Surprisingly poor cross-team collaboration leads to mismanaged SaaS, wasted money and time

New York, NY October 20, 2022 Torii, creator of the #1 Automated SaaS Management Platform (SMP), today released “The State of SaaS At Work Report: Collaboration in a Distributed Workplace.” It reveals that most (60%) IT pros are in the dark when it comes to understanding their cloud app ecosystem, and only a small fraction collaborate with other key teams on controlling costs, securing data, and responding to changing business conditions. It also finds tremendous dissonance between how well IT thinks they’re working with other teams to manage distributed SaaS, and how poorly they actually are.

“SaaS is the ultimate team sport. Everyone from IT, procurement, and lines of business, to finance and security plays an important role in acquiring and managing cloud apps. But in many businesses, the team is dysfunctional. People operate in silos with limited information, no single source of truth, and woefully inadequate collaboration. The only possible outcomes from this are wasted money on apps and licenses, wasted time, and loss of agility,” said Uri Haramati, CEO of Torii. “In today’s distributed, cloud-powered workplaces, businesses can’t afford substandard SaaS management. As Torii’s State of SaaS at Work report makes clear, a new approach to distributed SaaS management rooted in collaboration, transparency and empowerment is urgently needed.”

Key Findings from the Torii State of SaaS at Work Report

Cloud apps are incredibly easy for any employee to trial, purchase, and integrate without ever communicating with IT. Scattered app ownership and data further decentralizes what are now largely distributed organizations, undermining productivity and competitiveness. As cloud application usage increases everywhere, it’s critical for IT teams and stakeholders throughout the company to actively participate in managing their cloud applications and spend, together.

Collaboration Dissonance 

While some collaboration happens between IT, Finance, Security, Procurement, and HR, it’s not happening nearly as often as it should. While 90% of IT leaders praised their collaboration with other teams around SaaS management, in actuality only 20% do so with any regularity, and just 5% collaborate on the majority of business-critical tasks.

Procurement and Finance are underutilized IT resources

Only 14% of IT leaders reported working frequently with finance and procurement teams. But ongoing collaboration and data sharing is essential for minimizing costs, eliminating under-utilized licenses, and surfacing the app usage and cost data needed for continuous spend management and successful contract negotiations.

Businesses aren’t being proactive enough against Shadow IT

Only 20% of respondents work with Security and/or Compliance often enough to help them discover and derisk unknown applications. Without a complete view of their entire SaaS stack and users, businesses can’t secure sensitive data, ensure authorized access, or meet compliance requirements.

Access the full report

Torii queried 300 IT leaders about the effects of decentralized app purchasing on collaboration and SaaS management. For additional survey findings and implications, access Torii’s complimentary “State SaaS at Work: Collaboration in a Distributed Workplace” report, here.