If you are running a business of any scale today one thing is for sure that you will be surrounded by technology, which is famously known as Software as a Service (SaaS) platform. This is irrespective of the industry, you may have software to manage your clients, manage stock, sell products, get payments, and store documents. If there is a business function, there would be software for that.
But how much software is too much software and how much is actually used, you may have seen that ad of revolutionalising your business or growing your business by 200%, but in reality, most of the business hardly scratch the surface of the software’s that they use.
As per research, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) typically use a substantial number of software applications to support their operations. On average, SMEs use around 29 SaaS (Software as a Service) applications when they are 1-2 years old. This number significantly increases as the company grows, reaching an average of 103 SaaS apps by the time the business is 3-6 years old (Exploding Topics) (Spendesk).
Now all of this comes at a cost, not only the monthly licence fees that you pay, but also around how do make these products talk to each other. But also, the time you spend on managing them, learning them and maintaining them, it all adds up.
If you are looking to manage your investments, generate a good return on investment, and optimise your costs, SaaS spend management is essential. Here are some things to keep in mind about SaaS spend management, how it can optimise costs and boost your organisation.
Understanding SaaS spend management
SaaS spend management refers to the optimisation of spend related to SaaS applications. This means understanding the complete visibility into usage, applications, and spending on a user of functional level. The goal is to align SaaS spend with your business objectives to eliminate high costs and maintain scalable, sustainable, and optimised costs.
Importance of effective SaaS spend for businesses
With the amount of marketing, promotions and appealing features it is inevitable that businesses sign up for multiple SaaS products. However, understanding how to optimise their spending can help businesses save millions of dollars. So why is effectively managing your SaaS spend important?
Eliminate SaaS wastage
The first step to save your SaaS budget is to check your application and determine if they bring value to your company. Make sure that there is no duplications or abandoned applications so that you can eliminate SaaS wastage
Effective use of product bundling
When you’re looking for stand-alone applications from different vendors to optimise spending, this can be a hassle, and your organisation can quickly become entangled in a ton of apps which are inefficient and not to mention expensive. Switching to Zoho One is a game changer. All applications required to run and manage your entire organisations business is integrated into a single platform. This centralised system allows you to manage all aspects of your brand with a user-friendly interface, offering better data visibility and better communication.
Zoho One: Exceptional Business Solution to Optimise Your SaaS Spend
Zoho One is an all-encompassing business solution software that automates and streamlines various business processes. There are a host of Zoho applications from HR, finance, business management, to marketing automation. This offers a one-stop solution for enterprises to optimise their spending operations, boosting customer experience and boosting productivity. By bringing all these applications under one roof, Zoho One effectively revolutionises how brands operate by minimising the difficulties associated with multiple software systems.
The seamless integration of Zoho One leads to a streamlined workflow, increased efficiency, and improved profitability. This allows business owners to transform their operations, pave the way for sustainable growth and manage multiple software platforms. Here is how Zoho One can help you minimise your SaaS spend.
Leverage omnichannel marketing
Customers interact with a business in more than one way. Just because your business favours emails, it doesn’t mean that your customers and target audience also like emails. That is where Zoho One can be a game changer. It enables you to talk to your audience on a platform of their preference.
By leverage Zoho One’s marketing applications like Sales IQ, Sites and Campaign, your business can right of multiple other products such as Mailchimp, Tawk.to, and HootSuite. Zoho One allows your business to create effective inbound and outbound campaigns for different communication channels, like emails, social media, and live chat. Your business can automate its marketing using a single operating system and spur business growth.
Build a customer 360-degree view of sales and service
As mentioned earlier, modern-day customers like to interact and engage with brands and business on a platform that they like. This can make it tough for businesses to collate data from different communication channels. Zoho CRM could be just what your business needs. It harnesses the power of omnichannel presence that enables you to get a 360-degree view of your customer base. You can easily utilise predictive intelligence and segmentation to better understand your target audience and offer them products and services that they require and NOT what you want to sell. Zoho CRM
If your business provides the best products or services, but doesn’t offer exceptional customer service, it will wreak havoc with your future sales. Zoho Desk has an omnichannel presence that allows businesses to be more accessible to their customers. Using Zoho Desk, you can provide stellar customer service at every stage of your customer’s journey and also provide quick and accurate resolutions to queries and issues. It empowers your customer service agents and ensures they have access to details and information. This makes them more organised, confident, and productive.
When you utilise the features of Zoho CRM and Zoho Desk, you can replace applications like Salesforce, Hubspot, Pipedrive, and Zendesk. That is because everything you need to drive sales and service is available on a single unified interface.
Digitise across multiple steps
In a globalised world, there are no more barriers. Businesses can transcend geographical boundaries without being physically present. But when it comes to signing contracts or SLAs, businesses may feel that they will have to be physically present at their customer/client’s location. With Zoho Sign, you can take advantage of digital signature features that are legally binding. It not only saves paperwork but ensures lightning-fast turnaround for contracts.
