Jochen Hagenlocher, Global Head of Software Asset Management on SaaS spend.

When I was growing up, all my pocket money went into Pacman. Nothing could stop me until every last quarter disappeared into this machine which gave me heavenly feelings. Years later, Pacman is just a fond memory that recently came back to me while looking at a Software Spend Pie Chart.

Here he was again: Pacman in form of a SaaS Spend Pie Chart, representing our ever growing Cloud App Spend.

When think about it, SaaS subscriptions are a lot like that insatiable yellow mouth. They appear simple and fun at first, but if you’re not careful, they’ll gobble up your entire software spend.

SaaS is hungry for your software budget

In the same way that all of my pocket money magically disappeared in the old days, our corporate software budgets are being eaten up by the new Cloud Apps we increasingly consume. Nowadays SaaS seems to be present everywhere: from small un-known applications your employees sign up for, to big corporate agreements which intentionally get closed.

Yes, SaaS is hungry and it’s going after your company dollars. Creative employees run up software bills by introducing new SaaS Apps which you only later discover on credit card statements and expense claims. Besides security and data privacy concerns, this widely unknown spend collectively can sum up to a sizable amount. Financially speaking, manually monitoring this category will be hard work with limited return.

Do you know how much you’re overpaying for cloud?

Surprisingly, many of the big corporations I speak with at Software Asset Management and Sourcing events are just starting to realize their software budgets are being eaten-up by ever-hungry Cloud Apps. Although the cloud empowers your business units and employees to make IT decisions better and faster, ease and flexibility come with a big price tag. Increased flexibility can cause costs to spiral quickly out of control when you consume more than you’ve budgeted for, or if you haven’t monitored and right-sized your environment.

SaaS subscriptions are widely accessible which makes them a challenge to control and difficult to track. And without proper cloud software asset management oversight, subscription software will quickly deplete your budget, rather than grow your business efficiencies.

Insider advice for controlling cloud spend

In my experience, the biggest money and savings opportunities lie in controlling enterprise wide used Cloud Apps. That’s why cloud-based Software Asset Management is the key to ensuring that your cloud drives revenue — not costs. If you take a closer look, you will notice that applications like Salesforce and Office 365 have a bigger impact on your software budget then your entire on-premises SAP spend.

Find out how to tap into cost saving opportunities for enterprise-wide used Cloud Apps, and learn to:

Gain transparency
Limit your SaaS spend
Centralize your contracts
Optimize your licenses
Evaluate tool supported alternatives