What is SaaS Sprawl?

SaaS Sprawl refers to the uncontrolled proliferation of SaaS applications across an organization, often leading to numerous challenges related to security, cost, compliance, and productivity. As employees and departments independently adopt cloud applications to meet specific needs, the lack of centralized oversight and management can create complexities and risks for the organization. As SaaS sprawl comes with security risks, it may result in data loss and compliance violations, integration issues, cost overruns, and shadow IT.

Benefits of Addrressing SaaS Sprawl

• Enhanced Security: Gaining control over SaaS applications reduces security risks, ensuring that sensitive data remains protected.
• Cost Savings: Eliminating redundant and unused SaaS subscriptions can result in cost savings for the organization.
• Compliance Adherence: Managing SaaS usage helps ensure compliance with data protection and industry regulations.
• Improved Productivity: Streamlining SaaS application usage and promoting approved alternatives can enhance employee productivity and collaboration.
• Better IT Governance: Centralized management provides IT teams with greater governance over cloud services, allowing for more effective decision-making and risk management.

How SaaS Sprawl Affects Organizations

• SaaS sprawl poses a significant threat to productivity in the workplace, hindering the ability to manage, access, share, and create knowledge efficiently. Employees face several challenges due to the proliferation of various software tools.
• One major issue is the difficulty in finding important information. Employees spend a considerable amount of time searching for information within apps, impacting their productivity negatively. 
• Context switching is another concern, as constantly moving between different apps and tasks disrupts workflow and makes it challenging to stay focused.
• SaaS sprawl can create information silos within departments, leading to a lack of alignment and collaboration across teams using different tools. This further impedes productivity, as data sharing and access become complicated and inefficient.

How to Manage SaaS Sprawl?

• Discovery and Inventory: Conduct a comprehensive discovery of all SaaS applications in use within the organization, creating an inventory of approved and unapproved services.
• Centralized Administration: Establish centralized administration and management of SaaS applications to gain visibility and control over their usage.
• Security Assessments: Perform security assessments on all SaaS applications to ensure they meet the organization's security standards and compliance requirements.
• Employee Education: Educate employees about the risks of using unauthorized SaaS applications and the approved alternatives to prevent further SaaS Sprawl.
• Approved Application Catalog: Maintain a catalog of approved SaaS applications, providing employees with a curated list of authorized tools that meet the organization's standards.
• Usage Policies: Implement usage policies that define the conditions under which SaaS applications can be used, and ensure they align with security and compliance requirements.
• SaaS Management Platforms: Leverage SaaS management platforms and tools to monitor and control the usage of SaaS applications, enabling IT to enforce policies and manage licenses effectively.
• Regular Review and Cleanup: Regularly review the SaaS application inventory and eliminate redundant or unused applications, optimizing costs and security.
• Integration Strategy: Develop an integration strategy to ensure seamless data flow and interoperability between approved SaaS applications and existing systems.

Related Terms

• Application Whitelisting
• IT Security
• SaaS Security Management

Suggested Articles

• What is SaaS Management
• What is SSPM
• SSPM Checklist