SaaS Management

A SaaS management tool boosts security by giving you complete visibility into every cloud app your teams use. It detects unauthorized tools, monitors user access, and enforces compliance standards. With automated tracking and access management, USU SaaS Management helps you close security gaps, reduce data exposure, and protect sensitive company information—keeping your SaaS environment safe, compliant, and under control.

Managing SaaS manually can be time-consuming and costly. SaaS Management tools can provide visibility of all SaaS apps within an enterprise IT environment, uncover SaaS sprawl or shadow IT, and identify unused licenses and ensures you only pay for what you really need—saving you time, money and hassle.

Unused or redundant SaaS subscriptions are typically uncovered through usage analytics, user activity tracking, and integration with systems like Microsoft Entra ID or HR data sources. USU SaaS Management automatically flags inactive users, and accounts tied to former employees. Rightsizing makes sure you are licensing or subscribing to meet your true needs.

Savings vary, but USU customers have seen the following savings:

Salesforce: 10–30% from optimizing inactive licenses
Microsoft: 5–20% by identifying and downgrading inactive users

These figures are based on real USU SaaS Management customer outcomes.

SaaS discovery methods are processes and technologies used to identify, catalog, and monitor both sanctioned and unsanctioned (shadow IT) software applications across an organization. Typical discovery methods in use are:

• Single Sign-On (SSO) and Identity Providers (IdP): Connects to platforms like Okta, Azure AD, or Google Workspace to track known applications and employee login activity.
• API Connectors: Integrates directly with vendor administration portals, financial systems, and identity tools to pull license data, subscription costs, and user assignments.
• Browser Extensions and Agents: Uses lightweight browser plugins or endpoint agents to track active employee web activity in real time, revealing free, paid, or unsanctioned tools.
• Financial and Expense Data Analysis: Scans corporate credit card statements, accounts payable records, invoices, and employee reimbursement reports to find rogue or self-serve software purchases.

• • License Optimization: Focuses heavily on active utilization rather than just compliance, helping identify and eliminate unused or under-provisioned licenses.
  • Waste Reduction: Reclaims spending on duplicate tools, overlapping functionality, and idle software (typically saving 20–30% of total SaaS spend).
  • Audit Defense & Entitlements: Manages complex license entitlements and maintains a reliable system of record across both legacy and cloud portfolios.

• • Eliminating Shadow IT: Discovery of unapproved, employee-led tool purchases made via SSO before they expand into enterprise risk.
  • Improving IT Governance & Security: Review and approval of applications, control of user access, and ensuring automated offboarding so former employees immediately lose data access.
  • Strategic Portfolio Planning: Providing a single source of truth for total spend, functional use cases, and ROI, shifting IT operations out of reactive "firefighting" mode.

• Eliminating Shadow IT: Discovery of unapproved, employee-led tool purchases made via SSO [DG1] before they expand into enterprise risk.
• Improving IT Governance & Security: Review and approval of applications, control of user access, and ensuring automated offboarding so former employees immediately lose data access.
• Strategic Portfolio Planning: Providing a single source of truth for total spend, functional use cases, and ROI, shifting IT operations out of reactive "firefighting" mode.

[DG1]This is also financial/ expense data discovery- currently not planned. So I would change it in SSO direction