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A subtle yet critical transformation is happening in modern IT. IT organizations are evolving from managing operations to driving business strategy—and SaaS Management is at the center of this shift. Forward-thinking IT leaders are shifting their mindset from merely overseeing applications to actively driving business outcomes. Those who resist this shift risk being seen as cost centers rather than strategic enablers.
In a recent episode of Zylo’s YouTube series, SaaSMe Anything, Zylo Co-founder Ben Pippenger laid out a practical blueprint for expanding SaaS Management beyond the walls of IT. This conversation is designed for CIOs and IT leaders who are rethinking how their organizations manage SaaS at scale, but need a clear path to expand those efforts enterprise-wide.
In this blog, you’ll find actionable steps to expand SaaS Management cross-functionally—starting with IT and evolving into a business-wide initiative that maximizes investment, mitigates risk, and delivers measurable value.
Reframing SaaS Management as a Business Imperative
Many organizations treat SaaS Management like routine IT maintenance: audit the tools, enforce policies, trim licenses, and move on. But this overlooks the reality that the majority of SaaS isn’t being managed at all.
Why IT Alone Can’t Solve SaaS Sprawl
SaaS sprawl often occurs because software is procured outside traditional IT processes. In fact, 84% of SaaS applications are purchased beyond IT’s control—by business units using their own budgets or even personal credit cards. From sales tools acquired by marketing teams to HR platforms paid for via expense reports, today’s SaaS environment is highly decentralized.
Imagine a regional sales team purchasing a niche CRM to support a new market initiative. It gets reimbursed via expenses and quickly becomes mission-critical, all without IT’s awareness. Multiply that by dozens of teams, and the scale of unmanaged risk becomes obvious.
Viewing SaaS Management solely as an IT function is a limited perspective. As Zylo Co-founder Ben Pippenger explains, “SaaS doesn’t just live in IT… a significant amount of it is bought by the business as well. So solving this problem is a business problem, not just an IT project.”
IT’s Role as a Strategic Leader
For IT practitioners, this shift means a broader set of responsibilities and an equally greater opportunity to lead.
- Champion full visibility into SaaS applications, not just those IT manages directly. That means identifying tools acquired through corporate cards, reimbursed via expense, or bypassing procurement entirely.
- Promote shared accountability. Departments outside of IT should help manage usage, review access, and contribute to renewal decisions. Without their input, governance efforts will stall, and app sprawl will persist.
- Connect your SaaS Management efforts to larger enterprise goals. These often include cost efficiency, risk mitigation, agility, and security. License optimization, vendor consolidation, and access controls aren’t just IT wins—they drive business outcomes.
When executed well, SaaS Management evolves from back-office oversight to front-line business impact. It becomes a driver of digital transformation, not just a system of controls.
Begin with the Apps You Own
To expand SaaS Management across the business, you must first demonstrate success within IT. Start by showing tangible improvements in the systems and licenses you already have influence over. It’s the most direct way to build internal credibility and prove value. Don’t overlook expense reports or shadow IT revealed in employee surveys—these often surface the most surprising SaaS adoption patterns.
Follow these steps for your IT-owned applications:
- Gain visibility using financial systems (AP and expense data), SSO platforms, and Zylo’s Discovery Engine to identify vendor spend, then cross-reference with SSO logs to confirm actual usage.
- Optimize licensing by reclaiming unused seats, adjusting overprovisioned licenses, and removing redundant tools while streamlining your tech stack.
- Establish governance with a lightweight, repeatable review process for renewals and new app requests that respects each team’s needs.
This internal triage becomes your working blueprint. It yields immediate gains—cost savings, risk reduction, better utilization—that you can clearly communicate to SaaS Management stakeholders across the business. It also lets you refine your processes before involving other teams.
“You’re getting wins, but you’re also building the foundation of a SaaS Management practice.”
— Ben Pippenger, Co-founder, Zylo
Executive Support Fast-Tracks Cross-Functional SaaS Management
Cross-functional SaaS Management doesn’t scale without leadership alignment. You need executive sponsorship to gain legitimacy and move quickly across business units. In siloed organizations, especially, support from the CIO or CFO removes resistance and drives alignment.
How to Make the Business Case for Expansion
How do you earn executive support? With proof. Quantify early wins—dollars saved, risky apps deprovisioned, hours saved—and package those results into a compelling narrative. Then show how that framework can scale beyond IT. This shifts the conversation from “what we’ve done” to “what’s possible.”
Executives don’t sign off on tactical actions—they sign off on strategic impact. Align your messaging with company priorities like cost control, compliance, cybersecurity, and employee enablement. When you do, your SaaS Management program becomes a tool for transformation, not just a technical initiative.
