms-up type of discovery. By following the dollars, every application bought is discovered. Because buyer information is delivered with each application, optimization can begin at the source: the buyer.”
In order to drive value through the enterprise’s software investment, Ryan needed to scope out the software needs, solutions, and costs. With his overall digital strategy in mind, Ryan began tackling the rampant purchase of unidentified and undocumented cloud-based software.
Armed with an outdated inventory spreadsheet and many months of expense data, Ryan began capturing the spend and type of each application bought throughout the enterprise. One week of living in Excel later, Ryan identified 200 applications, over 50 more than were originally documented.
After hours of tedious work, Ryan determined a solution must exist that was far less time and labor-intensive than his manual process: Zylo was the answer. Once Zylo identified and categorized all applications bought throughout Keap, 100 more applications were discovered than Ryan’s previous estimations.
Empowered with complete visibility into his software stack, Ryan began connecting with software buyers within the enterprise. By providing leaders with Zylo-powered insights, Ryan now educates business owners to buy like CIOs: value, security, and costs must always be in mind.
Utilization Metrics Ensure Proper Licensing
“Conversations with LOBs have become richer through utilization data. From under-utilized solutions to unnecessary expensed purchases, with Zylo, we can better understand the nature of the problem and seek informed solutions.”
Enterprises often see software investments are underutilized, to the tune of 44%. However, if utilization data is readily available, IT can accurately forecast spend, provision licenses, unlock savings, and mitigate risk. Ryan believes that the job of the modern IT professional is to uncover the reasons behind the data.
Underutilization often occurs when renewals are automatic or mismanaged. Other times, employees refer to one-off tools because the enterprise-level solution isn’t effective. Or, employees don’t know where to request support, research enterprise-wide software solutions, or acquire licenses.
No matter the reason for underutilization, Ryan will contact the buyer to solve the problem collaboratively. From breaches in process to low effectiveness of an enterprise-level solution, together they will use Zylo-powered data to understand the problem and seek solutions.
Keap’s App Optimization for the Win
While using Zylo, Ryan has discovered creative opportunities to drive value. For example, Ryan has analyzed the software usage of high-performing vs. low-performing employees within a department. The resulting portfolio enables the department to optimize utilization of their most valuable software investments.
Whether through discovering all applications or enabling accurate licensing, schedule a demo to learn how Zylo can drive value throughout your software investment.