Zoho also helps you optimise and digitise data with the help of Zoho Form. You can utilise this Zoho application to collect data from customers and potential leads visiting your website. It enables your business to no-code secure forms that are completely customisable. With data being king in a data-driven marketplace, you will find this data to be a boon.
If your business is not automating and digitising workflows, it is losing out to its competitors. That is where Zoho Flow can be a lifesaver. It can build complex workflows with ease, allowing your business to build function-specific workflows. It also enables you to integrate cloud-based apps with your on-premises systems. Above all, you never have to worry about data being accessed without authorisation.
When your business looks to digitise using Zoho Sign, Zoho Flow, and Zoho Form, it makes other applications like Jot Form, Formstack, and Docusign redundant and superfluous.
Bring finance and human resources together
A business needs every department to work in sync. No business will succeed if departments work in silos and isolation. Zoho has a suite of applications, like Zoho Books and Zoho People to ensure that your finance and human resources department work together. That way, information on a need-to-know basis is shared with everyone and each department, albeit independent, works cohesively as a team.
Zoho Books is more than an accounting platform. It is an integrated platform that allows you to keep a check on receivables and payable, and also track and maintain inventory, and handle your project resources. You don’t have to worry about handling your project team and then partnering with HR to ensure timely payments to your team. Zoho Books can take care of it.
You can make the life of your accounts department easier with Zoho Subscription. This software is apt for businesses that have recurring subscriptions. It automates the entire process and allows businesses to accept payments in multiple currencies. This could be a boon for businesses operating outside of New Zealand and wanting to tap into high-spend markets in other countries.
With Zoho Books and Zoho Subscription, software like QuickBooks and Xero become superfluous as you have everything you need to run an efficient, productive, and integrated accounts department that also lets HR get a peek into payments to temporary and contract resources.
HR and people management is one of biggest banes of modern business. Now you can customise your HR software with Zoho People. This cloud-based software makes your HR operations simpler and allows your business to retain talent. It makes HR management more effective and agile to make your business ready to take on the demands of a competitive marketplace. Now, your business can say goodbye to multiple software, like Elmo, Bamboo HR, and Workday.
When you are looking to optimise SaaS spend, you can’t ignore the importance of Zoho Analytics. It is a self-service platform that caters to your business intelligence and analytics needs. Today, businesses generate and collate a lot of data and many hardly know how to use this data effectively. So, they invest in platforms like Power BI and Tableau without seeing ROI. With Zoho Analytics, you can easily connect data from multiple channels, prepare it for analysis, harness the power of in-built AI to analyse the data and predict future trends or perform what-if analysis. Even without knowing coding, you can create visual dashboards that can be shared with other teams and top managers and decisionmakers.
Redefine The Way Your Business Works with a Zoho Bundle
No matter the size of your organisation, Zoho One offers you a suite of apps which gives you the tools you need to boost efficiency and streamline your work no matter where you are. For businesses that require to focus on multiple brand processes like HR management, marketing, accounting, data analytics and payroll requirements, a software bundle can help you fill in these gaps.
Adopting a suite of Zoho products rather than settling with one product can help you future-ready your business in terms of scalability and expansion. Here is how a Zoho suite of applications can help your organisation optimise its SaaS spend.
Access all your information
You can access all your information from open Word documents, PowerPoint presentations and data files from anywhere. With all your information, sheets and documents stored on one platform, this allows you to collaborate in real time, track changes, keep track of employees, comment directly on your page or slide or even set up a video call to review your project.
Communicate effectively
Team communication is more than simply live chat and email. Along with building a social interaction with your employees, you can also stay connected to various departments, teams, channels and even your clients. When you work with Zoho, you are ensuring that you deliver your best to your clients and users, which boosts your ROI in the long run
Work from anywhere
With Zoho Suite, work is just a tap away. Whether you need to talk to your clients, reply to a last-minute presentation or host a remote video conference, Zoho helps you get everything done on the move.
Safety for businesses
When you create or communicate using Zoho applications all your information remains secure. Each application is encrypted and designed to guarantee your privacy and security. Zoho also increases productivity for organisations of any type and size. Whether you’re a big enterprise or a large organisation these tools are built to boost team collaboration and efficiency. Zoho suite applications are designed specifically for your company to provide you with the best user experience.
The Only All-In-One Software Solution Your Organisation Will Ever Need
Tired of running your business on complex and time-consuming solutions that take away your energy and time? With Zoho One operating system, your business processes will run like clockwork, leaving you to focus on what matters the most, your goals.
Zoho suite software will help you organize your accounts, monitor your financial status, and track your transactions with specialised accounting tools. You can handle and manage your invoices, and payment tracking features, control your accounts and receive payments on time. Your organisation can also manage supplier invoices, employee expenses and customer subscriptions, tailoring their experience for smoother customer management.
If you’re looking to enhance your company’s SaaS optimisation for more effective and secure management, get started today.
If you’re looking to enhance your company’s SaaS optimisation for more effective and secure management, get started today. Innovate Now is an authorised Zoho Partner and offers seamless access to Zoho One and other Zoho applications. It also has a suite of other tools that simplify and organise your SaaS spend in an efficient and cost-effective manner.