The key to managing your Shadow IT? Know your users

It’s important to know what software and cloud-based systems are in use at your company. When it comes to technology and risk management within an organization, that’s the first step, and it’s the foundation on which our platform was built.

But that information alone is not enough. You need to know who in your organization is using those systems — and how.

That’s why we built the SaaS Management feature on SaaSTrax.

It all comes back to Shadow IT — the fear-inducing name for the SaaS products employees download to their devices without the blessing of corporate IT. The phenomenon is rampant and can expose your company to risk and potentially cost you money. But Shadow IT isn’t all bad. And quite frankly, it’s pretty hard to stop.

That’s why we set out to build a solution that could give your employees access to the systems they want, without exposing your company to unnecessary risk and causing you to throw money out the window. At its most basic level, that was a matter of pure identification — showing you what systems were running through your business and where there was overlap. It gave you visibility, and with something as mysterious as Shadow IT, that’s invaluable.

Then we did what any good startup would do: We iterated. We evolved. We upgraded our system to suit the needs of our client base. And that included more than just SaaS identification; we needed SaaS management.

The SaaS Management feature offers insight into not just what systems are being used in your organization, but who is using them. That allows you to differentiate between a system that’s lying stagnant and a system that’s adding to your productivity and your bottom line. When you have that level of insight, you can control what systems stay operational within your business, and what systems go. And you can institute the appropriate checks and balances that keep you from wasting money and unnecessarily exposing your company to risk.

Here’s why that matters: Say one of your employees downloads a system, and then that employee leaves. If you don’t have a window into all your technology, that system will continue to take your money and access your data, without providing any value in exchange.

If you were proactively managing your Shadow IT, however, you’d know about the system. You’d understand its level of utilization, and you’d be able to decide if the system is worth the continued investment, or if it’s destined for the chopping block.

Shadow IT isn’t going away. Companies pop up every day promising to streamline operations and improve efficiencies. Employees are coming into jobs expecting to use the systems they want to do their jobs and do them well. So you have to be proactive. You have to understand what’s going on inside your company, and like your enterprising employees, you have to use technology to your advantage.

Want to learn what SaaSTrax can do to help your business manage the threat of Shadow IT? Sign up for a free trial today: