Like other public cloud services, software-as-a-service (SaaS) providers make it extremely easy to purchase their products. This means SaaS-based application subscriptions can easily become unmanageable, leading to decentralised IT and uncontrolled, wasteful, unnecessary IT expenditure.
In the past, the software asset management (SAM) team was tasked with ensuring the IT systems deployed across an organisation had the correct software licences. Their role enabled better decision-making in terms of purchasing volume licence agreements and preventing the unauthorised use of software.
According to Flexera, which recently conducted a poll, SAM responsibilities include tracking the use of SaaS (56%), providing data and analysis to support security (56%), preparing for software contract renewals (58%) and maintaining an accurate inventory of licensed software use (72%). Flexera recommends that IT asset management (ITAM) professionals should increase their collaboration with FinOps teams as the use and cost of SaaS and cloud eclipse that of on-premise software.
Thanks to SAM, IT departments used to have a good idea …