Over the last couple of weeks, the Zylo team consulted Twitter Polls to pose 3 questions to IT Procurement leaders to ask them how they view SaaS in their current roles.
While the end goal for IT Procurement is to understand all of IT, including SaaS, cloud-based software and subscription software, the SaaS landscape is evolving by the day with more and more apps and complexity added. A recent Gartner report shows no indication of the trend slowing, either:
“Cloud application services (SaaS) is forecast to grow 20.3 percent in 2016, to $37.7 billion. As software vendors shift their business models from on-premises licensed software to public cloud-based offerings, this trend will continue.”
In this executive summary, we’ll share a high-level overview of all Twitter Poll results as well as our take on the overall sentiment. If you missed the first posts, be sure to check out our blog.
Question #1: How many cloud or SaaS apps do you believe your organization uses?
Results: 133 votes
- 0-25 – 37%
- 25-200 – 19%
- 200-500 – 21%
- 500+ – 23%
When considering their entire organization across all departments and individuals, 44% of respondents believe their organization uses at least 200 SaaS applications. 23% of that number believe that their organization uses over 500 cloud or SaaS apps!
Question #2: What is your biggest Procurement challenge?
Results: 104 votes
- Spend/Usage Visibility – 23%
- Stakeholder Relationships – 24%
- Defining/Delivering value – 16%
- Lack of Spend Control – 37%
While all of the choices rendered similar results, the biggest challenge indicated was “Lack of Spend Control” with 37% responding this as their top challenge. Following closely behind were the responses “Spend/Usage Visibility” and “Stakeholder Relationships” at 24% and 23% respectively.
Twitter Poll #3: What percentage of your software spend is in the Cloud today?
Results: 153 votes
- 0% – 30% – 39%
- 31% – 60% – 16%
- 61% – 90% – 21%
- 90% & above – 24%
45% of respondents noted that at least 61% of their software spend is in the Cloud, with 24% of those respondents indicating at least 90% of their spend is in the Cloud today.
What Does This Mean For IT Procurement?
The responses clearly indicate that IT Procurement has a growing challenge: more and more SaaS apps coupled with less and less visibility.
The phrase “knowledge is power” relates well to IT Procurement’s shift. Without data, it’s impossible to make informed, let alone strategic, decisions to guide the organization. But with visibility into aspects like how much is spent on SaaS across the organization—regardless of source, how the applications are being utilized (or not utilized), and how employees feel about the SaaS products, IT Procurement becomes empowered. Armed with data and visibility, the role can work out enterprise or group discounts, or better yet, roll various ad hoc subscriptions into a single master agreement to ensure no dollars are left on the table.
Today, IT Procurement teams can lay the proper groundwork at each level of the organization and allow each department or individual purchase the software that makes the most sense on their own terms and budget, while also giving visibility back to IT Procurement—something that simply couldn’t be achieved without a single source to manage cloud subscriptions.
Drive IT Procurement Strategy
For the first time ever, it’s possible for IT Procurement to obtain 100% of licensing data and have visibility in order to put a strategy around it. At Zylo, we believe Cloud licensing can make IT Procurement strategic. Interested in learning more? Download our latest ebook entitled, “How the Cloud Shift Can Drive IT Procurement Strategy”.
Also, check out these blog posts for more resources on SaaS:
The SaaS Landscape Is Changing Procurement Forever. Here’s Why:
“Buyers” Move Over. Why The Subscription Economy Is The Future.
