Oomnitza, a provider of enterprise technology management (ETM) solutions, announced the results of its 2023 Snapshot Survey: SaaS and Cloud Spend Optimization & Automation. The research, conducted by YouGov, found that half of the enterprises waste more than 10 percent of their annual budgets on software, SaaS and cloud infrastructure and a third of respondents reported wasting between 10 percent-20 percent of their annual application expenditures due to unused, unaccounted for or mismanaged SaaS and software subscriptions and licenses.
While many organizations have instituted automated processes to manage SaaS and cloud, the majority (54 percent) rated their workflows to govern authorized use and licensing of SaaS applications and cloud infrastructure only as “satisfactory.” Nine percent of organizations expressed experiencing unplanned spending and budget issues because of immature or nominal process automation maturity.
“Oomnitza’s research underscores the double-sided sword that cloud and SaaS represent,” said Valerie O’Connell, research director at EMA. “Anyone with a credit card can spin up resources. That’s great for adoption and ease of access, but it’s also a recipe for overspending. Cloud instances, that for whatever reason become abandoned, can keep racking up charges for underlying compute, network and storage resources. Effective process automation capabilities add much-needed control and optimization of SaaS, software and cloud investments.”
The 2023 Snapshot Survey: SaaS and Cloud Spend Optimization & Automation, a survey of 213 senior-level IT professionals, was conducted by YouGov, a global market research and analytics firm. The report provides insight into software, SaaS and cloud resource management, governance and process automation deficiencies. Key findings include:
- 50 percent of respondents lost at least 10 percent of their annual expenditures on software and SaaS applications; 17 percent lost at least 20 percent
- 53 percent of respondents reported spending more than 10 percent of their annual budget on underused, unmanaged or unaccounted-for cloud resources; 19 percent wasted at least 20 percent
- 63 percent of respondents reported their organization experienced unplanned cloud and SaaS expenditures and issues with varying workflow automation maturity
- Only 29 percent of respondents felt their organization had mature process automation for software, SaaS and Cloud spend governance
Some trends emerged when the sample was analyzed by company size and industry:
- Large enterprises (more than 5000 employees) appeared twice as likely to experience significant (30 percent) software and SaaS spend management issues compared to small enterprises (less than 5000 employees)
- 43 percent of utilities and infrastructure firms and 32 percent of professional services firms wasted a significant amount (between 10 percent to 20 percent) of their annual software expenditures
- Large enterprises were not immune from wasting expenditures on cloud resources with a reported 22 percent overspending by more than 20 percent
- Nearly a quarter of consumer and public services firms (23 percent) and utilities and infrastructure firms (22 percent) overspent at least 20 percent on software and SaaS
- 11 percent of large enterprises reported using mostly ad-hoc or manual processes to manage SaaS applications and cloud infrastructure, resulting in unplanned expenditures and issues
- 75 percent of professional services firms reported either satisfactory or less than optimal use of automated processes to manage SaaS licenses and cloud resources
“IT leaders must reduce spend and optimize resource use in order to survive the current macroeconomic climate,” said Arthur Lozinski, CEO and co-founder of Oomnitza. “This research serves to offer greater insight into quantifying the amount of software, SaaS and cloud expenditure waste. It also underscores the need for enterprises to mature and expand their IT process automation capabilities to improve operational efficiencies. We’re living in an era where IT has to do more with less and that cannot be accomplished with manual ticket-based processes.”
The full survey report is available here. To learn how Oomnitza can accelerate your business process automation strategy, visit Oomnitza.com.
