by John Peluso | Chief Product Officer, AvePoint

In 2022, global spending on cloud computing reached more than $350 billion, but as much as 30% of these investments could be wasteful. Many organizations, amid rapid growth and demand for cloud computing in the early phases of digital transformation, duplicated services, mismanaged the growth of data and were not cautious of shadow IT. As businesses accelerate the volume of SaaS applications they use and invest in new tools like Microsoft Power Platform, for example, it is critical to create a framework to scale SaaS management and governance. I’ve outlined below how your organization can build a robust SaaS management strategy– to optimize costs, protect valuable data and empower employees to safely collaborate. 

 

Deep Clean Your Tech Stack  

 

The first step in managing SaaS applications is to take stock of what you have. For example: which SaaS applications are being used most frequently? Do these applications pose any significant risk of data breach or user error? Taking a closer look at your existing cloud environment can help your organization avoid cloud sprawl and the incurred costs of overloading on applications. 

 

To further control costs, consider leveraging tools that can provide insight into your usage and business data. Employing advanced tools to extract more granular data will give you a better picture of how many individuals use existing SaaS solutions – and for what purposes – to ensure that your cloud spend is maximizing ROI. With a holistic view of your current cloud environment, your IT team can better allocate resources and govern workspaces effectively. 

 

Protect Your Data Centrally 

 

Once you’ve identified where your teams collaborate and which applications provide the best ROI, you must ensure all data is being protected. Many organizations today employ multiple SaaS applications, and consequently have different tools that protect, manage and govern them. This leads to a greater chance of having inconsistent policies set in place and can open you up to issues should you suffer from a data breach, ransomware attack or even accidental data loss. That’s why it’s important to have a toolset that allows you to provide a consistent framework for management and governance across SaaS solutions. 

 

Additionally, the ability to protect and govern your SaaS applications from one central platform empowers efficiency for IT teams, essentially giving them a single pane of glass through which they can monitor the safety of your digital workplace. 

 

Implement a Scalable Governance Framework 

 

Even once you have a better understanding of your SaaS applications in use, and you’ve added data protection software, relying on many cloud applications across teams can create an unmanageable data environment. That’s why IT teams should set guardrails for collaboration, closely managing workspace access and how employees share data and files across the cloud.  

 

For example, many businesses today have tapped into the power of Microsoft’s Power Platform, which allows employees to personalize and automate repetitive processes to speed up work. By making it easier for non-developers to build apps independently, Power Platform has accelerated workplace innovation. However, if left unchecked, your data is at risk. IT should be monitoring usage and capacity to establish a more formal governance structure. Automated governance policies can help ensure that employees don’t get carried away building redundant applications or sharing too much externally. With the proper guardrails in place, you can configure an environment that empowers productivity and innovation, while managing critical data. 

 

Ultimately, the proliferation of SaaS applications in many digital work environments mandates the development of appropriate data protection and governance strategies. If left unmanaged, you’re opening yourself up to increased costs and risk—both of which can be easily avoided to help your business thrive.