If you’re ready to make that case, this guide to securing executive buy-in can help structure the conversation.
Make SaaS Management Collaboration Seamless
Most business units are already operating at full capacity. Even if they support SaaS Management in principle, they won’t participate if it adds friction to their workflow.
Remove Barriers to Cross-Team Adoption
Your challenge is to drive adoption without creating a burden. Reduce the lift, automate wherever possible, and meet other teams where they already work.
As Ben Pippenger notes, “If you’ve already built the process out… why wouldn’t you be on board with it?” The key is removing perceived complexity. When participation helps departments hit their own goals faster and with less effort, buy-in becomes a natural next step.
Equip Teams to Participate
By establishing your SaaS Management program within IT first, you’ve already done the heavy lifting. Now, other teams can just plug in to what you’ve built, making it more likely that they’ll take on SaaS Management themselves.
For example, partnering with Marketing might uncover opportunities to consolidate campaign tools, freeing up budget for strategic initiatives. HR may benefit from visibility into user activity on onboarding platforms to improve employee experience and reduce redundant software.
To be successful, it’s vital to equip cross-functional teams. Below are a few things you can do to reduce friction and ensure buy-in.
- Start by packaging your successful processes into shareable assets, such as intake forms, renewal checklists, usage dashboards, and approval workflows.
- Offer to run a usage and spend analysis for teams like HR, Marketing, or Product.
- Demonstrate how participation benefits their key performance indicators (KPIs), such as budget efficiency, employee satisfaction, or risk mitigation.
This positions IT as an internal service provider, laying the foundation for sustainable SaaS Management collaboration.
Connect SaaS Management to Business Outcomes
To elevate your SaaS Management initiative, link it directly to business outcomes. Speak the language of executive stakeholders: risks avoided, dollars saved, and efficiencies gained. That’s what defines strategic relevance.
Doing so requires intentional measurement of tangible results:
- Track cost avoidance from unused license reclamation.
- Quantify the hours saved through automated workflows.
- Highlight how access governance reduced onboarding/offboarding time and improved audit readiness.
- Present these as metrics tied to enterprise objectives like operating efficiency, cybersecurity, and employee enablement.
Ben Pippenger emphasizes this point: “What are those objectives? How can you align your SaaS Management program to make sure you’re hitting the goals tied to those objectives?”
If you’re not defining your program’s business impact, someone else will—and their version may leave IT out of the conversation. The more clearly you draw that line, the more visibility and recognition your efforts will receive.
The No-BS SaaS Management Playbook
Learn MoreTactical Step: Expand One Layer at a Time
Once you’ve built momentum, how do you expand SaaS Management strategically across the enterprise?
Don’t Scale Everywhere at Once
After showing value in IT, don’t aim for a company-wide rollout all at once. Start with adjacent teams that share common pain points, such as FinOps, Procurement, and Software Asset Management (SAM). These functions face similar challenges: fragmented vendor spend, unused licenses, and pressure to reduce costs.
By aligning on shared goals, you increase your chances of sustained success.
Build a Repeatable Expansion Framework
A simple discovery meeting can uncover areas for collaboration. Identify a peer in Procurement or SAM, and request a 30-minute collaboration session. Share your recent wins and ask where you can help. Co-design one small process improvement together.
Follow these tips for your discovery meeting:
- Bring relevant data, such as overlapping apps, unassigned licenses, or contract renewal dates.
- Propose a small pilot, such as integrating SaaS usage metrics into the renewal calendar or setting up automated chargebacks.
You’re not asking them to change systems. You’re inviting them to solve a shared problem. This makes expanding SaaS Management feel like a business advantage instead of an IT imposition.
The Time to Act Is Now
SaaS spend continues to rise while usage per license falls. Unvetted employee purchases, overlapping tools, and auto-renewing contracts are eroding budgets and creating compliance headaches. Most organizations now operate more than 275 SaaS applications, yet IT typically manages a small fraction of them.
You already know the problem. Now is the time to act.
Start by securing visibility. Then optimize what you control. From there, build cross-functional collaboration. This approach lays the foundation for expanding SaaS Management enterprise-wide.
You don’t have to be perfect to get started. You just have to lead. Your peers in Procurement, Finance, and SAM are just as overwhelmed, and they need someone to help them take the first step.
You’ve seen the impact unmanaged SaaS can have on cost, risk, and operational efficiency. Now is the moment to step up, share your wins, and scale what works.
Get The No-BS SaaS Management Playbook and take the first step to build and expand SaaS Management across your organization.