A Big Step to Visibility and Control

CEWE’s goal was clear: create transparency, ensure compliance, and reduce costs. With vendors frequently charging extra fees for SSO and SCIM integration, and a growing shift from perpetual to SaaS licensing, controlling spend had become increasingly complex. 

Within two weeks, the customer used USU’s SaaS discovery features to uncover unmanaged apps and establish a clear baseline of spend and ownership.

By week six, the team had integrated its top vendors, such as Microsoft and Adobe, for instant visibility. Quick optimizations delivered early savings, building momentum and trust across the organization.

After eight weeks, CEWE Group moved to automation—streamlining user onboarding and offboarding, connecting the full SaaS portfolio, and enabling vendor flexibility. Today, the company continues to measure, adapt, and optimize, benefiting from ongoing cost transparency and stronger negotiation positions.

CEWE Group chose USU for several reasons:

• Real-time dashboards that deliver instant insights for management reporting
• Fast results—data within hours—to support contract negotiations
• A growing vendor catalog and strong system integrations
• Full GDPR compliance and data residency through German-based hosting
• A ROI of more than 30 percent in the first year.

With USU SaaS Management, the customer uncovered more than one hundred unmanaged applications and identified redundant or unused licenses. By analyzing real usage data, the company flagged orphaned accounts and downgraded costly subscriptions—achieving significant savings within the first months. 

Beyond financial impact, CEWE Group saved valuable time by automating license management and reducing manual effort in on- and offboarding. The team now operates with a clear, consolidated view instead of juggling multiple portals. Our customer continues to apply the FinOps framework to SaaS, progressing along a maturity curve from Visibility → Governance → FinOps. The next goal: breaking down SaaS costs per team to drive accountability and enable smarter budgeting.