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Transcript

The CFO’s Blind Spot: Where Your SaaS Budget Is Disappearing · Connectivity Without Chaos - The Podcast

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_01: Imagine paying for this like massive elite gym membership.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_01: But you only ever swipe your card to use the lobby water fountain.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_00: That is a painful mental image.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_01: It really is.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_01: And honestly,
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_01: that is exactly what your company is doing with software as
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_01: a service brawl right now.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_00: It's the perfect visualization for what the industry actually calls shelfware.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_00: So today we're doing a deep dive into some fresh industry research on software asset management.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_01: Right, because our mission here is to help you uncover that hidden sauce waste.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_01: We want to help eliminate redundancies and actually optimize the value of your tech stack.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_00: So if you suspect your organization is just bleeding money on forgotten
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_00: or maybe underutilized subscriptions, well, you are our exact target audience today.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_01: Because the immediate problem, I mean,
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_01: it really seems to be that you cannot fix a budget leak
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_01: that you literally can't see.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and what's fascinating here is the sheer scale of that blindness.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, Gartner's statistics show that up to 25% of all saw spend is entirely wasted.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_01: Wait, a quarter of the budget?
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_01: Just gone.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, gone.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_00: And it gets worse.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: By 2027...
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_00: They project that 75% of employees will buy technology without any IT oversight whatsoever.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, 75%.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I knew shadow IT was growing,
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_01: but three quarters of tech purchases completely bypassing procurement?
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it is a massive blind spot.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_01: So I assume the fix isn't just like sending out some company-wide survey asking,
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_01: hey, what apps did everyone buy on the corporate card?
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_00: No, definitely not.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_00: Not if you want accurate data anyway.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_00: You really have to rely on programmatic discovery.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, so how does that actually work in practice?
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_00: Well, you use API integrations to basically cross-reference your financial expense reports.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_00: So you're hunting for those recurring credit card swipes for software.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_01: Right, the monthly charges that just kind of blend in.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_00: You check those against your single sign-on logs.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_00: So the API essentially flags discrepancies where an app shows up in
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_00: the accounting ledger,
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_00: but it doesn't actually exist in your centralized identity provider.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_01: Ah, I see.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_01: So the API shines a light on all that dark software.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_01: But OK, let's untack this a bit.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_01: Once you actually have that list, how should you define shelfware?
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_01: Is it strictly zero logins or is it more nuanced than that?
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_00: It is definitely more nuanced.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, mass deletion is reckless.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_00: True optimization really requires right sizing.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_01: Because if you just mass delete accounts to save cash,
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_01: that sounds like a great way to trigger an all out user riot.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, 100%.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_00: Or you break some automated downstream process.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, zero logins over 30 or 60 days, that's obvious waste.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_00: But then you have this thing called value shelfware.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_01: Value shelfware.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_01: Like they are logging in, but not really using it.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, precisely.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: That's when a user is provisioned for this really expensive top tier enterprise license, right?
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_00: But the SSO telemetry shows they only ever access the baseline read-only dashboards.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_01: Oh man, that's like paying the premium unlimited rate for a cell phone bill
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_01: when you only ever send text messages?
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_00: That is exactly what it's like.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_01: So how do you tactically reclaim those premium licenses
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_01: without totally disrupting their workflow?
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_00: Well, you implement a 45-day inactivity rule to harvest those dormant licenses.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, but how do you do that without the friction of sudden lockouts?
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_00: The operational safety net here is that you always give a seven-day automated warning notice.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_00: You send it to both the user and their manager before you downgrade or cut access.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, so it gives them a window to object if they actually need it?
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_00: It keeps everyone happy.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_00: But, you know, that handles the cleanup.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_00: The structural fix has to be stopping the sprawl before it even happens.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_01: Which I imagine is where things like just-in-time provisioning come into play.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, exactly.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_00: So rather than assigning a paid license the day an employee is hired...
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_00: You tie your HR systems directly into your identity provider,
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_00: like setting a workday trigger to Azure AD, for example.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_01: Wait, so the license isn't actually active right away?
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_00: Nope.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_00: The license is only pulled from the pool the exact moment the user attempts
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_00: to authenticate into the application for the very first time.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, wow.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_01: It's like having motion sensor lighting in a massive warehouse.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_01: Instead of paying to keep the whole building lit 24-7,
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_01: the lights only click on when someone actually walks into that specific aisle.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_00: That is a brilliant way to look at it, actually.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_00: And the reverse mechanism happens during offboarding.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_01: The termination trigger just instantly revokes access and returns the license.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_00: You got it.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_00: And handling these triggers manually across hundreds of apps is honestly impossible.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_00: Which is why organizations leverage centralized solution providers like Provision
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_00: Networks to automate those specific workflows.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, absolutely.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_00: That is where your leverage is.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_01: Because I imagine you take all this telemetry data into that critical 90-day window
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_01: before renewal.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_00: You go to the vendor and you negotiate better rates based on your verified API usage data.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_00: You don't just rely on their optimistic seed projections.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_01: You have the actual math to back you up.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_01: And by taking those steps,
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_01: you actively transform IT and procurement from this reactive cost center into
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_01: a true strategic partner.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you change the entire conversation.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_00: You shift it from, hey, what are we spending to what value are we mathematically extracting?
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_01: Which secures your data and actively protects the bottom line.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_01: So we'll leave you with this to explore on your own.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_01: If an estimated 25% of software budgets just vanish into the void of unused tools,
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_01: what other invisible automated business expenses are quietly draining resources
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_01: right under your nose?