Software as a Service (SaaS) has created an environment where people can access apps from anywhere at any time. SaaS adoption has liberated organizations worldwide. SaaS apps provide the tools to innovate, improve productivity, and reduce costs. However, the proliferation of SaaS apps has made the management of applications, data, and workflows challenging. SaaS is, by default, a decentralized method of provisioning digital work tools. This decentralization lies at the heart of SaaS Management challenges.

Here, AccessOwl dives into SaaS Management, to explain why it’s needed and the type of specialized tools available to help manage and secure SaaS apps.

What is SaaS Management?

A 2023 study from ITAM found that 32% of wasted IT budget was due to SaaS apps. The same report also noted that software asset management (SAM) programs — including SaaS Management tools — save companies millions of dollars.

SaaS Management is used by a business to monitor, manage, govern, and optimize the use of SaaS apps. It provides a way to centralize the control of SaaS apps, preventing SaaS sprawl. The SaaS Management system will manage licenses, prevent app duplication, provide SaaS spend management, and create an inventory that reflects the company's SaaS portfolio.

SaaS Management goes beyond just keeping wayward apps under the umbrella of an organization. Centralized SaaS app management provides organizations visibility into which apps are being used, and by whom. They also offer governance capabilities needed to ensure that security and privacy policies are correctly applied and that access and authorization controls are enforced across the broader company network.

Life without SaaS Management

To understand the importance of SaaS Management, it's useful to look at how things would work without it. SaaS apps are typically delivered using a cloud-based delivery model. This model allows people to access apps if they have internet connectivity and a browser. The result of this accessibility is that SaaS apps are easy to download and install. SaaS applications are typically low-cost and often purchased using affordable software subscriptions. The alignment of low-cost, easy-to-install, and accessible means that SaaS apps are frequently selected and deployed outside of the controlled IT procurement process. The result is that an organization may not be able to answer:

• What SaaS apps are used by employees?

• What data is being created and shared through these apps?

• Who has access to sensitive data?

Without having a way to centralize the management of decentralized app purchases, an organization is at risk of:

• Duplication of apps and SaaS licenses

• Security and privacy risks

• Non-compliance with regulations

• Shadow IT and out-of-control Shadow SaaS usage

SaaS Management mitigates the risks of an out-of-control SaaS app portfolio, while maintaining the benefits of SaaS apps.

What are the essential elements of SaaS Management?

To develop an effective SaaS Management strategy, an organization should include the following essential elements:

Visibility and discoverability

Discoverability enables centralization and control.. Data security and privacy depend on knowing how and by whom data is being used. The ability to discover the data lifecycle — where data is created, shared, and stored — is an essential element of SaaS Management. Without discoverability, an organization cannot know what sensitive data is being shared within which apps. Without this visibility, access to apps and data cannot be properly controlled. Poorly controlled access to apps and data places an organization at risk of data exposure and non-compliance with regulations. Discoverability is also integral to the provisioning and de-provisioning of employees. For example, if an employee leaves or moves to another department, discoverability can identify unauthorized access. Knowing whether an app is still being accessed by ex-employees helps to ensure that such accounts are disabled promptly, to prevent data leaks.

Centralize data

The key to SaaS Management is to centralize data management. Uncontrolled apps lead to uncontrolled data. SaaS apps generate enormous amounts of stored, shared, and handled data. Visibility of this data provides the baseline for a company to avoid non-compliance with regulations and reduce the risk of data exposure, either accidentally or with malicious intent. A SaaS Management system will make data visible and provide a centralized process to control data sharing and access. Centralization also places a governance layer across the entire data portfolio, while monitoring and reporting ensure that problems are quickly identified. Centralization more effectively supports troubleshooting and security.

Insight and security

Control comes from knowing what is going on and having the means to prevent problems. SaaS Management tools provide actionable insights by issuing alerts when something goes awry. For example, an alert is generated if unauthorized activity is detected within a SaaS app. Notifications about employee activity that falls outside the remit of compliance can help prevent non-compliance fines and data exposure. For example, SaaS Management tools provide the app visibility needed to ensure that appropriate access control can be applied to the users of an app. This helps to prevent sensitive data from leaving the company's control. Importantly, unauthorized access or changes in access controls and authorization that have not been sanctioned can be quickly identified and stopped.

Perform bulk control across the SaaS ecosystem

The overhead on IT departments caused by SaaS sprawl can be eliminated by using a SaaS Management tool. Once notification of an actionable insight is received, a SaaS Manager can use this intelligence to make bulk changes (such as deleting users), quickly shutting down any security or compliance issues.

