Over half of the software-as-a-service (SaaS) applications that businesses pay for are not being used regularly, according to research from Productiv.
Productiv – a management platform for SaaS applications – analysed data from its customers and found that just 45 percent of apps are being used frequently.
In large enterprises of over 10,000 employees, the number of apps has risen to an average of 364, falling to 242 apps in companies with fewer than 500 members of staff.
Jody Shapiro, CEO and co-founder of Productiv, warned that businesses to need get their apps under control – particularly given that SaaS adoption is only going to increase over the coming years.
“No company is saying they intend to have less SaaS in the future,” he said.
“Our new report reveals many businesses may have a much larger blind spot than they realize when it comes to their SaaS portfolio.
“CIOs and IT teams need to understand the complete picture of apps they have, what value their employees are getting out of those apps and how those apps affect their security and compliance standards”
Interestingly, Productiv said its research found that shadow IT apps – that are procured by employees outside the IT department – are used more than the total amount of apps, at 54 percent.
The firm said this is proof that businesses are struggling with both licensing forecasting and the adoption of new tools among employees.
Productiv’s research is based on analysis of hundreds of customers using its platform, as well as data from more than 30,000 applications connected to its platform.
The average number of applications in certain parts of a business ranged from 78 in the security team to 39 in the legal team.
Meanwhile, Gartner has forecast that the global SaaS market is set to be worth $140bn by 2022 – largely driven by the huge adoption of collaboration platforms such as Zoom, Slack and Microsoft teams over the course of the pandemic.
