Content Provided by Victor Hou, Co-founder at Varisource
With a plethora of B2B SaaS applications (software as a service) designed to make business processes more efficient, it can be difficult to stay on top of subscription costs and SaaS application usage. Consequently, SaaS vendor management has become a crucial component for any company striving to make the most out of their software applications while still keeping their recurring expenses in check.
What is SaaS vendor management?
SaaS vendor management is a process of sourcing, evaluating, and managing SaaS vendors. The main goal of the SaaS vendor management process is to source the most optimal SaaS solutions that solve specific business needs, deploy them across the company, track usage, showcase value, and optimize SaaS spending.
Top 4 benefits of using SaaS vendor management software
From larger corporations to small businesses, companies of any size can gain enormous value from leveraging SaaS vendor management software. Here are the top five advantages that will help you make an informed decision regarding the implementation of this powerful software solution:
1. Reduced SaaS purchase redundancies
SaaS vendor management software provides a streamlined approach to SaaS purchase decisions, helping companies reduce SaaS purchase redundancies and optimize the efficiency of their SaaS investments. By providing organizations with visibility into SaaS subscriptions, SaaS vendor management system can help companies avoid purchasing SaaS solutions that provide similar functionalities.
2. Optimized SaaS expenses
The insights provided by SaaS vendor management tools allow management teams to quickly identify software redundancies and optimize SaaS spending by optimizing the number of licenses purchased and consolidating purchases among different vendors. SaaS vendor management ensures that companies get the most out of their SaaS spending while avoiding wasteful purchases or oversaturating departments with unnecessary SaaS tools.
On average, this results in an impressive 15-25% savings!
3. Increased usage visibility
SaaS vendor management software tracks SaaS utilization across the company, making it easier to identify which SaaS solutions are being used, the extent of their usage, and which SaaS tools are providing the most value and which ones are not. With SaaS vendor management platform, companies can assess the usage of SaaS products across the entire organization more effectively, ensuring that SaaS purchases are necessary and beneficial to the organization. Not only that but SaaS vendor management solution can help ensure SaaS licenses are used optimally across the company, resulting in cost savings for businesses.
4. Proactive vendor renewals
SaaS vendor management software is a super useful tool for companies looking to approach vendor renewals proactively. Vendor management can help companies to automate the entire vendor renewal process, from initial contract negotiations and onboarding to tracking performance benchmarks. By keeping track of SaaS platform usage, annual payments, and renewal dates, companies can better prepare for vendor renewal negotiations.
What are the main responsibilities of a SaaS vendor manager?
SaaS Vendor Management is a complex task and Vendor Managers play an integral part in successfully managing SaaS vendor relationships. The main responsibilities of a SaaS vendor manager are:
1. Vendor vetting
A SaaS vendor manager plays a critical role when it comes to vendor vetting. It is their responsibility to assess vendors objectively, taking into consideration cost, features, synergy with existing SaaS solutions, and customer support. SaaS vendor managers must identify which SaaS vendors will best suit the organization’s needs and help optimize business processes. Vendor vetting involves thorough research of different options to identify vendors that can provide the best quality and value while meeting the long-term needs of the company.
2. Contract management and cost negotiations
One of the primary tasks of a SaaS vendor manager is price negotiations. Price negotiation involves researching the competitive market prices for SaaS solutions, exploring alternate vendors, renegotiating contract agreements with existing vendors, leveraging volume discounts, and buying bundled products to reduce costs. The main goal is to save money for the company without compromising on quality.
3. Vendor onboarding
The vendor onboarding process involves working with new SaaS vendors to set up and integrate their solutions into the company’s systems and processes. Vendor onboarding oftentimes involves coordinating with various teams within your organization to ensure that new solutions are seamlessly incorporated into the business operations, resulting in maximum value for the organization.
4. Vendor relationship management
SaaS vendor managers have to stay in constant communication with their SaaS vendors. Whether it is to ensure that the product requirements are met or require support and training for employees, such dialogue will ensure that everyone involved can get the most out of their products and services.
In conclusion, having an effective vendor management process in place is crucial to ensure the success and growth of any organization. By implementing the best practices in managing vendors and leveraging a vendor management system, companies not only reduce costs but also improve overall performance.
About the author
Victor Hou is the co-founder of Varisource and a seasoned executive and entrepreneur in the technology space. Technology spend and services only get bigger and harder to manage and control for all businesses. Victor and his team are on a mission to build the “Kayak of Procurement” and to yield more savings for companies by simplifying the management of 100+ technology spend categories.