Automation

As a company’s SaaS portfolio continues to grow, the onboarding and offboarding of employees can become onerous. Manual control of SaaS app access and privileges can be a serious burden — both time-consuming and prone to human error. So automation is a critical element of SaaS Management. By automating repetitive tasks, such as setting up provisioning, a SaaS Management tool ensures that vital tasks are executed quickly and accurately. Problems identified by the actionable insights from the SaaS Management tool are used to drive automation. For example, some SaaS Management tools allow administrators to automatically provision and deprovision users, change access rights, and instantly respond to access requests.

Do you need specialized tools to perform SaaS Management?

It can be challenging to take the plunge and invest in a SaaS Management platform, when you believe you already have things covered using a spreadsheet inventory. However, spreadsheets fall short when compared with specialized SaaS Management tools.

SaaS management tools are designed to manage and control SaaS apps, eliminate SaaS sprawl, and provide SaaS vendor management. Unlike spreadsheets, SaaS Management tools are dynamic and real-time by design. Spreadsheets are snapshots of an environment that require manual updating on a regular basis.

SaaS apps — with their unique discoverability and access control challenges — can be more difficult for an organization to effectively manage.. SaaS Management Platforms (SMP) are explicitly designed to handle the decentralized nature of SaaS apps. An SMP provides all the essential elements needed to manage SaaS apps.

Where do IAM and IGA Fit With SaaS Management?

SaaS apps are often critical in nature. For example, HR, Payroll, CRM, and productivity apps drive a business. A company may have hundreds of such apps — and thousands of employees and suppliers requiring access to them. This criticality makes them an attractive target for attackers. Accidental data leaks from critical apps can cause severe damage to an organization.

Users, roles, departments, and permissions complicate managing access to SaaS apps. App security management must align with security policies and regulatory compliance requirements, which is a challenging mix to optimize. Identity is used to create a perimeter for distributed SaaS apps.

A SaaS Management Platform (SMP) provides visibility across the SaaS app portfolio. This visibility helps monitor data workflows, access events, and user behavior. Identity governance and administration (IGA) and identity and access management (IAM) tools are used alongside an SMP to enforce identity security. IAM and IGA tools:

• Identify who is accessing which SaaS app, and when.

• Automate discovery and monitor permissions.

• Enforce least privilege access permissions.

• Provide audit capability to identify privileged user access.

• Revoke unneeded or inappropriate access in real-time.

Employee onboarding and offboarding

New employees or contractors need prompt access to applications to begin working. This access must correctly reflect their role within a specific department. Conversely, when someone leaves an organization, their access rights must be quickly removed to avoid any risk to data. A serious oversight at Highland Council demonstrates the importance of timely, effective de-provisioning. The council failed to deprovision almost 600 ex-employee accounts. The result was that almost £800,000 ($1.1 million) was paid out to ex-employees.

IGA tools are used to automate and enforce the provisioning and de-provisioning of user accounts across your SaaS environment.

Enforcing least privilege access

Employees must be provided with access rights to perform their work duties, and no more. This is known as the principle of least privilege. This principle is an important part of zero trust security and prevents unauthorized access. By enforcing least privilege access, a company de-risks data loss and reduces the likelihood of wide scale malware infection.

Role-based (RBAC), attribute-based (ABAC), or policy-based access control can be automated to enforce access permissions, based on employee role or attributes/policies.

Automation of identity and access requests

Employees move between departments and join or leave organizations. When that happens, the employee may need new access rights to reflect their new role. Automating access requests speeds up this process.. It also prevents human error that could lead to unauthorized access and accidental or malicious data exposure.

How does SaaS Management help meet regulatory compliance?

SaaS sprawl and uncontrolled SaaS application usage and access can lead to non-compliance with data protection regulations. SaaS management, by controlling access to apps, helps an organization meet regulations and security standards across its SaaS environment. Regulations and standards include GDPR, SOC 2, HIPAA, and ISO 27001. SaaS management software that enforces least privilege access and uses IAM and IGA tools to enforce identity security helps companies meet regulatory compliance.

SaaS Management has become increasingly complex as sanctioned and Shadow IT apps proliferate. Visibility across your app landscape is essential to managing access and enforcing security measures like MFA and least privilege access. Automation of identity management processes adds the layer of control needed to carefully manage a disparate app portfolio.