Welcome to Augmentt’s SaaSOps Talks! Over the next few months, we’re going to be releasing ongoing content designed specifically to help MSPs get started with managed SaaSOps services. 

Today, we are answering a very simple question: What is managed SaaSOps? We’re going to talk about: 

• A quick intro into the SaaS model  
• Key stats on SaaS adoption within Small and Midsized organizations  
• What is SaaSOps?  
• Who is currently doing SaaSOps?  
• What is “Managed” SaaSOps?  
• Why are MSPs looking at adopting SaaSOps as part of their managed services portfolio.

Video Transcript

SaaS model  

SaaS (software as a service) is a software delivery model designed to help the organization be able to access technology online in a recurring revenue model without having to worry about the hosting and the infrastructure and the availability – that is the job of the technology provider.

Now SaaS has a lot of benefits, including the shift from capital expenses associated with having to purchase very expensive software and hardware, to an operating expense where organizations can simply spend dollars on a monthly basis to get access to the latest and greatest technology that is pre-hosted and always available.

While SaaS does have a lot of benefits like cost, lack of infrastructure, ease of access, no deployment concerns, it also has threats. Those threats are really in the unmonitored and the unsanctioned adoption of SaaS within the organization themselves. We’re really talking about employees signing up to SaaS applications without having to tell anyone. This unmonitored, unsanctioned adoption of SaaS is really what we call Shadow IT. With Shadow IT comes lots of security, cost and productivity risks.

SaaS adoption 

SaaS adoption is rampant with about 85% of small to midsize enterprises invest in SaaS Solutions today. With that adoption we typically see a lot of Shadow IT and duplicate applications (typically 4 duplicate subscriptions for every one that is approved). We also see that most small and mid-sized enterprise are churning about 30% of their SaaS products on a yearly basis, which basically means a need for onboarding, off-boarding license management security and cost controls.

What is SaaSOps? 

SaaSOps is a fairly new term and it’s currently being used within enterprise and IT teams and it’s really all about the practice of managing the operational, cost and security related tasks that are needed to make sure that your SaaS applications and SaaS stack are up and running and effective. SaaSOps is typically divided into three main categories: 

• People and process  
• SaaS management   
• SaaS security 

People and process covers everything from the team that is in charge of the SaaS applications to making sure that they are working as they should.  

SaaS management addresses what it needed to ensure that there is proper onboarding, offboarding, access management, spend management and so on.  

SaaS security is all about data protection, incident response file and identity access and ultimately where does the SaaS application fit within security posture and regulatory compliance.  

Who is currently doing SaaSOps?

SaaSOps is currently being managed by organization across several business units, as they do most of the software buying. Every single team does their own SaaS purchases, and SaaSOps is really about making sure that you bring all those teams under one umbrella.  

To give you an example, accounting who are tasked with controlling SaaS costs are very concerned about SaaS operations. IT and security, which worry about compliance and cyber security, are also very much involved. The MSPs themselves are there to balance the need for accessing technology, to access people and process and making sure that all of these products work well together. 

What is managed SaaSOps?

Here at Augmentt we work with MSPs to build what we call “Managed SaaSOps” which are all about the services that are required for delivering reoccurring managed services across the entire SaaS stack. Some of the services that MSPs are delivering under a SaaSOps umbrella would be things like: 

• SaaS administration – setting up and configuring the apps;  
• SaaS integration – connecting multiple SaaS applications to ensure that data and people and processes are flowing within the various different systems.  
• SaaS audits – generate insight and actionable data. It could be a SaaS audit for security, for productivity or for cost purposes. 
• SaaS support which are help desk type services that are designed to help the customer resolve SaaS related access and user issues.  

SaaSOps adoption

So why are MSPs looking to adopt SaaSOps as part of a traditional managed services portfolio? There are a couple of different reasons. One is that the MSP do understand that the need to manage SaaSOps is because they understand that SaaS adoption is on the rise, and as the technology deployment model from software to SaaS evolves within their customers environment, it is truly up to them to ensure that they are taking care of their customers business and technology goals and objectives. SaaS does not remain a source of threat or a source of waste, but becomes a strategic tool as part of a business growth expansion and profitability targets. 

We’re very excited to help MSP seamlessly deliver managed SaaSOps services to their customers, and we’ve designed it in such a way that we are able to provide the tools, the process, the education to help along that journey. 

I’d like to thank all of you for tuning in today we’re going to be releasing SaaSOps talks new episodes semi-monthly on our YouTube channel and on our blog.  

If you’re interested in learning more, I would encourage you to subscribe to our email list to get notified.  If you have any questions, comments concerns or you simply would like to talk about SaaS and SaaS operation, please feel free to email Derik directly at derik.belair@augmentt.com 

Learn more about SaaSOps by watching our On-Demand Webinar, “Is SaaSOps the next big thing for MSPs?”